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MAGIC
REALISM
A term coined in 1925 by Franz Roh to describe German
realism, this is a variation of surrealist art which
features disquieting depictions of everyday objects in a
naturalistic style. In 20th century literature, it applies
to the realistic treatment of fantastic situations, as in
the works of many Latin American writers such as Isabel
Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gabriel García
Marquez.
MAIZE
Corn. A nutritious member of the cereal family like wheat,
rice, and oats, corn is indigenous to the Americas where it
was the primary food source for many thousands of years.
MAJOLICA
A glazed pottery which was originally produced in Spain.
MAMA
OCCLO HUACO
In Inca mythology, the daughter of Father Sun and the Moon.
She presided over the lower half of the city of Cuzco and
taught the women to spin and weave.
MANCO
CAPAC
In Inca mythology, the son of Father Sun and the Moon. He
presided over the upper half of the city of Cuzco and taught
the men agriculture and how to build irrigation canals.
MANIOC
The cassava root, native to Brazil, where it was named
manihot. Also known as tapioca, it is a bland vegetable
which is used extensively in Caribbean, Central American,
and South American cooking.
MANNERISM
Mannerists turned for their models to the masters of the
High Renaissance, taking art as their teacher rather than
nature. They were inspired by the Platonic Idea, which they
referred to as the "inner design," to further abstract the
forms of previous artists and idealize them into studied,
artificial compositions.
MAYA
Peoples of Guatamala, as well as the language they speak;
the Maya are one of the oldest indigenous groups of the
Americas.
MEDRANO,
CANDELARIO
20th century Mexican ceramic artist.
MENDICANT
FRIARS
Friars who depend upon alms (charity) for a living.
MERIDA,
CARLOS
Guatemalan artist (1891-1984).
MESTIZO,
MESTIZAJE
Of mixed heritage, having one European and one American
Indian parent.
METATE
A corn grinding stone.
MEXICAN
MURALISM
Art movement of the 1920s and 1930s that was directed toward
social and political ends, it emphasized the ties of modern
Mexico to its pre-Columbian past and was pioneered by the
artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David
Alfaro Siqueiros, with the patronage of the Mexican minister
of culture, José Vasconcelos.
MIRO,
JOAN
Spanish-Catalan artist (1893-1983).
MIXTEC
The language and indigenous people of western Mexico.
MOCHE
The Moche, or Mochica, culture of Peru originated about
200-100 B.C. and collapsed about 600-750 A.D.
MOCTEZUMA
Moctezuma II (1502-1520) was the emperor of the Aztecs at
the time of the arrival of Hernán Cortés.
MOLA
A decorative textile art of the Kuna people of Panama that
uses appliqué and reverse appliqué to create
colorful designs. Several layers of fabric are stacked and
the design is created by cutting through the various layers
to the desired color and carefully stitching around the
design.
MOLDED
DECORATION
A decoration formed by the use of a premade shape that
allows the same design to be repeated over and over
again.
MOLDS/MOLDMADE
A hollow form used to shape liquid clay or molten metal,
allowing the same form to be recreated many times.
MONDRIAN,
PIET
Dutch artist (1872-1944).
MONOLITHIC
Composed of a single very large block, usually stone.
MONTE
ALBAN
Ancient capital of the Zapotecs located in the present-day
state of Oaxaca, founded about A.D. 500.
MOORS
A people of mixed Arab and Berber ancestry who inhabited
ancient Mauritania in North Africa and conquered Spain in
the 8th century A.D.
MORISCO
The child of a Spaniard and a mulatto (a mulatto is the
child of a Spanish father and a black mother).
MOSAIC
Small pieces of glass, tile, or stone fitted together and
embedded into a background to make a pattern or image.
MULATTO
The child of a Spanish white father and a black mother.
MUMMIES/MUMMIFICATION
Bodies preserved by the process of dessication (removing all
of the moisture from the body).
MURAL
Any large-scale wall decoration in painting, fresco, mosiac,
or another medium.
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NAHUALES
Protective animal spirits.
NAHUAT,
NAHUATL
A Uto-Aztecan language widely spoken in central and western
Mexico.
NAPOLEON
French ruler who crowned himself Emperor of France in 1804,
he invaded Spain in 1808 and placed his brother on the
Spanish throne.
NEOCLASSICAL
A 19th century Western art style, neoclassicism looked back
to the art and architecture of Classical Greece and Rome as
its model. Some characteristics of neoclassical art are
sharp outlines, cool colors, and emotional reserve;
compositions are often based on geometric forms.
NICHE/NICHO
A recessed space or hollow, as in a wall for a statue.
NUEVA
MEXICANIDAD
A mixture of surrealism and fantasy in 20th century Mexican
art.
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OBSIDIAN
Dark, volcanic, rocklike glass.
O'GORMAN,
JUAN
Mexican artist (1905-1982).
OLMEC
Mesoamerican people whose culture existed from c. 1500
B.C.-300 B.C.
ONE
REED
In the Aztec calendar, the year One Reed was the time that
was prophesied for the return of the Toltec god
Quetzalcoatl, an event that coincided with the arrival of
Hernán Cortés off the coast of Veracruz in 1519.
OROZCO,
JOSE CLEMENTE
Mexican artist (1883-1949), one of the Mexican
muralists.
OROZCO
ROMERO, CARLOS
Mexican artist (1898-1984).
ORSUALAS
Curing sticks, or staffs, which are carried by important
Kuna men in Panama as symbols of authority.
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PACHA
MAMA/MOTHER
EARTH
Earth mother goddess of the Incas, an agricultural deity
worshipped with regard to fertility and the protection of
the crops.
CASTRO
PACHECO, FERNANDO
Mexican graphic artist (born 1918).
PAMPAS
The great treeless plains of South America.
PATRIMONY
An inheritance from a father.
PENINSULARES
Spaniards born in Spain.
PERFORMANCE
ART
Since the late 1970s, the most popular term for art
activities that are presented before a live audience and
encompass music, dance, poetry, theater and video.
PERIODS
In pre-Columbian Andean history, periods are blocks of time
during which individual cultures developed in relative
isolation.
PHILIP
III
(1578-1621) King of Spain, Naples, and Sicily and King of
Portugal (1598-1621).
PICASSO,
PABLO
Spanish artist (1881-1973).
PICTOGRAPH
A picture representing an idea.
PIGMENT
Finely powdered coloring matter mixed with a binder to form
paints, crayons, and other drawing or painting media.
PIZARRO,
FRANCISCO
Born in Estremadura, Spain (c.1478-1541), Pizarro conquered
Peru in 1532-33.
PLEISTOCENE
A period of geological time which includes the rise and
dominance of man.
POLYCHROME
Decorated with three or more colors.
POMA,
GUAMAN
Guaman Poma de Ayala, born c. 1535 in Peru, a member of the
Yarovilca dynasty from Huanuco, was the author
and illustrator of the Nueva coronica
I buen gobierno (New Chronicles and
Good Government) written between 1585 and 1615, as an
illustrated letter to the King of Spain, Philip III. No word
is known of Poma after 1615.
POSADA,
JOSE GUADALUPE
Mexican printmaker 18521913), he is best known for his
images of
calaveras
(skeletons).
POTOSI
City and region of southern Bolivia that was the most famous
silvermining center of the Spanish Empire.
PUNA
A high, cold, arid plateau in the Andes.
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QUECHUA
Principal Andean language.
QUETZAL
The national bird of Guatamala. The male quetzal bird has
brilliantly colored tail feathers more than three feet long.
Only chiefs and priests were allowed to wear the bird's
plumes, and any person who killed a
quetzal was
sentenced to death.
QUETZALCOATL/FEATHERED
SERPENT
A principal god of the Aztecs, symbolized by a feathered
serpent.
QUINOA
A perennial indigenous to the highlands of the South
American Andes, a staple and principle food of the native
inhabitants of Peru, Chile, and Bolivia. The nutritious
seeds are made into soup and bread, or they can be fermented
with millet to make a kind of beer.
QUIPU
A recordkeeping system developed in Andean civilizations.
The quipu was
a length of cord held horizontally from which hung a variety
of colored yarns on which were entered different kinds of
knots of colored yarn. Knots in the yarns recorded census
figures, tax data, and imperial history.
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REBOZO
A rectangular shawl.
RENAISSANCE
Beginning in Italy around the 14th century, there was a
renewed interest in the classical past, that is, the art,
architecture, literature, and philosophy of ancient Greece
and Rome. Renaissance is the French word for "rebirth" and
signifies a new interest in humanity, in contrast to the
emphasis on the life of the spirit during the Middle
Ages.
