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AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot)

@aicamericas.bsky.social

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Sharing artworks from the Art Institute of Chicago's Arts of the Americas department. Automated thanks to @andreitr.bsky.social and @botfrens.bsky.social

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AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 45m

Polychrome Bowl https://www.artic.edu/artworks/207253/

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, an artistic renewal occurred throughout the Southwest as centuries-old styles and techniques were recast in response to increasing public interest in Native American art and culture. Potters from several pueblos, or towns, developed innovative vessel shapes and designs by adapting and adding to the achievements of their ancestors. The styles and symbolic forms expressed each com-munity’s particular historical identity and sense of place. The interior of this bowl is filled with a large, X-shaped symbol with arms emerging from a crosshatched diamond—a reference to the four sacred directions of the Zuñi world. The red, hooked motifs between the arms represent pahos, prayer sticks with attached feathers that were placed at sacred locations to petition for rain. On the exterior, zigzag lines flanked by red and black triangles signify lightning and rainfall. Many features of this vessel are characteristic of ceramics made by We’wah, one of the most renowned Zuñi artists, who held a special status within his community as one of their lhamanas. These highly respected individuals typically were born male but followed traditional female gender roles, including pottery making and weaving, and served as mediators with special ceremonial and spiritual responsibilities.

Gift of Charles and Marjorie Benton

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 1h

Vessel (Aryballos) with Relief Depicting Birds and Fish https://www.artic.edu/artworks/9107/

Gift of Nathan Cummings

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 4h

Jar in the Form of a Seated Warrior Holding a Sling and Club https://www.artic.edu/artworks/4692/

S. B. Williams Fund and Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 7h

Polychrome Bowl https://www.artic.edu/artworks/207269/

Gift of Charles and Marjorie Benton

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 21h

Handle Spout Vessel in the Form of a Bean Warrior https://www.artic.edu/artworks/91603/

Kate S. Buckingham Endowment

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 1d

Flute https://www.artic.edu/artworks/126364/

Kate S. Buckingham Endowment

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 1d

Doubnle Spout Vessel Depicing Ornametal Faces with Numerous Emanations https://www.artic.edu/artworks/91425/

Kate S. Buckingham Endowment

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 1d

Cereal bowl (from Imperial Hotel table setting) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/226602/

Gift of the Noritake Company, Inc.

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 1d

Stirrup Spout Vessel Depicting Runners https://www.artic.edu/artworks/8850/

Gift of Nathan Cummings

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 1d

Ear Ornaments with Ibis https://www.artic.edu/artworks/191959/

Kate S. Buckingham Endowment

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 2d

Figurine Depicting a Female Carrying a Child https://www.artic.edu/artworks/24640/

