Chapter 9

The Age of The Age of EncounterEncounter

West Africa, the Americas, China, and Japan

Sub-Saharan Africa

• Long before anyone in Europe knew they existed, richly diverse cultures flourished in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Consisting largely of villages united by kinship ties and generally ruled by chieftains, almost all of these cultures emphasized the well-being of the group over the individual

• So universally practiced from one culture to the next across West Africa that it could be called the center of the region’s culture is the masked dance, unifying the creative efforts of sculptors, dancers, musicians, and others

Sub-Saharan West Africa 1200-1700

Masked Dance

• The masked dance originally was performed as part of larger rituals connected with stages in human development, the passing of the seasons, or stages of the agricultural year

• African languages do not have a word for “mask.” Rather, each mask has a particular name that is generally the word for the ancestor or supernatural being that the mask helps to make manifest

• The mask is not so much an object in its own right as it is a thing to be danced

Helmut Mask ElefonWood, 51½"

Yoruba, Nigeria, after 1900

•The helmet mask elefon evokes the spirit of the ancestral emperors of the Yoruba city of Oyo, who were called Elefon

•Worn by a male, the mask-proper —its bottom half—is male

•The top half is the representation of a female holding an upside-down figure of another woman, symbolizing the power of the lyalode, the highest-ranking woman, to exercise discipline over women who have erred

The Spanish Empire

• Driven by a spirit of inquiry, Christopher Columbus, sponsored by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, made landfall in the Americas, most probably on one of the 700 islands that make up the Bahamas, on October 12, 1492

• Upon meeting the island’s native peoples, the Tainos of the Lucayo tribe who spoke Arawak, Columbus had a missionary zeal to convert them to Catholicism and a presumption that they would make good slaves

• Of the original Taino population of 300,000, about one-third were killed or died of disease brought to the island by European visitors before 1496. By 1508, the population had dwindled to 60,000, by 1512 to 20,000, and by the middle of the 16th century, no more than 500 survived

The Pre-Columbian Era

• As early as 1300 BCE, a preliterate group known as the Olmec came to inhabit the area between Veracruz and Tabasco on the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, where they built huge ceremonial precincts in the middle of their cities

• At La Venta, very near the present-day city of Villahermosa, three colossal stone heads stood guard over the ceremonial center on the south end, and a fourth guarded the north end

• Many of the characteristic features of later Mesoamerican culture, such as pyramids, ball courts, mirror-making, and the calendar system, probably originated with the Olmec

Colossal Olmec Head Basalt, 7' 5"

La Venta, Mexico, ca. 900-500 BCE

•Generally believed to be portraits of Olmec rulers, the stone heads all share the same facial features: wide, flat noses and thick lips

•They suggest that the ruler was the culture’s principal mediator with the gods, literally larger than life

Teoihuacán

• Teoihuacán is laid out in a grid system, the basic unit of which is 614 square feet, and every detail is subjected to this scheme, conveying a sense of power and mastery

• A great broad avenue, known as the Avenue of the Dead, runs through the city linking two great pyramids, the Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun

• At its height, in about 500 CE, the city was home to about 200,000 people, making it one of the largest cities in the world

• For the Aztecs, a thousand years later, Teoihuacán remained the mythic center of civilization, a site of pilgrimage for even the most exalted Aztec ruler

Teotihuacán, MexicoAs seen from the Pyramid of the Moon

ca. 350-650 CE

The Pyramid of the Moon

"Teotihuacán"

From The Aztecs (length 3:15). Item #8686 © 1996

Video will play automatically.

Cortés in Mexico

• In 1519-21 Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec empire of Mexico with 600 men through a combination of military technology, disease inadvertently introduced by his troops, and a series of lies and violations of trust

• Unlike the civilization Columbus had encountered, with its naked, seemingly innocent natives, the Aztec civilization was as sophisticated as Cortés’s own

• When Cortés entered the Aztec island capital of Tenochtitlán (present-day Mexico City), more than 200,000 people lived there. Within two years, Cortés’s army had crushed Motecuhzoma’s people in the name of Spain

Plan of Tenochtitlán, from Cortés’s First Letter to the King of Spain

1521

• Gold-laden temples towered above the city

• Gardens rich in flowers and fruit and markets with every available commodity dominated the city

Pizarro in Peru

• The Inca Empire Pizarro found in Peru was one of the largest empires in the world; it included Peru, most of what is modern Ecuador, Bolivia, northern Chile, and part of Argentina

• The Inca were masterful masons. Working with stone tools and without mortar, they crafted adjoining granite blocks that fit so snugly together that their walls have, for centuries, withstood earthquakes that have destroyed many later structures

• Spain conquered Peru in 1533 through the exploits of Francisco Pizarro with an army of only 180 men. He captured the Inca emperor, Atahuallpa, accepted a ransom for him, and then executed him

Machu PicchuInca Culture, Peru, ca. 1450

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

• After Bartholomeu Dias’s exploration of the west coast of Africa in 1488, it did not take long for the Portuguese to join an already thriving slave market among the African kingdoms themselves and in the Muslim markets of North Africa

• Over the course of four centuries, the Portuguese transported millions of Africans across the Atlantic

Mask of an Iyoba (Queen Mother)Ivory, iron, and copper, 9-3/8"

Court of Benin, Nigeria, ca. 1550

• For a while the Portuguese enjoyed a certain status as visitors from the watery world and were considered to be the equivalent of mudfish, sacred to the people of Benin

• The iyoba’s collar bears images of Portuguese sailors and alternating sailors and mudfish at the top of her tiara

Christianity and the Kongo

• The Church was interested in converting what they considered Africa’s pagan population to Christianity. As early as 1491, the Kongo King Nzinga aNkuwa converted and was baptized

• Soon after, his son and heir ordered that Christianity become the Kongolese state religion

• In the Kongo, the cross echoed the shape of the iron swords that served as the symbol of Kongo political authority

•

Crucifixion PlaqueIvory, 3¼" 2¼"

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Vili culture, collected 1874

• Africanization of the Christian tradition is apparent in this plaque

• Christ is depicted with African facial features, as well as the beard (symbol of wisdom) and hairstyle of the Kongo nobility

• Kneeling attendants touch his loincloth, which he wears in the Vili royal manner

China and Its InfluenceThe Song Dynasty (960—1279 CE)

• The Song capital Hangzhou, “the City of Heaven,” was described by Marco Polo in 1274 as “the most splendid city in the world”

• The entire city, some 200 square miles, was protected by a 30-foot-high wall. Inside the walls, a system of canals was crisscrossed by some 12,000 bridges

• The world’s greatest producer of iron, the Song dynasty enjoyed tremendous prosperity

• During the Song era, Chan Buddhism, better known in the West as “Zen,” developed, teaching that one can find happiness by achieving harmony with nature

Song Painting

• Landscape painting became the principal and most esteemed means of personal and philosophic expression

• The landscape was believed to embody the underlying principal of all things, and the task of the artist was to reveal the unifying principal of the natural world. Human figures are dwarfed by the landscape, insignificant in the face of nature

• Guo Xi, a court painter during the reign of Emperor Shenzong (r. 1068-85), was given the task of painting all the murals in the Forbidden City in Beijing

Guo Xi, Early SpringHanging scroll, ink and slight color on silk, 5' length

1072

The Yuan Dynasty (1279—1368)

• In 1279 the Song Dynasty succumbed to the Mongol leader Kublai Khan

• The scholar-painters of the Chinese court, unwilling to serve under foreign domination, retreated from public life and created an art symbolic of their resistance. Their work featured bamboo, which might bend but does not break, and orchids, which can live without soil

• The Mongols were overthrown in 1368

Cheng Sixiao, Ink OrchidsInk on paper, 10 1/8” x 16 ¾”

1306

The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

• The dynasty called Ming (“bright” or “brilliant”) began in 1368 with the Mongols being driven out of China

• Consumed by fear of Mongol reinvasion, the Ming emperors created arguably the most despotic government in Chinese history

• Emperor Zhu Di (r. 1402—24) undertook construction of an Imperial Palace compound in Beijing. It is known as the Forbidden City because only those on official imperial business could enter its gates

• It was the architectural symbol of Zhu Di’s rule and his duty as the Son of Heaven to maintain order, balance, and harmony in his land

Hall of Supreme BeingHeight 115'

No other building anywhere in the empire was allowed to be higher than this, the largest building in the complex. It houses the main throne of the emperor. Along the stairs rising to the hall are 18 dings—bronze storage and wine vessels—that represent the 18 provinces of Ming China.

The Treasure Fleet

• Among the largest of Zhu Di’s massive construction projects was his “treasure fleet” of 317 ships, crewed by 27,000 men, and headed by one of the largest wooden ships ever built

• China viewed itself as the great Middle Kingdom, believed to be at the center of the four seas and at the heart of the four cardinal directions

• The treasure fleet would be the chief means to extend Chinese influence throughout the “four corners” of the world

Ming China, 1368-1644

In thirty years, Zheng He, commander of the Treasure Fleet, traveled more than 186,000 miles, the equivalent of 7½ circumnavigations of the world. The fleet traded Chinese silks, brocades, porcelain, and iron for spices, wood, and jewels.

