Feather art

Bird sculpture made from feathers, Inca culture , Peru , approx. 1300 - 1500 . Wood, glue, feathers, shells. De Young Museum, San Francisco

The term feather art different from are bird feathers produced art summarized: spring images or spring mosaics and feather headdress , known primarily from the Aztec culture in South America as well as the indigenous Indians North and South America.

Feather paintings / feather mosaics

Such works of art can be found e.g. B. from the Aztec culture of Mexico in the 16th century : there feathers were associated with gods such as Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl ( Feathered Serpent ), they were afflicted with complex symbolism and far more valuable than gold for the indigenous people . The works of art were made by highly specialized craftsmen, so-called "Amanteca". After painted, stenciled and copied templates, multicolored feathers of different sizes were glued on in a certain layering; Signs, standards , capes and feather fans were decorated and decorated .

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  Quetzalcoatl in Codex Borbonicus

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  Aztec warriors ( Codex Mendoza )

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  Aztec feather shield "Meander and Sun" (around 1520, State Museum Württemberg )

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  Feather tunic , Peru (south coast), 8th-16th centuries, feathers / cotton, De Young Museum, San Francisco

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  Image of the Virgin Mary made of feathers, Juan Baptista Cuiris, Michoacán ( Pátzcuaro ), Mexico ( 1550 - 1580 ): Hummingbird and parrot feathers on paper / wood, " Spiritual Treasury ", Hofburg , Vienna

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  Image of Christ made of feathers, as above

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  Mass of St. Gregory , feathers on wood, original 68 × 56 cm, Mexico , 1539 . Musée de Jacobins , Auch . Diego Huanutzin, Aztec Puppeteer: The oldest known testimony of Christian art on the American continent

Feather headdress

A well-known feather headdress is z. B. that of the Indians of North and South America, which is associated with certain meanings or worn as a badge of rank on or on the head or anywhere else on the body (" chief "). From more recent times and Europe ( Art Nouveau , " Art Deco ") are z. B. Fan or the so-called feather "Boa" (after the snake ) known.

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  Aztec feather headdress ( reproduction ), attributed to Moctezuma II ,
  Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia , Mexico

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  Statue of the mythical figure "Tolita" in a feather costume, around the year 0, from Esmeraldas (Ecuador) ,
  today in the Israel Museum , Jerusalem

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  Pre-Columbian feather coat,
  17th century ,
  Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire (MRAH), Brussels

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  “ Mató Tópe ,
  Chief of the Mandan ”,
  watercolor on paper,
  Karl Bodmer , on his journey through the USA 1832–34

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  Ostrich feather fan , Art Deco, 1920s

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  Southern Sierra Miwok Flicker Quill Headband by Chris Brown ( Chief Lemme ), a North American Indian dancer, circa 1930, Yosemite Museum

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  “ Nyau ” mask, wood, paint, feathers etc., Chewa , Malawi , 20th century.

literature

• Claudia Cattaneo (Ed.): Colorful and endangered. Feather headdress from Amazonia . Pestalozzianum-Verlag, Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-909105-21-1 (also exhibition catalog, Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich ).

Web links

Commons : Feathers in art  - collection of images, videos and audio files

source

1. ↑ badische-zeitung.de , March 12, 2015, Andreas Volz: Far more valuable than gold