PRE-COLUMBIAN ART

2001. 190 pages. 119 color illustrations by Lynton Gardiner and Anthony Scoggins. Monograph by Armand J. Labbe, Director of Research and Collections, The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art. Commentary by James L. Greaves. Foreword by Martha W. Longenecker, Founding President / Director of Mingei International Museum.

Excerpt from the book

FOREWORD
Martha W. Longenecker

Founding President / Director, Mingei International Museum

There are many ways of looking at pre-Columbian art. Perhaps there are as many ways of seeing as there are human beings — but first this art must be seen!

Thus, it was with great delight and gratitude that Mingei International Museum received the James L. Greaves Collection of pre-Columbian Animal Forms as a gift from an anonymous benefactress — who also funded this documentary publication and a videotape of the exhibition.

Such a visionary gift makes it possible for this collection to be seen in perpetuity by countless visitors here at our Museum in Balboa Park, San Diego and at other venues as it travels throughout the world. The gift also extends and enriches the Museum's International collection of over 12,000 art objects, which reveal similarities and distinctions of individuals and cultures throughout the world.

How fortunate it is that James L. Greaves had the sensitivity, understanding and love of pre-Columbian marine animal forms to passionately gather them together into a one-of-a-kind collection.

Mingei international is blessed in a third way in having a foremost scholar of pre-Columbian art, Armand J. Labbe, as Curator of the exhibition and author of the monograph for this publication, "The Renewal of Life." He provides an insightful and relevant perspective on pre-Columbian peoples and their legacy of marine animal sculpture.

These art objects are spontaneous, visual expressions of the peoples who lived in this magnificent land of North, Central and South America before the arrival of Europeans. They are translations of the sea life they knew so intimately, depicted with charm and humor, and giving immortality to the temporal, living forms of the sea.

Using the natural materials of their environments — wood, shell, stone, bone, gold, silver and copper metal alloys, fibers and, mostly, clay, the pre-Columbian peoples extracted the essence of the sea animals, transforming their natural forms into enduring, abstract sculpture.

My own perspective as a potter and professor emeritus of art is one of deep admiration for the timeless beauty and monumentality of these pre-Columbian marine animal forms.

I marvel at the skill and craftsmanship of the pre-Columbian potters who took the common clay of the earth softened with water and, with only the tools of their hands, formed it without the use of the potter's wheel, only later introduced by Spanish colonists. With no glaze, the knowledge and techniques for which were also brought from Europe by the colonists, they finely burnished the clay surfaces and often enriched the forms with incised-line designs and applications of color from iron and other metallic oxides. Through simple bon-firing, the fragile clay was changed into durable objects for use in dally life.

Although the simple techniques of working clay are similar throughout early civilizations, these pre-Columbian sculptures are distinctive in the aesthetic expression. They compose an unsurpassed art heritage.

The ways of looking at pre-Columbian art — or any art — vary, as human beings see through the conditioning screens of their backgrounds and experiences. The variety of viewpoints is seemingly endless and quite interesting!