RETABLO
Religious folk paintings on tin, copper, wood, or canvas,
which are found on walls behind altars to saints or other
sacred figures. Many were painted by itinerant artists who
traveled from town to town filling individual orders.
Retablos also
refers to the immense and ornately sculptured altarpieces
which were constructed in pieces at special workshops and
sent to churches throughout the provinces, where they were
assembled in final form.
RIVERA,
DIEGO
Mexican artist (1886-1957), one of the Mexican
muralists.
ROJO,
VICENTE
Spanish-born painter (born 1932) working in Mexico since
1949.
ROMANESQUE
Romanesque architecture was popular in Europe from the ninth
to the 12th centuries and is so-named because of the use of
Roman-style round arches and barrel vaults.
ROMANTIC
A 19th century Western art movement, which was more or less
opposed to neoclassicism; romantic art is characterized by
intense colors, complex compositions, exotic settings, and
turbulent emotions.
RUPTURA
Mexican art of the 1950s and
1960s that was a reaction against the nationalistic, realist
painting style inherited from the muralists, initiated by
José Luis Cuevas (born 1934).
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SABOGAL,
JOSE
Peruvian artist (1888-1956), a prominent member of the
Generation of 1919 and later the director of the official
School of Fine Arts in Lima and founder of the Free
Institute for Peruvian Art.
DE
SAHAGUN, BERNARDINO
Spain (1499/1500-1590); a Franciscan friar who went to New
Spain in 1529 and became one of the key interpretors of the
Nahuatl (Aztec) language and Nahua culture. He produced the
12-part Historia general de las cosas
de Nueva Espana (Florentine Codex)
based on testimony and codices made by people prior to
European contact.
SAHUMADOR
Incense burner.
SANTA
TERESA DE AVILA
A Spanish mystic, writer, and founder of the Carmelite order
known as the Descalzos, or Barefoot Nuns.
SALTILLO
Sarape woven with geometric patterns.
SANTERO
A folk artist who carves wooden figures of saints.
SANTOS
Saints, particularly carved wooden figures of saints.
SARAPE
A rectangular blanket, often with an opening for the
head.
SAVANNA
A treeless plain covered with low vegetation.
SCREENFOLD
BOOK
A book made by folding long strips of paper or paper-like
material like an accordion to form pages.
SECULAR
ORDERS
Members of the Christian clergy who are not bound by
monastic vows and do not live in a religious community.
SERF,
SERFDOM
A person attached to and dependent upon the estate on which
he or she lives.
SHAFT
TOMBS
Chamber tombs, some with multiple chambers, reached from the
surface by shafts up to six meters or more in depth.
SHAMAN
A priest of a religion that requires the intervention of the
shaman in order to contact and influence supernatural
spirits.
SICAN
(Lambayeque) Indigenous name in the Muchik language for an
area on the north coast of Peru, it means "the house or
temple of the moon."
SIERRA
A mountain range or chain.
SIQUEIROS,
DAVID ALFARO
Mexican artist (1896-1974), one of the Mexican
muralists.
SLIP
Extremely fine clay in liquid form used like paint to
decorate the surface of ceramic ware; also clay in liquid
form used to pour into molds.
SOCIAL
REALISM
Leftist political art of the 1920s and 1930s primarily
produced in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and the
Soviet Union, with a distinct bias against abstraction and a
tendency toward the illustration of political subjects with
the purpose of educating the viewer.
SOLAR,
XUL
Born Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schultz Solari, Argentinian
artist (1887-1963) who developed a pictographic language he
called criollismo,
based largely on Spanish and Portuguese.
STAMP
MOLD
A mold which can be used to press a design into wet
clay.
STUCCO
Fine plaster or cement used as a coating for walls or as a
decoration.
SURREALISM
An early 20th century painting style that emphasized imagery
from the unconscious and was influenced by the budding
science of psychology. It often draws its subject matter
from dreams and fantasies and is sometimes painted in a
spontaneous manner, although it may also be fairly
naturalistic in its form.
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TAHUANTINSUYU
Inca empire, the "Land of the Four Quarters."
TAMALES
One of the oldest of indigenous American foods, tamales are
made from coarse cornmeal dough spread with a seasoned
filling, such as beans or meat, and then wrapped in corn
husks and steamed.
TAMAYO,
RUFINO
Mexican artist (1899-1991).
TELPOCHCALLI
Aztec schools run by experienced warriors to train boys in
the art of war.
