Book contents
- Early Mesoamerican Cities
- Early Mesoamerican Cities
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter One Introduction
- Chapter Two Oaxaca’s Formative Period Cities and Their Implications for Early Urbanism in Mesoamerica
- Chapter Three Early Urbanization in the Formative Gulf Lowlands, Mexico
- Chapter Four Patterns of Early Urbanism in the Southern Maya Lowlands
- Chapter Five The Role of Middle Preclassic Placemaking in the Creation of Late Preclassic Yucatecan Cities
- Chapter Six The City over the City
- Chapter Seven The New Normal
- Chapter Eight The Nature of Early Urbanism at Teotihuacan
- Chapter Nine Art and Urbanity in Late Formative Mesoamerica
- Chapter Ten Landscape and Leadership in Mesoamerican Cities
- Chapter Eleven Experimental Cities?
- References
- Index
Chapter Nine - Art and Urbanity in Late Formative Mesoamerica
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2021
- Early Mesoamerican Cities
- Early Mesoamerican Cities
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter One Introduction
- Chapter Two Oaxaca’s Formative Period Cities and Their Implications for Early Urbanism in Mesoamerica
- Chapter Three Early Urbanization in the Formative Gulf Lowlands, Mexico
- Chapter Four Patterns of Early Urbanism in the Southern Maya Lowlands
- Chapter Five The Role of Middle Preclassic Placemaking in the Creation of Late Preclassic Yucatecan Cities
- Chapter Six The City over the City
- Chapter Seven The New Normal
- Chapter Eight The Nature of Early Urbanism at Teotihuacan
- Chapter Nine Art and Urbanity in Late Formative Mesoamerica
- Chapter Ten Landscape and Leadership in Mesoamerican Cities
- Chapter Eleven Experimental Cities?
- References
- Index
Summary
The reshaping of the material world was an essential part of the process of urbanization in Late Formative Mesoamerica, as it was in other parts of the ancient world. These material reconfigurations took many forms, each inextricably entwined with the others in the matrix of urbanism. Monumental art was one of the most prominent and visually accessible vehicles through which Mesoamerican elites configured new urban identities. In fact, recognition of the vital role that monumental imagery plays in establishing visual codes is, according to Robert Maxwell (2007), art history’s major contribution to the study of urbanism. But this fundamental premise – that monumental art is an integral aspect of urbanism’s “three-dimensional features” and central to its “expanded visual discourse” – hinges on the understanding that art was more than an epiphenomenal accessory of urbanism or a decorative afterthought inspired by city living. We take as a given, in this chapter, that images did more than occupy physical space: we view image making as a recursive act that both reflected and actively created the urban landscape. To borrow Maxwell’s words, art generated meaning and established the visual codes that were fundamental to the expression of new urban identities. Among the first modern scholars to recognize the role of art in the “urban revolution,” or the complex processes of economic and social change that culminated in the development of the first cities, was V. Gordon Childe (1950). While of enduring value, Childe’s observations concerning art and urbanism benefit from new and sustained scrutiny of the complex interface between artistic programs, the built environment, and the goals and ideological agendas of the ruling elites who commissioned monuments in Late Formative Mesoamerica.
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- Early Mesoamerican CitiesUrbanism and Urbanization in the Formative Period, pp. 199 - 223Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
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