Gift of Walter Randel

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 2d

Fragment (Tunic) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/12829/

Bessie Bennett Endowment

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 2d

Spouted Dish with King Vulture Heads https://www.artic.edu/artworks/148340/

Gift of Ethel and Julian Goldsmith

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 2d

Fragment of a Hacha https://www.artic.edu/artworks/120423/

Gift of Ethel and Julian Goldsmith

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 2d

Fragment https://www.artic.edu/artworks/51309/

Gift of Reverend Richard J. Douaire

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 3d

Overskirt (Urku) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/61682/

Restricted gift of the Textile Society

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 3d

Polychrome Jar https://www.artic.edu/artworks/194434/

This earthenware vessel has a flawless shape that gracefully curves from the upper rim to the swelling shoulder, with a long downard sweep to the foot; the smooth burnished surface displays a colorful pattern of symbolic motifs. Although made in the 1950s, the work belongs to a ceramic tradition that began in the greater Southwest almost two thousand years ago. In that remote archaeological past, pottery making spread throughout a region embracing southern Arizona and parts of Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico, and northward along the rugged Mogollon Rim and across the Colorado Plateau to the Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico. Scores of individual and collective styles took form over the centuries, as potters from different communities created a diversity of revivals; mutations occurred; and old forms were displaced by new ones. Yet this ongoing process was always part and parcel of a widely shared artistic and cultural tradition.Around the turn of the twentieth century, a Hopi-Tewa lineage of artists began giving fresh impetus to this ancient legacy. The celebrated Nampeyo and her contemporaries were inspired by shapes and graphic forms on archaeological vessels and fragments being excavated from ruins near their desert mesa villages, or pueblos, of Hano, Sichomovi, and Walpi. This rediscovery sparked a revival, with the most imaginative artists using the ancient shapes and design motifs as points of departure for creating their own inventive forms.By the 1950s, Frog Woman (Joy Navasie), a member of this lineage, had become an outstanidng potter. Her hallmark wares feature a background of white slip, or liquid clay, animated by asymmetrical patterns of wingline forms, stylized feathers, angular stepped motifs, and cosmological signs, all associatd with rain, fertility, and seasonal regenerations. Such themes also appear in the artistic vocabularies of many other Southwestern Pueblo potters. Today, more than a century after the revival began, Frog Woman is a respected elder among the younger artists who continue producing wares that are highly prized by museums and collectors. Yet the making of ceramics, like many other aspects of Pueblo Indian culture, remians deeply connected to ancient beliefs in a supernatural order. Clay itself has life, and a sacred relationship begins for the potter when the clay is taken from the earth and thanks are offered to Earth Clay Old Lady. From this perspective, the potter's work is seen as a reflection of life forces, and the vessels are reminders that every aspect of our existence is part of an interpenetrating cosmic system.

Gift of David and Cindy Van Zelst

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 3d

Stirrup Spout Vessel with Fineline Warrior Cat Motifs https://www.artic.edu/artworks/91539/

Kate S. Buckingham Endowment

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 3d

Single Spout and Bridge Vessel Depicting Dancing Figures https://www.artic.edu/artworks/91447/

Kate S. Buckingham Endowment

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 3d

Ritual Cache https://www.artic.edu/artworks/55249/

Discovered wrapped and hidden in a remote, dry cave, this cache of ritual figures comes from the Salado culture, which flourished in the mountains of southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Brilliantly colored and adorned with flicker feathers and dyed cotton string, these effigies once formed an altar as agents for communion with the life-giving spirits of the earth and sky. The large male figure, with his feather necklace and bold black-and-turquoise zigzag pattern, features sky symbolism. The smaller, female figure is a more self-contained form, probably corresponding to the earth. Her ocher color likely refers to maize and pollen, symbols of sustenance and fertility. The accompanying figures are a mountain lion (the chief predator in the region) and two serpents (carved from cottonwood roots), representing agents of communication with the earth and the seasonal cycle of fertility. Curved wooden throwing sticks for rabbit hunting complete the ensemble. Testimony to the antiquity and endurance of the worship of earth and sky and to the spiritual bonds between people and animals, these objects bear close resemblance to ritual figures and implements still used today among the diverse Pueblo peoples.

Major Acquisitions Centennial Endowment

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 3d

Stirrup Spout Vessel with Fineline Bean Warrior Motif https://www.artic.edu/artworks/91551/

Kate S. Buckingham Endowment

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 4d

Single Spout Blackware Vessel in the Form of a Duck https://www.artic.edu/artworks/3611/

Gift of Brian Maldonado

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 4d

Blackware Incense Burner with Relief Depicting Felines https://www.artic.edu/artworks/9097/

Gift of Nathan Cummings

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 4d

Effigy Jar Depicting a Dwarf Carrying a Puma https://www.artic.edu/artworks/6931/

Gift of Nathan Cummings

AIC: Arts of the Americas (Bot) @aicamericas.bsky.social · 4d

Double Spout and Bridge Vessel Depicting Costumed Performer with Snake Headdress https://www.artic.edu/artworks/4819/

S. B. Williams Fund and Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson