Bodies, Faces and People in the Ancient Mexico

What is most notable at first glance is the magnificent combination of a largely schematized anatomic volume and a complex and varied pictorial treatment. The canons of the art of the shaft tomb culture suggest it could be a depiction of a high-ranking woman, which accompanied her in her final and supposedly permanent resting place.  

This piece is extraordinarily important for the history of Mesoamerican art; it is both beautiful and eloquent, like a piece of universal art. We can situate its production around the year 1000 B.C. At that time, artists had achieved authentic filigrees of pastillage in the Valley of Mexico, particularly in Tlatilco, and we can see very similar features in the Xochiapala pieces.  

The Mezcala tradition is recognized in stone carvings, and among its main features are the high level of abstraction in the design and their use for burial purposes.  They include men standing with both arms on their abdomen. They are very symmetric figures, as those of this tradition tend to be. The majority of body and facial features are suggested through lines; eyes, lips, and even fingers and toes are indistinguishable, and there are no visible gestural expressions of any kind.

Several of these figures are confirmed to come from the Las Bocas site or Caballo Pintado, near Izucar de Matamoros. The legs are rotated like those of a vinyl doll, with an unnatural looking femur joint and groin line. They are chubby figures with the typical Olmec fierce lipped expression, sometimes showing their teeth. They often have an evident cranial deformation and a somewhat bulging forehead. Often one or both of the hands rest on the legs. In addition to the engobe creating a flesh like color, they often have red applied to the mouth.

This ceramic sculpture belongs to a stylistic group that is associated with the name “Las Bocas”. In this figure the facial expression is enriched by the sharp curves of eyelids and eyebrows; a line above the forehead marks the limit of what appears to be a helmet or cap very close to the head, which is common in Olmec works.

This seated cross-legged figure is a young man with his mouth open, hollow inside, dressed in simple attire, but his importance in society is noted by the large cylindrical earrings. The headdress is simply a discrete band that fits the forehead. The face is of unparalleled expressive force, the mouth and eyes devoid of pupils make it look lifeless.   

In the sculptures of the Mesoamerican West, the head, the posture and on occasions the activity capture the visual attention in the composition. The heads are elongated with an erect tabular deformation; most have short hair and it appears as a smooth or incised "cap". They also wear headdresses with crests and crossed bands, like the piece we see.

The figure that we have at hand is an image of a personage whose arms and legs have not survived to our times. The body is the only part of the piece that could be of Pre-Hispanic origin. The face mask and heavy headdress painted black and adorned with the entwined bodies of snakes are most likely modern additions.

Typical of the Huasteca are these types of pots that tend to be semi-spherical and have a spout, in addition to effigies which, depending on the place they are manufactured, represent human faces or animal heads.  The customary effigy of a human face is now placed on the neck, and not the body of the vessel, where effigies of two bird heads appear in its place, one in front and another on the back, whose sides are completed with applications of clay that suggest the form of the wings.   

It represents a high-ranking old man; the way he is seated could be one of the conventions for sculpting men of high rank; he shows a remarkable ritual character: the attitude is one of deep introspection, one perceives an active statism that infers a state of meditation.

This piece depicts a woman, which is clear from two very typical features of Mexica art. On the one hand we have a cultural feature of everyday life, which this sculpture includes: the use of the quechquemitl (shawl), an exclusively female garment. Specifically, it appears to be, Xilonen, Goddess of Young Maize, as her name implies.

One of the Mesoamerican regions in which ceramic production has the most variety and richness was that which today corresponds to Central Veracruz.  In general, they wear simple attire, usually a skirt, and although they have necklaces and other objects, one part of the decoration is carved directly onto the body: often there are strips with notches on the chest or head.