TENOCHTITLAN
Capital of the Aztec empire and the site upon which
present-day Mexico City was built. According to legend, the
Mexica tribe founded the Aztec city in 1325, where they were
led by their god Huitzilopochtli to a place where an eagle
perched atop a prickly pear cactus,
or tenochtli.
Tenochtitlan means "by the prickly pear fruits."
TEOTIHUACAN
An important center of religious, economic and political
power in central Mexico from about 100 B.C. to A.D. 750,
Teotihuacan is located near present-day Mexico City.
TEQUITQUI
Art made by Indian craftsmen that mixed pre-Conquest motifs
with European style; also known as IndoEuropean style. The
Nahuatl word means "one who pays tribute."
TEZCATLIPOCA
Aztec deity of rulership, destruction, the night, and the
magic arts. His name means "smoking mirror," and he was a
shaman, as well as a
nahualli
(shapechanger), whose hidden self was the jaguar.
TIEDYE
Patterns created by folding and tightly binding portions of
fabric before it is dyed in order to stop the dye from
penetrating into the bound areas.
TILMATLI
Cloaks worn by men in
pre-Columbian Mexico with a square shape that resembles that
of today's sarape.
TIWANAKU
Pre-Columbian Andean empire located in Bolivia around A.D.
100-1200.
TLALOC
"He who has earth." A major god of rain, fertility, and
agriculture and one of the most ancient of the Mesoamerican
supernaturals.
TOLTEC
Peoples who dominated central Mexico in the years A.D.
950-1150/1200.
TORRES-GARCIA,
JOAQUIN
Uruguayan painter and sculptor (18741949), a leader of
universal constructivism.
TRIPOD
VESSEL
A container with three legs.
TROPHY
HEAD CULT
A cult in pre-Columbian regions of Central and South America
in which ritual offerings of decapitated enemy heads were
made to assure fertility of the land.
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UNIVERSAL
CONSTRUCTIVISM
The Latin American synthesis of 20th century European
modernist movements which was pioneered by the Uruguayan
artist Joaquín Torres-García.
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VAQUERO
A herdsman or cowboy.
VARGAS,
EUGENIA
Chilean artist (born 1949).
VASCONCELOS,
JOSE
The first Mexican minister of culture after the bloody
revolution of 1910-1920, he was the true founder of the
Mexican muralist movement, serving as the patron of Rivera,
Orozco, and Siqueiros.
VATER,
REGINA
Brazilian artist (born 1943).
VELASCO,
JOSE MARIA
Mexican painter (1840-1912), the foremost Mexican landscape
painter of the 19th century.
VERACRUZ
City on Mexico's east coast where Hernán
Cortés landed in 1519.
VIRGIN
OF GUADALUPE
The Virgin of Guadalupe is revered as the patron saint of
Mexico. According to 16th century accounts, the Mother of
God appeared to an Indian named Juan Diego in 1531 at the
hill of Tepeyac. Tepeyac was a holy site to the Aztecs who
considered it the home of Tonantzin, Mother of the Gods. The
Virgin spoke to Juan Diego in his native language, Nahuatl,
and asked for a shrine to be built in her honor. Three days
later she performed a miracle by imprinting her image on
Juan Diego's
tilma, a
cactus-fiber cloak, which convinced the bishop to build the
shrine.
The Virgin of Guadalupe evolved into a symbol of
Mexican-born citizens whether Creole, Indian, or mestizo.
Her image flew on the banners of the independence movement
in 1810 and a century later on the banners of the Mexican
Revolution.
The Virgin of Guadalupe is represented wearing a turquoise
cloak studded with stars and is surrounded by brilliant
sunrays. She wears a rose-colored robe, and she stands on an
angel-held crescent moon. The colors turquoise and rose, and
the images of sun and moon, were associated by the Indians
with Aztec nobility and religion. The Spanish saw in her an
image of the Lady of Guadalupe popular in Spain. She thus
represents a fusion of the two cultures.
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WARP
AND WEFT
The vertical (warp) yarns which are attached to the weaving
loom and the horizontal (weft) yarns which are alternately
interlaced across the warp to create a piece of woven
fabric.
WRIGHT,
FRANK LLOYD
American architect (1867-1959).
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ZAPATA,
EMILIANO
One of the revolutionary leaders of the Mexican Revolution
of 1910.
ZAPOTEC
Indigenous people of southern Mexico in the state of
Oaxaca.
ZARATE,
FELIX
Mexican painter of the 19th century.
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