Woven to Shape: a Pre-Columbian Trapezoidal Tunic from the South Central Andes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (original) (raw)
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The development of rich and complex Andean textile traditions spanned millennia, in concert with the development of cultures that utilized textiles as a primary form of expression and communication. Understanding the importance of textiles in the Andean world, we can examine elements of their genesis and look at the trajectory from the earliest developments of fiber-made items to the extraordinarily complex and specific processes of textile making, such as warp-wrapping and discontinuous warp and weft weaving. These processes are examined in the context of the relationship between textiles and the sacred, highlighting the significance and agency of cloth in part through the creation of the unique methods of their construction, which constitute systems of knowledge underscored in the material and materiality of the media.
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El origen textil de numerosos diseños de tendencia geométrica presentes en varias categorías de obras de arte ha sido ampliamente comentado para algunas culturas prehispánicas de la costa peruana, pero las relaciones directas entre diseños y textiles nunca han sido estudiadas con atención. La autora demuestra cómo algunas prácticas de tejido actuales de las tierras altas andinas ayudan a leer esos diseños y a reconstruir las técnicas de cara de urdimbre en el origen de su creación. Practicadas en las tierras altas al menos desde el Horizonte Temprano, esas técnicas no son una invención reciente, a pesar del número limitado de ejemplos conservados. Las numerosas reproducciones de sus diseños con otras técnicas textiles -bordado y tapiz entre otros-o con otros materiales -pintura sobre cerámica, murales, madera esculpida-realizadas en la Costa Sur y en la Costa &HQWUDO GHO 3HU~ D ¿QDOHV GHO +RUL]RQWH 7HPSUDQR \ GXUDQWH HO ,QWHUPHGLR 7HPSUDQR RIUHFHQ XQ QXHYR PHGLR para reconstruir su pasado desbaratado y para entender las relaciones entre costa y sierra en periodos durante los cuales no es fácil indagar sobre ellas. Esos textiles cara de urdimbre han jugado efectivamente un papel importante en la historia del arte andino y deberían ocupar hoy el lugar que les corresponde en el desarrollo de la larga historia andina.
The curious case of Sir Henry Wellcome' s wooden statuette clad in tie-dyed Wari cloth
PreColombian Textile Conference VII, 2017
A wooden statuette clad in small-scale garments made from a Wari style tie-dyed textile joined the collections of the City of Liverpool Public Museum (now National Museums Liverpool) in 1951 along with other items distributed by the trustees of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. This article discusses Wari style tie-dyed tunics as part of an ensemble of garments. It explores the character of the Wari period textile (c. AD 600-1000) used for dressing the statuette, its similarity to textiles in the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, as well as the chronological mismatch between the style of the textile and that of the wooden figurine. Unless the statuette was made to order in recent times to be dressed in an ancient textile, it is perhaps Late Horizon (c. 1430 - 1532) in date. Sir Henry Wellcome acquired the statuette before his death in 1936, at a time when there was an emergent market in unprovenanced pre-Hispanic antiquities. The statuette is a composite figurine clad in bespoke garments made from an older textile. Its appearance bears witness to collecting practices which included modifying ancient artefacts to appeal to modern collectors and it destabilises simple understandings of what the dressed aspect of the statuette can convey to a museum visitor. Keywords: Wari textiles, tie-dyed tunics, colour saturation, iconography, museums – collectors and collecting, artefact modification for the antiquities market