Hard People, Stark Beauty

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Curator Solis' vision of the Aztec Empire is widely inclusive, as was the empire itself. The Aztecs were curious about the cultures that had preceded them, like the Olmec, Toltec and Teotihuacan, and they conducted archeological digs among the ruins of those civilizations to retrieve prized art and artifacts, which then influenced their own work. As their empire expanded, they also eagerly appropriated the artistic styles and techniques of neighboring cities and provinces. The exhibition offers many striking pieces as examples of that cultural scavenging, such as an intricate Olmec warrior's cuirass of oyster shell and mother of pearl, circa 900-1200, and a startlingly vital Teotihuacan funerary mask, circa 450, with its bright inlay of turquoise and piercing obsidian eyes.

In the 1520s, the Aztec Empire abruptly succumbed to Cortes' conquistadors and the smallpox and typhus they carried with them. The triumphant Spaniards smashed and buried a great deal of Aztec art, melted down the jewelry for its gold and imposed a militant Catholicism on the Aztecs' myths and rituals. But even in the sanctioned new style of religious art, the Aztecs made sure that their traditional iconography showed through the overlay of Christian symbols. A case in point: an exquisite chalice lid, circa 1540, one of the few surviving examples of the Aztecs' refined handiwork with feathers. The design refers to holy water, yet the spurt rising from the head's open jaws is not only the blood of Christ but also unmistakably evokes the primordial sea of Aztec creation myths.

Obdurate people, the Aztecs, and their art is obdurate too. Even the most shapely and decorative works have a rooted, almost defiant density about them. As art historian Beatriz de la Fuente writes in one of the catalog essays, their "confidence is absolute ... an expression of power, of the certainty that this people will be defined forever as who they are now." And not just the people. The Aztecs never doubted their aesthetic grasp of an entire cosmos, coherent if terrifying, and in this exhibition we never do either.