Analyzing and Assessing the Americas Essay

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Americas

Relation between the Art of North America and Meso-America

Different cultures across the world practice and develop a diverse, unique range of art, inspired by demography, living conditions, environment, and a slew of other such factors. This is why when two foreign cultures interact; it brings about a great influence on each other's cultural arts. This is evident, for instance, with the Meso-American and North American arts. The art in North America is mainly evident in its innate beauty. In the modern world, it replete in its architectural, economic, and political austerity. The case is quite different for the Mesoamerican cultural art, as it lacks diversity. For this reason, we can conclude that the Mesoamericans have acquired the plan, design and execution, as well as some of their cultural values from the North American art. Hence, the archaeological study conducted in the past century on Mesoamerica has mainly focused on the post-Formative changes in the Mayan region and Central Highlands. Nevertheless, Northern American art is broader than that of Mesoamerica, in the areas of farming, modern commercial, urban, and industrial cultures. Ethnographers have made these orphaned cultures part of a general culture known as "Middle America," in order to emphasize its difference from the central Mesoamerican region. Middle America comprises all the southern U.S. cultures along with those in the region bordering Columbia. The indigenous Mesoamericans identify more with their rural community than their clans. This is because, following the Conquest, there was a show of disregard by superior community to their identity as Indians. The superiors moved further into the parish, in order to avoid being influenced, overwhelmed and corrupted by the insatiable colonial system. Even linguistic classification is wholly diversified among the contemporary commentators on art (Miller, 2010).

Exchange of Artistic Influences

Use of ceramics

Ceramic artifacts, for example, exist even now. However, they do not necessarily mean the same as they originally did, nor are the events the same. Ceramics are still used by communities during celebrations, even in smaller social congregations and festivities such as feasting. at times, they are found to use ceramics that back to the eras as old as the Mesoamerican period; the budare or comal, is still broadly used among the Central American people. The griddle has been passed down to many generations, and is highly regarded in many South and Central American kitchens, along with pots; both of steel and iron, and pans. From this, we can conclude that in general, the traditional use of ceramic utensils is not the only one that provides insight and fascinate their cultures. The ceramics came up because of people's cultural values and necessities: they shed light and knowledge on information that might not have been attainable without ceramics. Mesoamerican ceramics, more importantly, are still growing due to the efforts made to preserve them, and in many contemporary cultures. The ancient ceramics of the Mesoamericans live on (Ceramics in Mesoamerica: The Ritual Usage of an Ancient Art, 2013).

The cultures of the Mississippian people had trade networks that spread extensively by land, as well as through the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers, whose sources were the River Mississippi and Great Lakes, and flowed into the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. There is artistic evidence of interaction between Mexican and Mesoamerican cultures, but Mexican have not been found artifacts found in the sites of Mississippi. a number of people's ceramic renderings are among the greatest crafts of the Mississippians. Such renderings may be from the Mesoamerican cultural arts in Mexico. They can be clearly seen as absent; in ways other than through abstraction, from Woodlands, California, Plains, and Pueblo art. It is believed that these effigies were figurines of ancestors. They must have been put next to a dead person at funerals. They are also found, on pot lids and handles. There is also a notion that, the Mississippians honored their warriors through special societies, something they learnt from the Mesoamericans. Their sculptures have a particular, striking pose, representative of a section of the ritual dances they had in the warrior guilds. There was also Mesoamerican influence noted on the shape simplification such as a nose that was flat and in the form of a pyramid (Cole, 2010).

Use of Textile

Patricia Anawalt studied the clothing of pre-Hispanic Mesoamericans. She came up with a model to explain the simple Pan-Mesoamerican female and male clothing patterns in terms of categorization and construction and classification of attire. She gathered information from every source available, such as paintings and sculptures, painted codices or books, archives of explorers from Spain, travelers, priests, and from the few available archaeological textiles.

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This model has been found significant for forming a hypothesis on the pre-Columbian textiles used in Mesoamerican regions, such as the Guatemala highlands, which has little visual sources compared to those in Mexico. The Andean and Mesoamerican clothing systems were taken up both by women and men. Women were the predominant Pre-Columbian weavers. As we have previously seen, under the rule of the Spanish people, men became the treadle-loom weavers. According to Janet Catherine Berlo, men learnt Spanish through interaction with those people. Women did not learn the language as they stayed home weaving cloth and textiles on blackstrap looms (Schevill, Janet Catherine Berlo, & Edward B. Dwyer, 1996).

The most famous indigenous North American art is that of weaving Navajo Indian rugs and blankets. The wool rugs are expensive and remarkable wool rugs, and continue to be woven using a design traditional in southwest USA and Mexico, much before the Europeans arrived: kneeling in front of a vertical frame loom made of wood, and weaving threads of different color together, by means of a shuttle to for large-scale geometric patterns. Initially, these blankets, along with others from Southwest India, were woven with threads that were hand-spun and made of cotton. However, they began to use wool when the Spanish came to the region with domestic sheep. The Navajo rugs and blankets may be the best known North American weavings, but there are also other indigenous weaving traditions. The art of finger-weaving has been significant continent-wide for a long time, and clothing, blankets and tapestries are still woven through this art in several tribes. Among the best examples of such weavings are the Tlingit people's chilkat blankets. Seminole patchwork and sashes are also significant arts by the Indians. There is a more current tradition; star blankets or quilts. They came from the tribes of Sioux (Dakota, Assiniboine/Nakoda and Dakota) and were taught to the people of the Great Plains. The indigenous American people borrowed the art of quilting from Europeans, among other arts. They made it a unique part of their cultural arts. To make star quilts, one needs to put together a variety of diamonds made of cloth in the form of a morning star that has eight points, as it was the traditional Sioux star design. Blankets were woven from quilted, beaded, and painted buffalo skin, before star quilts were invented. The buffaloes were killed in large numbers, became almost extinct, leading to the end of this art. However, a few artists of the Plains tribe continue to use buffalo hides to make blankets and robes. The buffaloes used are those in captivity (Native American Rugs, Blankets, and Quilts, n.d.).

Writer's Thoughts

Artifacts & Architecture

Maya architecture has been existence for many millenniums. It is just as rare and unique as others, such as the Roman and Greek architecture. The amazing stepped pyramids that existed during and before the Terminal Pre-classic time is the most noticeable Mayan creation and most dramatic. The architecture was deduced from Mesoamerican architecture; hence, they were based on complex carved stone that helped form a stair-step plan. The pyramids were dedicated each to a divinity, and their peaks acted as shrines. It was during the peak of the cultures of Maya that the areas of their centers of their bureaucratic, religious, and business power became fascinating cities, such as Uxmal, Itza, Tikal, and Chichen (Mayan Art and Architecture, n.d.)

Artifacts from Inca were made out of precious metals such as gold. The Empire of Inca was large, prosperous, and productive, which spread from Southwest America, across the Mountains of Andes. The people of Inca had experience in crafts. They designed crafts such as pottery, masks, tapestries, jewelry, baskets, and musical instruments (The Inca way of life, n.d.). Inca architecture depicts an inclination for duality and integrated the natural setting, but also dominated it and came up with an impressive combination of natural and geometrical forms (Cartwright, 2014).

Aztec architecture was mainly based on religion, astronomy, and cosmology. The big cities showed their values, which was significant in knowing their culture and history well, and their impact on construction and building (Aztec Architecture, n.d.).

Native North American Culture

Household and family were the simplest social units, and had similar functionality. Households were flexible in terms of population, and typically comprised extended families. An extended family is made up of a marital pair,….....

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