Nahuatl Digest, Vol 307, Issue 2
Jacinto Acatecatl
tekuani at hotmail.es
Thu Aug 8 21:59:02 UTC 2013
Definitivemente cuando nos referimos a la Estetica se no viene a lamente una figura paisaje hermoso, una persona fisicamente agradable, un flor exotica de bellos colores un arcoiris; esto ´porque tenemos la preconcepción de lo bello a travez de la familia, la sociedad, los medios de comunicación y la mercadotecnia. la belleza en su pureza mas simple no se le aprecia salvo aquellos que tiene un capacidad de análisis, poniedo en cuentión los siguientes ejemplos.
¿es bella? Una persona prepotente mal edicado, es bella solo p or tener ojos verdes, tez clara y pelo rubio.¿es fea? Aquella persona que se abienta al fuego y salba un persona ariengado su vida en la cual resulta con alguna discapacidad o fuertes lesiones en el rostro.
La concepción de belleza va más allá de los estetico, hay que mirar con cierto criterio, objetividad y análisis.
Por cierto, hay persona muy feas.
> From: nahuatl-request at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: Nahuatl Digest, Vol 307, Issue 2
> To: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 12:00:02 -0500
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Aztec aesthetics (Craig Berry)
> 2. on Aztec Art (seth wolitz)
> 3. Re: on Aztec Art (Susana Moraleda)
> 4. Re: Aztec aesthetics (Michael McCafferty)
> 5. Re: Aztec aesthetics (Robert A. Neinast)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 09:28:08 -0700
> From: Craig Berry <cdberry at gmail.com>
> To: Richard Durkan <rdurkan at hotmail.com>
> Cc: "nahuatl at lists.famsi.org" <nahuatl at lists.famsi.org>
> Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Aztec aesthetics
> Message-ID:
> <CAHt6jDWeAyCdrOTpfW227+NOJsajwj-1Kqyr-PUKzGebGGT7Ng at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> There's an old Roman saying, "De gustibus non est disputandum" -- "There is
> no arguing about taste." Whether a piece of art is beautiful or hideous is
> a subjective judgment. Being a specialist in a given field may provide the
> opportunity to learn to see beauty in a style of art, or it may not.
>
> Speaking entirely for myself, and as a reasonably competent amateur in the
> study of Mesoamerican cultures, I find the Aztec aesthetic beautiful,
> powerful, and spiritually rich. I recently visited the British Museum,
> which has a large room permanently dedicated to Mesoamerican artefacts, and
> I spent a good ten minutes standing slack-jawed in awe before a stone
> carving of Xiuhcoatl:
>
>
> http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aoa/s/stone_figure_of_xiuhcoatl.aspx
>
> But other museum visitors around me were happily denigrating the style of
> that carving, and of everything else in the room.
>
> Turning to one of the articles you cite, the author expresses a fondness
> for Moghal art, which I find painfully busy, inharmoniously colored, and
> generally childish. But I will be the first to acknowledge that this is
> *my* view, and I will not attempt to argue with someone who finds in Mughal
> art sublimity and beauty.
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Richard Durkan <rdurkan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In 2009 the British Museum staged an exhibition 'Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler'
> > which drew vitriolic criticism from at least two (non-specialist) critics.
> > Brian Sewell in the London Evening Standard. found the Aztec material
> > pretty feeble stuff, that many of the masks were of utmost hideousness, the
> > quality of Aztec craftsmanship to be poor, no better than common
> > bric-a-brac and that there was no art in the barbarism of the Aztec world,
> > which compared unfavourably with contemporary European artists like
> > Donatello and Ghiberti and that. He refers to the sickly beastliness of
> > that society. We should not be required to see the objects as works of art
> > but rather cultural objects, fetishes with which to terrify and induce
> > irrational reverence in their superstitious society, the gruesome and
> > grotesque curiosities of a barbarous regime.
