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Implications of Rock Art Aesthetics in Olmec Sculpture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2024
Abstract
The development of freestanding stone sculpture by the Olmec people of Mesoamerica's Gulf lowlands has long been considered one of the defining artistic achievements of the Formative period. However, by the Middle Formative period the production of freestanding sculpture was often eclipsed by the contemporaneous creation of rock art outside the Gulf lowlands. In this article I argue that Gulf Olmec sculptors and audiences occasionally co-opted the aesthetic and ritual treatments of rock art at topographic shrines to construct and reinforce the sacred geographies of primary site cores. In so doing, Olmec elites converted the ideological power of the wild and the animate earth into a form of political capital.
Resumen
El desarrollo de la escultura de piedra independiente por parte del pueblo olmeca, localizado en las tierras bajas del Golfo de Mesoamérica, ha sido considerado durante mucho tiempo uno de los logros artísticos definitorios del período Formativo. Sin embargo, en el Formativo Medio, la producción de escultura independiente fue eclipsada frecuentemente por la creación contemporánea de arte rupestre fuera de las tierras bajas del Golfo. En este artículo argumentaré que los escultores y el público olmeca del Golfo, en ocasiones cooptaron los tratamientos estéticos y rituales del arte rupestre de los santuarios topográficos para construir y reforzar las geografías sagradas de los núcleos de los sitios primarios. Al hacerlo, las élites olmecas convirtieron el poder ideológico de la tierra salvaje y animada en una forma de capital político.
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