Cuzco’s Precolumbian Art Museum
On our first day in Cuzco, we went to one of the most remarkable museums that we have seen thus far in South America, and the first one that could rival the Mexican museums in Oaxaca and Mexico City: the Precolumbian Art Museum. The museum's mission is quite simple: to present the art of Precolumbian cultures in a way that not only seeks to place objects with their historic cultures but also to present them as aesthetic works in and of themselves, that is, as art.
(Be sure to scroll to the end of the post as there are more than one galleries attached to this one)
The museum's attempt to do this is a resounding success that not only presents some real masterpieces in a great environment but also does the best job of any museum that we have seen on this continent at actually teaching the visitor about what made the respective cultures on display stand out.
One of the first rooms covers the formative period, when the pottery and carvings of the ancient South Americans were just beginning to enter use and the first symbolic representations were appearing:
The next two rooms covered the two most developed coastal peoples of early Peru, the first of whom were the Mochica, whose skill at sculpting pottery was never matched again in the Precolumbian America, although they opted to keep the paint on their work very simple, usually just two colors. They also excelled in the manufacture of jewelry from sea shells.
The other highly developed early people were the Nazca, who stood out for the quality of the painting with which they adorned their otherwise fairly simple pottery:
Both the Nazca and the Mochica collapsed at the hands of the warrior Huari from the central highlands, a people who placed very little emphasis on art and aesthetics, which shows in what is, frankly, an obvious regression in the quality of their work:
The next room went into some detail into a later culture, the Chimu, who were contemporary with and later subsumed by the Inca empire. Their pottery, while relatively simple, showed a distinct identity in its use of monochrome (usually black) over simple but well-proportioned forms. Their silver work additionally stands out for its craftsmanship.
Finally, the room on the Inca showed some of the works of this very eclectic culture that absorbed the skills of the many peoples of its domain.
The museum also had a room that covered the use of gold throughout the region that is today Peru, with some very interesting specimens.
We hope you enjoyed these pictures and thanks for reading!
August 23rd, 2010 - 09:13
So the Chimu used spoons and cuff links! And the Inka flattened gold pieces to make a curtain like mine! (Only mine is of green plastic, what do you say to that!) Surely the pottery is reproduction, in such mint condition? I don’t seem to want to be impressed today…
August 25th, 2010 - 15:20
Earrings (or earplugs), not cuff links. Huge earrings too… Probably 3-4 cm across!