Art is found all around the world in many different forms. From the beginning of time, art has shown all succeeding generations a mass amount of information on different cultures, their history, their religion and way of life. Living in the Los Angeles area, art is highly prevalent and respected, with dozens of museums in the area to choose from. For this assignment I wanted to explore and go somewhere I had never been before. I went to the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California. I selected an ancient Mexican work entitled “Jar With Eight Crested Human Heads” from the museum’s permanent collection. This piece is a fired clay jar from West Mexico made between 200 B.C.E to A.D 300. The jar is an example of ancient Mexican art that encompasses
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This jar is about 6 or 7 inches in diameter running across the center of the jar and about 5 inches high. The jar opening is 4 inches wide at the top and has a lip that goes in and rounds back out to the full diameter. The clay was originally a brown-rust color, but the final piece looks as though it was painted black, most likely using a mix of minerals and water. The paint is wearing off on the top of the jar after being handled by centuries worth of people. This jar has 8 faces wrapping around the circumference. The faces show little definition with small oval eyes, slit mouths and large protruding noses. The features from each face start about 2 inches apart, evenly spaced around the exterior of the jar. The figures each have a crest coming down the top of the head onto the forehead. Though the figures portrayed are not accurate to how people actually looked, they provided insight into what the piece meant. The number one way we learn about ancient cultures is from how the art is created, how life is portrayed and the meaning behind the …show more content…
Art created a thousand years prior to this contained much more impressive detail, with full stories and representations of families and old folk tales shown directly on the piece, whereas the detail shown on this jar is vastly immature and elementary in comparison. Typically art created for ceremonial use contained more components and detail while this jar represents a deeper meaning, but in a very simplistic way. When a culture worshipped something such as the sun, the sun was placed higher than everything else on the piece, showing hierarchy of scale, with the most important thing on the top. Below, typically people would be portrayed bowing down or worshipping the sun. However, this jar has a smaller, less obvious portrayal of the culture’s worship to the
This jar is about 6 or 7 inches in diameter running across the center of the jar and about 5 inches high. The jar opening is 4 inches wide at the top and has a lip that goes in and rounds back out to the full diameter. The clay was originally a brown-rust color, but the final piece looks as though it was painted black, most likely using a mix of minerals and water. The paint is wearing off on the top of the jar after being handled by centuries worth of people. This jar has 8 faces wrapping around the circumference. The faces show little definition with small oval eyes, slit mouths and large protruding noses. The features from each face start about 2 inches apart, evenly spaced around the exterior of the jar. The figures each have a crest coming down the top of the head onto the forehead. Though the figures portrayed are not accurate to how people actually looked, they provided insight into what the piece meant. The number one way we learn about ancient cultures is from how the art is created, how life is portrayed and the meaning behind the …show more content…
Art created a thousand years prior to this contained much more impressive detail, with full stories and representations of families and old folk tales shown directly on the piece, whereas the detail shown on this jar is vastly immature and elementary in comparison. Typically art created for ceremonial use contained more components and detail while this jar represents a deeper meaning, but in a very simplistic way. When a culture worshipped something such as the sun, the sun was placed higher than everything else on the piece, showing hierarchy of scale, with the most important thing on the top. Below, typically people would be portrayed bowing down or worshipping the sun. However, this jar has a smaller, less obvious portrayal of the culture’s worship to the