Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks

 ( Book Product ) 

Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks presents the Olmec portion of the Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art

• Olmec Art At Dumbarton Oaks available on November 22 2021 from Indigo for 81.5
  
• ISBN bar code 9780884022756 ξ4 registered November 22 2021
  
• ISBN bar code 9780884022756 ξ1 registered September 22 2015
  
• ISBN bar code 9780884022756 ξ3 registered February 27 2015
  
• ISBN bar code 9780884022756 ξ2 registered August 23 2012
  
• Product category is Book

• Sku # 978088402275
  

It illustrates all thirty-nine Olmec art objects in color plates and includes many complementary and comparative black-and-white illustrations and drawings. The body of Pre-Columbian art that Robert Bliss carefully assembled over a half-century between 1912 and 1963, amplified only slightly since his death, is a remarkably significant collection. In addition to their aesthetic quality and artistic significance, the objects hold much information regarding the social worlds and religious and symbolic views of the people who made and used them before the arrival of Europeans in the New World. This volume is the second in a series of catalogues that will treat objects in the Bliss Pre-Columbian Collection. The majority of the Olmec objects in the collection are made of jade, the most precious material for the peoples of ancient Mesoamerica from early times through the sixteenth century. Various items such as masks, statuettes, jewelry, and replicas of weapons and tools were used for ceremonial purposes and served as offerings. Karl Taube brings his expertise on the lifeways and beliefs of ancient Mesoamerican peoples to his study of the Olmec objects in teh Bliss collection. His understanding of jade covers a broad range of knowledge from chemical compositions to geological sources to craft technology to the symbolic power of the green stone. Throughout the book the author emphasizes the role of jade as a powerful symbol of water, fertility, and particularly, of the maize plant which was the fundamental source of life and sustenance for the Olmec. The shiny green of the stone was analogous to the green growth of maize. This fundamental concept was elaborated in specific religious beliefs, many of which were continued and elaborated by later Mesoamerican peoples, such as the Maya. Karl Taube employs his substantial knowledge of Pre-Columbian cultures to explore and explicate Olmec symbolism in this catalogue.

^ Karl A. Taube (2004). Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks ISBN 9780884022756 (revised Sep 2015)
^ Karl A. Taube (2012). 9780884022756, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. ISBN 9780884022756 (revised May 2014)
^ Karl A. TaubeOlmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks by Karl A. Taube (2004, Hardcover) ISBN 9780884022756 (revised Apr 2015)
^ Olmec Art At Dumbarton Oaks Indigo. ISBN 9780884022756 (revised Nov 2021)