To date, only seven known objects both depict and hieroglyphically name the ruler of Tenochtitlan, the huei tlatoani or 'Aztec Emperor.' All of these objects were commissioned by the last three pre-conquest rulers. Oddly, these seven objects, five of which are at the core of this study, have little direct relation to the early colonial written accounts of Aztec nobility and royal material culture. They do have as a compositional base earlier Central Mexican visual traditions wherein artists depicted generally nameless nobles and elites engaged in timeless ritual activities, yet during the reigns of these last three rulers, an innovative imperial style was developed that proclaimed a new (semi)divine nature for Aztec royalty and posited a central place for Tenochtitlan in Aztec sacred history. The current study not only argues this point, but also demonstrates the causal factors in the development of these visual arguments and illustrates the sophisticated way in which they were put forth In this work I argue that this late imperial style has at its root three dependent central concerns. The principal causal concern in its early development was the perceived need to proclaim the legitimacy of the heirs of Moteuczoma I. This followed the investiture controversy that gave birth to the 1469-1473 Tenochca-Tlatelolca civil war. Quotations of earlier works and the referencing of crucial dates and events in the reigns of Moteuczoma I and his predecessors were key to this visual strategy and made necessary the referential strategies employed by royal artists in the other two fundamental areas of concern At the center of the second concern were complex calendrical reckoning and a nascent interest in historical precision, the later required the use of date glyphs as well as individual ruler name-glyphs. The inclusion of auspicious dates allowed for depictions to simultaneously reference multiple past religio-historical milestones, present activities, and even forecast future propitious periods and events I then argue that it is this polysemy that is at the heart of the third concern of Aztec artists and patrons addressed in this study. Born of the performative nature of Aztec historical 'literature' this strategy also served, in a tautological way, to illustrate the divine nature and continued relevance of these works, as only divine inspiration could allow for such unrelenting complexity to be expressed with such visual economy / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_26209 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Contributors | Barnes, William Landon (Author), Boone, Elizabeth Hill (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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