IMELDA ALMQVIST ART: JOURNEYS TO OTHER WORLDS, INNER WORLDS AND AROUND THE WORLD IN PAINTINGS!
Aztec, Maya, Tenochtitlan, Mesoamerica - nowadays Central America, ritual calendar, Tenochtitlan, bundle of years, human blood sacrifice, "Eagle Cactus Fruit", hummingbird, ball game and ball court, enactment of cosmic struggles, Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, Hero Twins, Shaman, Spirit Jaguar, spirit journeys, shapeshifting, Curupira - Father of the Game, Chulpas, Pachamama (Mother Earth), creatures from Before the Dawn of Time and Before the Birth of the Sun
CHULPAS (80 x 100 cm) £499
According to Mesomamerican mythology 'Chulpas' are creatures that lived before the Dawn of Time and before the sun rose over Pachamama (mother earth).
The Jalq'a people of Bolivia weave these striking animal motifs on their aksus or overskirts.
When my son Elliott (5) saw this painting in progress, he said it looked 'rather Halloweeny'!
MESOAMERICAN SERIES
In the year 1519 a group of Spanish soldiers on an exploratory voyage from the Spanish colony in Cuba encountered a great civilisation in the Valley of Mexico. From a snowcapped mountain pass they looked down on a series of interconnected lakes and the city of Tenochtitlan.
EMERGING (30 x 30 cm) £125
Geographically Mesoamerica runs from the Valley of Mexico down across Guatemala and Honduras to Western Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Scholars use the name for a timespan of 22,000 years and the lands peopled by the Maya and the Aztecs. It largely coincides with what we call Central America today.
AZTEC MASK (80 x 100 cm) £499
These people used a highly complex ritual calendar (see also the Language & Mark Making Series). Priests marked the passing of time and predicted the future based on two calendars. One was a solar calendar of 365 days, linked to the passing seasons. The other was a ritual calendar of 260 days, thought to be based on the length of a human pregnancy. The period needed for a particular day in the 365-day calendar and a particular day in the 260-day calendar to coincide was 18,980 days or 52 years of 365 days. This measure, called the 'bundle of years' by the Aztecs, was invested with great significance. The end of each 52 year period was seen as a moment of great danger, at which the gods might decide to end the world.
XUL (a Mayan Month Glyph) SOLD
OC (Mayan Day Glyph) SOLD
AHAU (Mayan Month Glyph)£110
Another important central element of the Mesoamerican civilisation was the use of human blood sacrifice to honour the gods. Among the Aztecs, vast lines of prisoners were paraded up the steps of steep temple pyramids to be sacrificed by having their hearts ripped from their chests. They called the human heart the 'Eagle Cactus Fruit'. The Classic Period Maya more commonly decapitated their victims. Both Mayan and Aztec worshippers also offered their own blood to the gods by means of self-inflicted wounds. The humming-bird was seen as a symbol of this: the blood was let this way as 'honey drawn from a flower by a humming-bird'.
MESOAMERICAN DEATH MASK I (30 x 30 cm) £175
Another basic common element of Mesoamerican civilisation was a ball game played on a court shaped like a capital letter L. The court had sloping or vertical side walls. Some courts had rings high up on the walls. Extra points could probably be scored by getting the ball through the hoop. This was a difficult thing to do since players were not allowed to use their hand or feet, only their hips, elbows and knees! This game seems to have been seen as an enactment of cosmic struggles and therefore as a sacred act (hard as it is to understand this. For comparison read in the Native American Series about "hierophany or spiritual revelation").
BRINGING FORTH:
THE RAINBOW INCARNATION OF QUETZALCOATL - THE PLUMED SERPENT
(for more information about this painting, visit the COMMISSIONS PAGE )
(SOLD)
The Aztecs saw the ball game as a clash between light and dark forces, between Quetzalcoatl ('The Plumed Serpent') and his dark brother Tezcatlipoca (The God of Death). The Maya viewed it as a reenactment of the myth cycle in which the Hero Twins go to the underworld to overcome the gods of that fearsome realm.
(For more about the Hero Twins or Warrior Twins and Twins in general, visit the Twins Page)
MESOAMERICAN DEATH MASK II (30 X 30 cm) £175
Scholars treat all surviving records of the Mesoamerican history with caution. The material is full of repetitions and contradictions. This was because Mesoamerican peoples looked to the past for justification of the present. They kept fiddling around with details and re-writing accounts to establish that their destiny was to dominate other peoples and expand their territories. The facts were made to fit their perspective on things!
SHAMAN PERFORMING RAIN CEREMONY (80 x 100 cm) £550
This painting shows a shaman performing a Rain Ceremony. This is a multi-layered picture, showing ladders and serpents (no pun intended on the game 'Snakes and Ladders'!). In Mesoamerica, like in Aboriginal Australia, serpents and water are related. The two birds are shaman's helpers.
Apart from the public rites of sacrifice conducted by the priests and warrior class, ordinary people had a strong and enduring belief in shamans. Shamans were people gifted with visionary and religious powers who made journeys of psychic discovery on behalf of the tribe, Shamans could conjure the powers of the spirit world and influence the destiny of individuals and the city-state.
TACUTSI (80 X 100 cm) £625
Goddess of Life
Colourful yarn paintings by the Huichol Indians in Mexico sometimes show fertility symbolism akin to rock art. (Visit ROCK ART SERIES).
This is Tacutsi, Goddess of Life, who gives birth to every living thing and is an example of the 'Great Mother Archetype'.
The Huichol Indians, whose pre-Hispanic culture still survives in the remote Sierria Madres ranges, live a life woven of magic and sacred mythology.
Here men and women keep alive the ancient traditions, relatively unaffected by Western civilisation.
These yarn paintings are shamanic art. They originated with prayer bowls placed in caves as offerings. They are personal interpretations of the Huichol relationship to the Gods. They are called 'nierikas' or Mirror Images of God. They are creative manifestations embodying the Huichol belief that we all make our own realities.
These yarn paintings connect the Huichol people to the forces of nature and the Life Force.
DIFFERENT ROADS TO MOTHERHOOD (80 x 100 cm) £495
Children don't grow on trees. Howver, one way of becoming a parent is by adopting a child. Adopting a child means taking on a child that is not homegrown, a child that does not carry your genetic material. Yet, once you adopt that child is your child every bit as much as any birth child.
The figures in this painting were inspired by carved folklore figures from Venezuela. This painting belongs to the Motherhood Series as well.
When the European visitors first arrived on the scene, the Aztecs were waiting for their God Quetzalcoatl (The Plumed Serpent) to return. Quetzalcoatl had departed by sea heading east and vowed to return from that direction. The Spaniards made their landfall at the exact spot and in the exact year that Quetzalcoatl's second coming was promised for. The Aztec ruler, Moctezuma, was unsure how to welcome them. First he sent supplies and magnificent offerings. Some of the food had been doused with blood of a sacrificial victim in good Aztec tradition! (One can but guess what the Europeans made of this...) Eventually the two parties came to blows. After prolonged hostilities, the Spanish delegation won - and the Aztec empire was no more on the 13th of August, 1521.
JAGUAR SPIRIT £275
Jaguar imagery was used to honour the shapeshifting shamans. The jaguar's furtive behaviour and deadly capacity to hunt in the hours of darkness made him one of the key-allies of the shaman on his demanding spirit journeys. Shamans were believed to be able to transform themselves into jaguars during trances. Eventually the jaguar became the principal animal form of the god Tezcatlipoca, the patron deity of shamans and god of the night.
MESOAMERICAN MONKEYS £275
I will finish this page by introducing a more contemporary character from Central America: Curupira, Father of the Game. He 'lives' in the 'World Events Series' too as the world is in bad need of his supervision!
CURUPIRA £155
(Father of the Game)
The Curupira is a small hairy goblin who punishes those who abuse nature. Sometimes he rides on deer's heads. He whistles to death anyone who kills too many animals or wastefully cuts down a tree. The rainforest (and the world) needs a Curupira more than ever before!
Imelda Almqvist
(Last Updated: September 2010)
If you enjoyed this page, please consider adding a link to
TALES OF THE PLUMED SERPENT Aztec, Inca and Mayan myths Diana Ferguson Collins and Brown Ltd Great Britain 2000 ISBN 1 85585 823 1
READING THE MAYA CLYPHS Michael D. Coe & Mark van Stone Thames & Hudson Ltd London 2001 ISBN 0-500-05110-0
AZTEC & MAYA, Life In An Ancient Civilization Charles Phillips Consultant: Dr David M Jones Hermes House ISBN-13: 978-1-84477-804-1 ISBN-10: 1-84477-804-5
THE LOST HISTORY OF THE AZTEC & MAYA The history, legend, myth and culture of the ancient native peoples of Mexico and Central America Charles Phillips Consultant: Dr David M Jones Hermes House ISBN 1-84477-507-0
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD MYTHOLOGY General editor: Arthur Cotterell published by Parragon for Colour Library Direct Ltd UK 1999 ISBN 0 75253 325 8
CHAVIN AND THE ORIGINS OF ANDEAN CIVILIZATION Richard L Burger Thames and Hudson 1995 ISBN 0-500-27816-4
ANCESTORS OF THE INCAS The Lost Civilizations of Peru Wonders 1998 ISBN 1-882516-08-7
Aztec, Maya, Tenochtitlan, Mesoamerica - nowadays Central America, ritual calendar, Tenochtitlan, bundle of years, human blood sacrifice, "Eagle Cactus Fruit", hummingbird, ball game and ball court, enactment of cosmic struggles, Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, Hero Twins, Shaman, Spirit Jaguar, spirit journeys, shapeshifting, Curupira - Father of the Game, Chulpas, Pachamama (Mother Earth), creatures from Before the Dawn of Time and Before the Birth of the Sun
IMELDA ALMQVIST ART: JOURNEYS TO OTHER WORLDS, INNER WORLDS AND AROUND THE WORLD IN PAINTINGS!
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