Discovering the humanities 3rd by henry m sayre 2016 chapter 09

West African Culture and the Portuguese • Portugal was as active as Spain in seeking trading opportunities through navigation, but focused on Africa and the East instead of the Americas

Discovering the Humanities

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Encounter and Confrontation: The Impact of Increasing Global Interaction

9

Learning Objectives

1 Discuss the cultures that preceded

that of the Aztecs in the Americas, and the Spanish reaction to Aztec culture

2 Describe the impact of the Portuguese

on African life and the kinds of ritual

traditions that have contributed to the cultural survival of African

communities after contact

Learning Objectives

3 Outline the ways in which contact with

Europe affected Mogul India

4 Assess the impact of contact with the

wider world on China and the ways in which the arts reflect the values of the Chinese state

Learning Objectives

5 Explain the tension between spiritual

and military life in Japanese culture and the importance of patronage in Japanese cultural life

Coatlicue Aztec 15th century.

Basalt Height 8'3".

National Museum of Antrhopology, Mexico City De Agostini

Picture Library/G Dagli Orti/Bridgeman Images [Fig 9.1]

Closer Look: The Goddess C oatlicue

Document: Different Accoun

ts of the Death of Aztec K ing Motecuhzoma

Aztec The Moon Goddess Coyolxauhqui, from the Sacred Precinct, Templo Mayor,

Tenochtitlán ca 1469.

Stone Diameter: 10' 10".

Museo Templo Mayor, Mexico City © Gianni Dagli Orti/Corbis [Fig 9.2]

Diego de Durán Aztecs confront the Spaniards from History of the Indies of New

Spain.1581.

Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Spain/Bridgeman Images [Fig 9.3]

Diego de Durán The Spanish massacre Aztec nobles in the temple courtyard from

History of the Indies of New Spain 1581.

Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Spain/Bridgeman Images [Fig 9.4]

World Exploration, 1486–1611.

[Fig Map 9.1]

The Spanish in the Americas

• While the Spanish conquistadores

realized that the cultures they

encountered were as sophisticated as their own, they labeled them

uncivilized, because they were different from their own

Plan of Tenochtitlán, from Cortés's first letter to the King of Spain 1521.

akg-images [Fig 9.5]

The Americas before Contact

• As early as 1300 BCE, the preliterate

Olmec inhabited the area between

Veracruz and Tabasco

• They erected giant pyramidal mounds,

where a group of ruler-priests lived

• Many characteristic features of later

Mesoamerican culture, such as

pyramids and the calendar system,

probably originated with the Olmec

Colossal head, Mexico, Olmec culture 900–500 BCE

Balsalt Height: 7' 5".

La Venta Park, Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico Superstock/AGE Fotostock/Carlos S

Pereyra [Fig 9.6]

Teotihuacán, Mexico, as seen from the Pyramid of the Moon, looking south down the

Avenue of the Dead, the Pyramid of the Sun at the left ca 350–650 CE

© MJ Photography/Alamy [Fig 9.7]

Teotihuacán

• The city is laid out in a detailed grid

system conveying a sense of power and mastery

• It links two great pyramids, the Pyramid

of the Moon and the Sun

• As reflected in the total of 365 stairs,

the Pyramid of the Sun is arranged as

an image of time

The Pyramid of the Moon, looking north up the Avenue of the Dead.

Francesca Yorke © Dorling Kindersley [Fig 9.8]

Mayan Culture

• In the south, the culture of the Maya

both pre-dated and post-dated that of Teotihuacán

• An elaborate calendar system enabled

them to keep track of their history—

and, evidence suggests, predict the

future

Mayan Madrid Codex, leaves 13–16 (of 56 total) ca 1400.

Amatl paper, painted, screenfolded.

Museo de América, Madrid [Fig 9.9]

"Palace" (foreground) and Temple of Inscriptions (tomb pyramid of Lord Pakal), Palenque,

Mexico 600–900 CE

© Danny Lehman/Corbis [Fig 9.10]

Mayan Culture

• The Mayan calendar was concerned

with activities of daily life, rituals,

astronomic events, offerings, and

deities associated with them

• The Spanish essentially obliterated the

traditions of the Native American

cultures they encountered, burning

their books and destroying almost

every record of their history

Mayan Culture

• In the sixteenth century, missionaries

used music, dance, and religious drama

to attract and convert the indigenous

population to Christianity

• A syncretic culture quickly developed.

The Spanish in Peru

• In 1533, Spain conquered Peru through

the exploits of Francisco Pizarro (1474–1541) with an army of only 180 men

Original Inca stone wall of the Coricancha with a Dominican monastery rising

above it, Cuzco, Peru.

© Richard Maschmeyer/Robert Harding World Imagery/Corbis [Fig 9.11]

The Spanish in Peru

• Pizarro employed military strategy and

deceit to overcome the Inca emperor and plundered the Inca empire of gold and silver artifacts that were part of its religious worship of the sun (gold) and the moon (silver)

The Spanish in Peru

• The treasures of gold and silver that

were brought back to Europe were

melted down for currency, which was far more important to the conquerors than the artistic value of the objects

West African Culture and the

Portuguese

• Portugal was as active as Spain in

seeking trading opportunities through navigation, but focused on Africa and the East instead of the Americas

• Bartholemeu Dias and Vasco da Gama

discovered and sailed around the Cape

of Good Hope

 Da Gama landed in Brazil after sailing too far westward from India.

The Indigenous Cultures of West

Africa

• When the Portuguese arrived, they

discovered thriving cultures in the

kingdoms of western Africa

• Mali in particular shows the influence of

Islam on northern Africa long before the end of the first millennium CE

Sub-Saharan West Africa, 1200–1700.

[Fig Map 9.2]

Ife Culture

• The Ife culture along the western Coast

of central Africa is one of the oldest

• The Yoruba civilization in Ife produced highly naturalistic commemorative

portraits in clay and stone, and

subsequently brass sculptures as well

Head of an Oni (King), Ife Culture, Nigeria ca 13th century.

Brass 11-7/16".

Museum of Ife Antiquities, Ife, Nigeria © Dirk Bakker/Bridgeman Images [Fig 9.12]

Ife Culture

• The portraits probably depict the rulers

or kings

• The Yoruba cosmos consisted of the

world of the living (aye) and the realm

of the gods (orun).

Ife Culture

• The king is seen as the one who is

linking these two worlds serving as the

representative of orun in the world of

the living

 Thus, his head is seen as sacred.

• The parallel lines that run down the

face represent decorative effects made

by scarring, or scarification.

Benin Culture

• Sometime around 1170, the city-state

of Benin asked the oni of the Ife to

provide a new ruler for their territory

• A massive system of walls and moats

would become the world's largest

manmade earthwork by the fifteenth century

Benin Culture

• By praising something (a king, a god, a

river) in a praise poem, a poet was

believed to gain influence over it

• These poems often use a poetic device

known as anaphora, a repetition of

words and phrases at the beginning of successive sentences

Ade, or beaded crown, Yoruba Culture, Nigeria Late 20th century.

Beadwork Height: 6' 1-1/4".

© The Trustees of the British Museum [Fig 9.13]

Drawing of Benin City as it appeared to an unknown British officer in 1891.

1891 Drawing.

[Fig 9.14]

Head of an Oba, Nigeria; Edo, Court of Benin ca 1550.

Brass 9-1/4" × 9-5/8" × 9".

Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY Photo Scala,

Florence Photo: Schecter Lee [Fig 9.15]

West African Music

• One of the most universal musical

forms throughout Africa is

call-and-response music, in which a caller, or

soloist, raises the song, and the

community chorus responds to it

• The Yoruba reproduce their speech in the method of musical signaling known

as talking drums.

Portugal and the Slave Trade

• In Africa, the Portuguese initially

enjoyed a status as divine visitors from the watery world, the realm of Olokun, god of the sea

• West African tribes even integrated

images of bearded Portuguese sailors into some of their art and regalia

Portugal and the Slave Trade

• After first trading ivory, gold, rubber,

brass, and fetishes with the West

African people, the Portuguese turned the trade to slaves

• The Portuguese slave trade transported

many millions of Africans across the

Atlantic on the Middle Passage.

Portugal and the Slave Trade

• About 1551, they began shipping

thousands of African slaves to their

sugar plantations in Brazil

• Thus, the Portuguese inaugurated a

practice of cultural hegemony (cultural

domination) that set the stage for the racist exploitation that has haunted the Western world ever since

Portugal and the Slave Trade

• The Portuguese picked up thousands of

small objects that they termed fetisso

(deriving our word, fetish), a pidgin

word signifying an object believed to

have magical powers similar to those of Western rosaries or reliquaries

Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1450–1870.

[Fig Map 9.3]

Mask of an iyoba (queen mother), probably Idia, Court of

Benin Nigeria ca 1550.

Ivory, iron, and copper Height 9-3/8".

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Michael C

Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Gift of Nelson A Rockefeller,

1972 (1978.412.323) © 2014 Photo The Museum/Art

Resource/Scala, Florence [Fig 9.16]

Document: Leo Africanus' Desc ription of Africa (1500)

Closer Look: Hip Pendant R epresenting an

Iyoba ("Queen Mother")

Symbol of a coiled mudfish.

[Fig 9.17]

Portuguese Warrior Surrounded by Manillas 16th century.

Bronze 18" × 13" × 3".

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria Weltmuseum, Vienna [Fig 9.18]

Strategies of Survival

• Masked dance is a tradition in almost all

African cultures that reflects the

importance of group well-being over

individual

• The banda mask of the Baga Mandori

people of Guinea is always danced at

night

 It is said to possess agency, or the

ability to effect change.

Dance of Banda, Baga Mandori, Guinea, 1987.

Photograph courtesy of Frederick John Lamp The Frances and Benjamin Benenson

Foundation Curator of African Art Yale University Art Gallery [Fig 9.19]

Strategies of Survival

• The ritualistic use of objects connected

with birth, death, and ancestral

connections to the spirit world help

maintain a sense of cultural continuity

a twin dies in order to honor the spirit

of the deceased and bring wealth and fortune to its parents

Twin Figures (ere ibeji), Yoruba culture, Nigeria 20th century.

Wood, height 7-7/8".

The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Stanley Collection, X1986.489 The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City The Stanley Collection X1986.489 and X1986.488.

[Fig 9.20]

India and Europe: Cross-Cultural

Connections

• India's leaders in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries showed tolerance toward outside forces

• The art of India during roughly the

same period as the development of

New Spain shows a smoother synthesis

of culture

Islamic India: The Taste for

Western Art

• Mogul leaders in India, especially Akbar

(r 1556–1605) and his son Jahangir (r 1605–1627), introduced conventions of Islamic art to India

• While a Sunni Muslim himself, Akbar

practiced an official policy of religious tolerance

Manohar (attributed to) Jahangir in Darbar Northern India, Mughal period ca 1620.

Opaque watercolor and gold on paper 13-3/4" × 7-7/8".

Francis Bartlett Donation of 1912 and Picture Fund 14.654

Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Francis Bartlett Donation of 1912 and Picture

Fund 14.654 Photograph © 2015 [Fig 9.21]

Bichitr Jahangir Seated on an Allegorical Throne, from the Leningrad Album of Bichitr.

ca 1625.

Opaque watercolor, gold and ink on paper 10" × 7-1/8".

Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchase, F1942.15a

(42.15V) [Fig 9.22]

Islamic India: The Taste for

Western Art

• They opened the doors of the country

to English traders and favored the

English taste for portraiture

• The style of representation that

resulted from this contact is a blend of stylistic and cultural traditions, East and West

Plan of the Taj Mahal, Agra ca 1632–48.

[Fig 9.23]

Mogul Architecture: The Taj Mahal

• The Taj Mahal in Agra, India, built by

Jahangir's son Jahan (r 1628–1658), is a distinctive Mogul achievement

• At the top of the minarets at each

corner are chattri, or small pavilions

that are traditional embellishments of

Indian palaces

Mogul Architecture: The Taj Mahal

• The central iwan (traditional Islamic

feature of a vaulted opening with an

arched portal) on each side is flanked

by two stories of smaller iwans

Taj Mahal, Agra, India Mogul period ca 1632–48.

© 2014 Photo Scala, Florence [Fig 9.24]

Architectural Simulation: Ta

j Mahal

Closer Look: Taj Mahal

The Chinese Empire: Isolation and

Trade

• The cultural syncretism, or

intermingling of cultural traditions, that

marks Indian art under Akbar and

Jahangir, was largely resisted by

Chinese populations when Europeans

arrived on China's shores

The Tang Dynasty in Chang'an

"The City of Enduring Peace" (618–907 CE)

• The Tang dynasty reestablished a

period of peace and prosperity in China

• The Tang capital was Chang'an, then

the largest city in the world

 Each of the city's 108 blocks was itself a miniature walled city, with its own

interior streets and gates that locked at night.

The Tang Dynasty in Chang'an

"The City of Enduring Peace" (618–907 CE)

• Chang'an was laid out in a grid that

staged the Tang commitment to social

order and mirrored, they believed, the

order of the cosmos

• The Tang valued education above all

and held intellectual achievement in

high esteem—with the exclusion of

women

Plan of the Tang capital of Chang'an, China ca 600 CE

[Fig 9.25]

The Song Dynasty and Hangzhou, "The

• The Song dynasty enjoyed tremendous

prosperity

• It was the world's greatest producer of

iron, and its merchant class flourished,

trading along the Silk Road and

throughout the Southeast Asian seas

• The government was increasingly

controlled by the wealthy merchant

class

The Song Dynasty and Hangzhou, "The

• A crucial development was the movable

type, which allowed the Song to print

books on paper (400 years before

Gutenberg's printing press in the West)

• The printing press revolutionized the

transmission of knowledge in China

The Song Dynasty and Hangzhou, "The

• The development of Chan Buddhism

was especially important for the artists

and literati in the Song era

• Like Daoism, Chan Buddhism teaches

that one can find happiness by

achieving harmony with nature

The Song Dynasty and Hangzhou, "The

• The poets and artists who practiced

Chan Buddhism considered themselves

instruments through which the spirit of

nature expressed itself

• The landscape was believed to embody

the underlying principle behind all

things

The Song Dynasty and Hangzhou, "The

• The task of the artist was to reveal the

unifying principle of the natural world,

the eternal essence of mountain,

waterfall, pine tree, rock, reeds, clouds,

and sky

• Human figures were considered

insignificant in the face of nature, and

thus were dwarfed by the landscape