Luxury Arts

• One of the commodities most prized by the Chinese themselves and by those who traded with China was porcelain

• The Chinese had invented the process for making porcelain around 1004 CE, but by the Ming dynasty the look improved dramatically due to the fact that Zheng had traded for a cobalt ore probably from Persia

• Among the Ming artists’ favorite motifs were fish, waves, and sea monsters, but particularly dragons, because they symbolized the emperor, whose veins were said to flow with the dragon’s blood

Pair of Porcelain Vases21¾", Ming dynasty, Xuande period (1426-35)

Schools of Painting

• Dong Qichang, an artist, calligrapher, theorist, and high official in the government bureaucracy, divided the history of Chinese painting into two schools—northern and southern. This division depended not on geography but on the spirit with which the artist approached the painting

• A painter was southern if unorthodox, radical and inventive; a painter was northern if conservative and traditional in approach

• Many paintings, both northern and southern, combine image and poem, the latter written in a calligraphy distinctly the artist’s own

Yin Hong, Yin Hong, Hundreds Hundreds of Birds Admiring of Birds Admiring

the Peacocksthe PeacocksHanging scroll, ink and color on

silk, 7' 10½" 6' 5",ca. late 15th century-early 16th

century

An example of the northern style, this painting has a highly refined, decorative style

Shen Zhou, Poet on a MountaintopInk and color on paper, 15¼" 23¾", ca. 1500

The southern style is much more understated than the northern school, preferring ink to color and brushwork to meticulously detailed linear representation. Furthermore, the work of art more systematically synthesized the three areas of endeavor: poetry, calligraphy, and painting.

The Flowering of Japan

• Before 300 CE, Japan was fragmented, its various regions ruled by more than 100 competing and often warring states

• When Buddhism arrived in Japan in about 600 CE, the dominant religion was Shinto, whose principal goddess was Amareratsu

• During the reign of Prince Shotoku, whose name means “Wise and Virtuous,” Buddhism became the religion of the Japanese aristocracy. When Shotoku died, however, Shinto factions destroyed both his palace and the Buddhist temple he had constructed next to it

• Shinto’s popularity probably stems, at least partly, from its position as a “native” religion as opposed to the “imported” Buddhism

Naiku (Inner) Shrine Housing AmateratsuIse, Japan, Late 5th—early 6th century

• The shrine houses the three sacred symbols of Shinto: a sword, a mirror, and a jewel

• The shrine is ritually rebuilt in exactly the same style every 20 years, the natural cycle of growth and decay in nature

• Like the Japanese culture, it is both traditional and continuously new

The Muromachi Period

• The cost of repelling the Mongol Kublai Khan’s attempts to conquer Japan in 1274 and 1281 was high, leaving the islands impoverished and in political disarray

• By 1392, one shogun family, the Ashikaga, had begun to exercise more authority over Japanese society. They had their headquarters in the Muromachi district of Kyoto, hence the name for the period in which they ruled (1392-1573)

• Even though starvation was not uncommon among the Kyoto residents, the Ashikaga shoguns built elaborate palaces as refuges from the chaos outside the city’s walls

Kinkakuji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion)Rokuonji, Kyoto

Rebuilt in 1964 after the original of the 1390s

The Tea Ceremony

• The Way of the Tea was a highly refined ceremony imbued with a Zen sensibility

• In small rooms specifically designed for the purpose and often decorated with calligraphy on hanging scrolls, the guest was to leave the concerns of the daily world and enter a timeless world of ease, harmony, and mutual respect

• The master of the ceremony would assemble a few examples of painting and calligraphy together with a variety of different objects and utensils for making tea—the kettle, the water pot, the whisk, the tea caddy, and above all the tea bowl

• The tea bowl, usually of the utmost simplicity, became a prized element in the tea ceremony, and the most beautiful tea bowls had their own special names

• Perfectly shaped to fit the hand, this bowl is named Amagumo (Rain Clouds) after the chance scorch, or koge, as a result of its removal from the kiln

Hon'ami Koetsu, Tea Bowl Named Amagumo

Ceramic, 3½" 4-9/10", late 16th or early 17th century

The Momoyama Period

• By the middle of the 16th century, the Ashikaga family had lost all semblance of power

• Oda Nobunaga (1534-82), son of a minor vassal, forged enough alliances to unify the country under a single administration, inaugurating a period now known as the Momoyama, literally “Peach Hill.” His victory was aided by the gunpowder and firearms introduced by the Portuguese traders after they arrived in 1543

• The presence of foreign traders in Japan, particularly Portuguese and Dutch, soon influenced Japanese imagery, particularly in a new genre of screen painting known as namban (“southern barbarian”)

• The namban screens are unique in Japanese art in that they depict action from left to right in deference to Western habits of reading

School of Kano, Namban Six-Panel Screen

1593-1600