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Course: Art of the Americas to World War I > Unit 3
Lesson 2: CupisniqueFeline-Head Bottle, Cupisnique
Feline-Head Bottle, 15th-5th century B.C.E., Cupisnique, Jequetepeque Valley (possibly Tembladera), Peru, ceramic and post-fired paint, 32.4 x 20.5 x 13.3 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) Speakers: Dr. Sarahh Scher and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- "This is the good stuff." Probably the funniest thing I've ever heard in a serious, educationally charged video.(3 votes)
- This is an interesting observation. Since you've posted it among the questions, I wonder what your question might be.(2 votes)
- I think that the second face looks like a bear looking up instead of a feline or a crocodile.
What do you think it looks like?(3 votes)
Video transcript
(jazzy piano music) - [Host] We're in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in the gallery devoted
to pre-Colombian art. We're looking at a ceramic vase from South America from the area
that is now the nation of Peru. What's interesting is
that when you think of pre-Colombian cultures from South America, we generally think of the Inca, that was the
culture that was dominant when the Spanish arrived. But art had been made,
and people had lived in this area for thousands
of years before that. We're looking at an object that may be as old as 3500 years. - [Host] It was a bottle that was made by a group of people who's
name we don't really know. And we refer to them instead by a general style category of Cupisnique. This particular one is from
the Jequetepeque Valley on the coast of Peru. - [Host] But Cupisnique refers to a style that came before a culture that we have more confidence about. That is Chavin. - [Host] What used to be thought was that Chavin is what we
would call a mother culture. Anything that was found in a style that reminded us of Chavin
was some kind of Chavin. Now we know that this
is actually something that is part of the
development of that style prior to Chavin, and
Chavin is the culmination of that development. - [Host] This is such a good reminder that our history is something
that is always growing. - [Host] These cultures
weren't oral cultures. They were not cultures
that developed writing, it wasn't important to them. And so we instead have
to rely on archaeological information to help us place these styles in their proper temporal context. - [Host] And it also helps us when we look closely at the object. It helps us identify things that might be otherwise mysterious if
you see lots of examples of the same kind of form,
the same kind of animal face. And we see here, in fact,
several animal faces. - [Host] And that's part
of the idea of this style as it was developing. It relies on combining multiple points of view together in one image. And what we see is
something that is meant to distinguish whether or not you
were a member of the group. - [Host] So if you could
read it, you belonged. - [Host] Absolutely. And if you don't belong,
you're not going to be able to understand it's mystical imagery. - [Host] The easiest thing for me to read is the right hand side. You see a kind of thinning of the clay. And the representation of a feline face. You can just see a fang,
you can see an eye, perhaps a ridge above the head, a snout. And then perhaps some fur that comes down below the neck. - [Host] Very hard to
tell, these animal forms are sometimes so generalized that all we can say is it's feline. It's reptilian. That sort of thing. - [Host] And then, if you imagine that the vessel is then tipped over on its side, so that it can pour, another face emerges. The face of another feline. You can see a large eye that seems to be looking upward. You can see this snout that curls around and shows us that the fur is spotted, and just below that, more
teeth, and more fangs. - [Host] There's so many fangs that I'm questioning whether that's actually meant to be a set of feline fangs, and might instead be the fangs of a caiman. Caiman are similar to
alligators and crocodiles. Very fearsome, very dangerous. They did not actually live in the areas where these things where being made. They were more legendary predators from the lands beyond the
mountains and the jungle. - [Host] So it might have had a kind of mythic quality, even in this era. - [Host] Absolutely. What you noted, that
eye with the black pupil looking up, we refer to
that as a pendant iris. Because it's hanging
from the top of the eye. And that again, is something
that we see in Chavin. Originally people thought,
well that must mean that these people are
looking at Chavin style, and making Chavin derivative art. Instead, it turns out, they were making what would become Chavin. - [Host] There's another
bit of clay that wings out. And that can be read as the
tongue of the large face. But when the vessel is
placed back on the table, that almost functions as the tail of the reptilian, or feline creature that we saw on the right. Except that this is
maybe even more complex. Because we notice that there's a large eye in the upper left that
reorients us yet again. - [Host] And even then, what we just saw as a tongue, and possibly a tail, if we look at the eye in one direction, might be an ear. - [Host] I love this idea that we see multiplicity of forms that become more or less dominant depending on the orientation of the vessel. - [Host] This is something
that is for ritual purposes. We know that it was
painted after being fired, rather than before being fired. Which means it has a
very delicate surface. It's not something that you're to use for everyday wear. This is the good stuff. And the imagery is part of that. This creation of what some people have interpreted as
being a shamanic vision, a mystical vision of the world beyond our world where powerful
spirit animals are the rulers. (jazzy piano music)