> > Similarly, Philip Hensher in the Mail on Sunday wrote a review headed
> > 'British Museum Artefacts as Evil as Nazi Lampshades made from Human Skin'
> > which included the following comments: Other civilisations with inhumane
> > customs still managed to produce objects of light and grace. You can see
> > that in Mughal culture, or ancient Egyptian sculpture. The darkness of the
> > Aztec mind seems to permeate everything they made with ugliness...If there
> > is a more revoltingly inhumane and despicable society known to history than
> > the Aztecs, I really don't care to know about it...It is difficult to
> > imagine a museum display that gives off such an overwhelming sense of human
> > evil as this one But, on top of the moral ugliness of the Aztecs, there is
> > the undeniable fact that almost everything they made was aesthetically
> > hideous, too. The sculpture is brutal, square and blocky. The decorative
> > styles are coarse, without any obvious expressive power. The jewellery and
> > mosaic styles are vulgar and showy - there is nothing to be said for the
> > turquoise mosaic masks or the doubleheaded, wide-jawed snake that
> > Moctezuma gave to the Spanish conquerors, apart from the expense of labour
> > and material".
> > It is difficult to argue that it was just this particular exhibition that
> > revolted him as he makes similar comments about another exhibition: "The
> > Royal Academy's equally repulsive show of Aztec artefacts of two years ago
> > included a sculpture, the image of which I wish I could get out of my
> > head...I wouldn't care if they left the whole pile of rubbish where it lay
> > for eternity. The Aztecs perform the singular task of making the Spanish
> > who, under Cortes, conquered them in 1521, look like beacons of humanity".
> > To what are these views shared by academic specialists on the Aztecs? Do
> > the Maya and Incas attract similar comments? Richard Durkan
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Nahuatl mailing list
> > Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Craig Berry (http://gplus.to/isomeme)
> "Eternity is in love with the productions of time." - William Blake
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 14:36:02 -0500
> From: seth wolitz <slwolitz at earthlink.net>
> To: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: [Nahuat-l] on Aztec Art
> Message-ID: <885031FD-094C-4E26-927B-AF15FA544BFB at earthlink.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
> > Brian Sewell is known as a polemicist and critic who seeks to express contrarian views. See his Autobiography in 2 Volumes for the full extent of his witty vitriol. He is a stylist. And he knows nothing about nahuatl culture but the received inheritance that aztecs eat human flesh and are horrid figures. Well the poor man has no time to look at the verse of Nezhualcoyotl to see that his snide remarks concerning 'Aztec culture' are useless verbiage. Here is a poet of first rank in any terms of high cultural achievement. But let Mister Sewall be content with his Italian primitives and early Renaissance painters. He failed to mention that the Dominicans, these forces of civilization, managed to destroy how many monuments of both Aztec and Inca works as demons in stone and burn the entire libraries of the nahautl speakers, a willed act no less horrid than the burning of the Alexandrian Library. De gustibus non est disputandum indeed! I do prefer Mayan sculpture that I have seen but that is indeed only taste and no criteria for quality. We have hardly been able to establish the esthetics of the mesoamerican peoples and each state developed their own so that we are at the beginning of beginning to recognize styles and cultural markers and definitions of particular cultural esthetic traits. The eurocentric remarks posted for us who appreciate and study mesoamerican matters are merely provocations to make us smile with determined patience. Perhaps we should provoke these self-assured snobbish critics that if they provoke us too far, we can start preparing a good Huastecan mole made with delicious spicy cloves and not with Pueblan chocolate and serve it not as a vegan dish but with flesh, theirs!
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 23:23:31 +0200
> From: Susana Moraleda <susana at losrancheros.org>
> To: seth wolitz <slwolitz at earthlink.net>
> Cc: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] on Aztec Art
> Message-ID:
> <CAMBVtro85QM9kmKMQnQ-EoBHKCo3A7hL72h+7WymcHpL4kKn=A at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Seth: I have no words to express my satisfaction with your comments, and
> especially the last phrase!!! ja ja ja!!! Thank you in the name of my
> ancestors!!!
> Nimitzchicahuacatlazohtlaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> Susana-Xochitl
>
>
> On 7 August 2013 21:36, seth wolitz <slwolitz at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > > Brian Sewell is known as a polemicist and critic who seeks to express
> > contrarian views. See his Autobiography in 2 Volumes for the full extent of
> > his witty vitriol. He is a stylist. And he knows nothing about nahuatl
> > culture but the received inheritance that aztecs eat human flesh and are
> > horrid figures. Well the poor man has no time to look at the verse of
> > Nezhualcoyotl to see that his snide remarks concerning 'Aztec culture' are
> > useless verbiage. Here is a poet of first rank in any terms of high
> > cultural achievement. But let Mister Sewall be content with his Italian
> > primitives and early Renaissance painters. He failed to mention that the
> > Dominicans, these forces of civilization, managed to destroy how many
> > monuments of both Aztec and Inca works as demons in stone and burn the
> > entire libraries of the nahautl speakers, a willed act no less horrid than
> > the burning of the Alexandrian Library. De gustibus non est disputandum
> > indeed! I do prefer Mayan sculpture that I have seen but that is indeed
> > only taste and no criteria for quality. We have hardly been able to
> > establish the esthetics of the mesoamerican peoples and each state
> > developed their own so that we are at the beginning of beginning to
> > recognize styles and cultural markers and definitions of particular
> > cultural esthetic traits. The eurocentric remarks posted for us who
> > appreciate and study mesoamerican matters are merely provocations to make
> > us smile with determined patience. Perhaps we should provoke these
> > self-assured snobbish critics that if they provoke us too far, we can start
> > preparing a good Huastecan mole made with delicious spicy cloves and not
> > with Pueblan chocolate and serve it not as a vegan dish but with flesh,
> > theirs!
> > _______________________________________________
> > Nahuatl mailing list
> > Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 20:09:09 -0400
> From: Michael McCafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>
> To: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Aztec aesthetics
> Message-ID: <20130807200909.0n0huoye8gssok04 at webmail.iu.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format="flowed"
>
> Many thanks to Craig and Seth for articulating what I felt all day as I
> thought about these posts but couldn't find the key to open the door to
> say what I felt. It reminds me of how, when I talk to my students about
> the great artistic achievements of Hopewellian ceremonial pottery, they
> often stare at me with this "Yeah?" kind of look:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopewell_pottery
>
> There is so much I have seen in Aztec art that makes me--I like Craig's
> adjective--*slack-jawed* when I look at it. I find myself looking at
> something like the famous statue of Xochipilli that pretty much just
> like the La Giaconda. Stopped in my tracks:
>
> http://ec-dejavu.ru/t/Tattoo_1.html
>
> Michael
>
> Quoting Craig Berry <cdberry at gmail.com>:
>
> > There's an old Roman saying, "De gustibus non est disputandum" -- "There is
> > no arguing about taste." Whether a piece of art is beautiful or hideous is
> > a subjective judgment. Being a specialist in a given field may provide the
> > opportunity to learn to see beauty in a style of art, or it may not.
> >
> > Speaking entirely for myself, and as a reasonably competent amateur in the
> > study of Mesoamerican cultures, I find the Aztec aesthetic beautiful,
> > powerful, and spiritually rich. I recently visited the British Museum,
> > which has a large room permanently dedicated to Mesoamerican artefacts, and
> > I spent a good ten minutes standing slack-jawed in awe before a stone
> > carving of Xiuhcoatl:
> >
> >
> > http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aoa/s/stone_figure_of_xiuhcoatl.aspx
> >
> > But other museum visitors around me were happily denigrating the style of
> > that carving, and of everything else in the room.
> >
> > Turning to one of the articles you cite, the author expresses a fondness
> > for Moghal art, which I find painfully busy, inharmoniously colored, and
> > generally childish. But I will be the first to acknowledge that this is
> > *my* view, and I will not attempt to argue with someone who finds in Mughal
> > art sublimity and beauty.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Richard Durkan <rdurkan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> In 2009 the British Museum staged an exhibition 'Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler'
> >> which drew vitriolic criticism from at least two (non-specialist) critics.
