Aztec Art

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c. 1325 – 1521 · Americas · architecture, sculpture, painting · origin: Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

Imperial propaganda in stone: cosmos, sacrifice and the ruler's power carved in basalt

How to recognise it

• Massive basalt monoliths in relief
• Twin temples atop stepped pyramids
• Skulls, serpents and hearts as motifs
• Calendar signs and date glyphs
• Flat bright figures in screenfold codices

Why it emerged

Within a century the Mexica rose from island outcasts to masters of the Valley of Mexico, and art had to prove their right to rule. A religion that fed the sun with blood turned every statue and every rebuilding of the Great Temple into an act of keeping the world alive.

Examples

Templo Mayorc. 1325–1519Twin pyramid of Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, enlarged seven times; the centre of the Aztec worldAztec Sun Stonec. 1510A 24-tonne disc of the five world-suns; became an emblem of Mexican identityCoyolxauhqui Stonec. 1473Dismembered moon goddess at the temple's foot; its 1978 discovery launched the Templo Mayor digStone of Tizocc. 1485A sacrificial stone as chronicle: ruler Tizoc seizing the gods of conquered cities

More in this style

• c. 1520 Codex Borbonicus

Meanwhile elsewhere

• Byzantine art Europe
• Moorish style (al-Andalus) Europe
• Ife and Benin bronzes Africa
• Gothic Europe
• Persian miniature Middle East
• Ming and Qing Porcelain Asia
• Russian Icon Painting: Theophanes, Rublev, Dionisius Eastern Europe & Russia
• Italian Renaissance Europe
• Northern Renaissance Europe
• Inca Architecture Americas
• Classical Ottoman Architecture (Sinan) Middle East
• Mannerism Europe

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