Peruvian Faces 95 FIG. 16 (above): Detail of a tapestry-woven muestrario (textile with sample designs). Nazca/Huari, South Coast, Peru. AD 700–900. Camelid wool. 27.9 x 81.3 cm. Private collection, Westchester, New York. FIG. 17 (above): Detail of a painted fragment. Paracas, South Coast, Peru. 200 BC–AD 100. Cotton. 35.6 x 52.7 cm. Private collection, Bronx, New York. FIG. 18 (left): Front of an embroidered shirt with tapestry-woven border. Chimu, North Coast, Peru. AD 1100–1460. Cotton. 45.7 x 55.9 cm. Private collection, Chicago. FIG. 19 (right): Tunic with appliqué feathers. Nazca, South Coast, Peru. AD 100–300. Cotton, feathers. 127 x 76.2 cm. Ex Georges Halphen Collection, Paris. Private collection. B: ARTISTIC EVOLUTION The “evolution” of human-type depiction in ancient Peruvian textiles is not chronological and sequential, as tends to be the case in Western art, where such forms of expression as Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism took prominence only in the twentieth century after millennia of stylistic development largely rooted in the development of “realism” in Greece and, even earlier, Egypt. In pre-Columbian Peru, the distinction was aesthetic, so that quasi-realist and totally surrealist forms of graphic expression were created virtually simultaneously, even as far back as the region’s earliest major civilizations, c. 700–500 BC. Given this, the human-type face becomes less of a direct representation and more of a visual and philosophical iconographic idea. Thus, the representation of the visage extends across a broad spectrum, from facial depictions of quasi-realism to what appear to us as bizarre, surrealistic imagery of composite personages, to “modernist” geometric conceptions, and to varying degrees of minimalism (fig. 15). The definition of the first of the above-noted styles, “quasi-realism,” is flexible but refers essentially to a visage containing all or a majority of the main component elements of the face: eyes, nose, mouth (with or without teeth), and sometimes ears, within the context of a more or less curvilinear head (fig. 16). While we have little understanding of the raison d’être of artists creating quasiabstract human-type faces, it seems that facial expressions are transmitted in this style—although their meaning is not immediately apparent. Are we in the presence of joyful moments of happiness, as in fig. 17, where the transitional personage presents what seems to be an almost smiling demeanor and relaxed stance? Mood also apparently appears in the textile in fig. 18, which appears to be an activity with serpent assistants in attendance, the latter perhaps one of many reflections of traditional Andean dualism. Even more strikingly puzzling is fig. 19. Here the open mouth displays bared teeth which, combined with a stance with outstretched arms, could conform as much with an affectionate greeting as with a bearing of fear or anger. Sadness appears to be manifested in fig. 20, where the vertical lines extending below the eyes seem at first glance to represent tears coursing down the face. Or is this a Eurocentric perception, when in reality the Andean creator of this funerary feather head may in fact have been recording facial painting or tattooing, or possibly simply indulging in creative artistic license to introduce a linear motif? In such analyses, it is imperative to release Eurocentric modes of thinking and aesthetic criteria and instead probe what we can understand of the particular gestalt of the Andean artists. In traditional Western art throughout the centuries, facial expressions often illustrate involvement in, reaction to, and concern about surrounding events. They thus provide indispensable interpretative clues with regard to context. Peruvian pre-Columbian textile iconography
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