> >> Brian Sewell in the London Evening Standard. found the Aztec material
> >> pretty feeble stuff, that many of the masks were of utmost hideousness, the
> >> quality of Aztec craftsmanship to be poor, no better than common
> >> bric-a-brac and that there was no art in the barbarism of the Aztec world,
> >> which compared unfavourably with contemporary European artists like
> >> Donatello and Ghiberti and that. He refers to the sickly beastliness of
> >> that society. We should not be required to see the objects as works of art
> >> but rather cultural objects, fetishes with which to terrify and induce
> >> irrational reverence in their superstitious society, the gruesome and
> >> grotesque curiosities of a barbarous regime.
> >> Similarly, Philip Hensher in the Mail on Sunday wrote a review headed
> >> 'British Museum Artefacts as Evil as Nazi Lampshades made from Human Skin'
> >> which included the following comments: Other civilisations with inhumane
> >> customs still managed to produce objects of light and grace. You can see
> >> that in Mughal culture, or ancient Egyptian sculpture. The darkness of the
> >> Aztec mind seems to permeate everything they made with ugliness...If there
> >> is a more revoltingly inhumane and despicable society known to history than
> >> the Aztecs, I really don't care to know about it...It is difficult to
> >> imagine a museum display that gives off such an overwhelming sense of human
> >> evil as this one But, on top of the moral ugliness of the Aztecs, there is
> >> the undeniable fact that almost everything they made was aesthetically
> >> hideous, too. The sculpture is brutal, square and blocky. The decorative
> >> styles are coarse, without any obvious expressive power. The jewellery and
> >> mosaic styles are vulgar and showy - there is nothing to be said for the
> >> turquoise mosaic masks or the doubleheaded, wide-jawed snake that
> >> Moctezuma gave to the Spanish conquerors, apart from the expense of labour
> >> and material".
> >> It is difficult to argue that it was just this particular exhibition that
> >> revolted him as he makes similar comments about another exhibition: "The
> >> Royal Academy's equally repulsive show of Aztec artefacts of two years ago
> >> included a sculpture, the image of which I wish I could get out of my
> >> head...I wouldn't care if they left the whole pile of rubbish where it lay
> >> for eternity. The Aztecs perform the singular task of making the Spanish
> >> who, under Cortes, conquered them in 1521, look like beacons of humanity".
> >> To what are these views shared by academic specialists on the Aztecs? Do
> >> the Maya and Incas attract similar comments? Richard Durkan
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Nahuatl mailing list
> >> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> >> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Craig Berry (http://gplus.to/isomeme)
> > "Eternity is in love with the productions of time." - William Blake
> > _______________________________________________
> > Nahuatl mailing list
> > Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 21:49:36 -0400
> From: "Robert A. Neinast" <neinast at att.net>
> Cc: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Aztec aesthetics
> Message-ID: <5202F930.9060204 at att.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 8/7/2013 8:09 PM, Michael McCafferty wrote:
> > Many thanks to Craig and Seth for articulating what I felt all day as I
> > thought about these posts but couldn't find the key to open the door to
> > say what I felt. It reminds me of how, when I talk to my students about
> > the great artistic achievements of Hopewellian ceremonial pottery, they
> > often stare at me with this "Yeah?" kind of look:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopewell_pottery
>
> And don't forget the animal effigy pipes. I think I like them
> the best. (Though there is also the Shaman of Newark.)
>
> > There is so much I have seen in Aztec art that makes me--I like Craig's
> > adjective--*slack-jawed* when I look at it. I find myself looking at
> > something like the famous statue of Xochipilli that pretty much just
> > like the La Giaconda. Stopped in my tracks:
> >
> > http://ec-dejavu.ru/t/Tattoo_1.html
>
> Agreed. That is an amazing piece of art.
>
> Bob
> --
> " . . . and shun the Frumious Bandersnatch."
> Robert A. Neinast
> Pickerington, OH
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nahuatl mailing list
> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
>
>
> End of Nahuatl Digest, Vol 307, Issue 2
> ***************************************
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