Word: pre-columbian
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...flourished in Latin America before Columbus, gold was absolutely sacred. The Aztecs of Central Mexico called it "teocuit latl," (the excrement of the gods). The Incas of Peru thought of it as the "sweat of the sun." The metal was so plentiful and easy to work that the pre-Columbian Indians used it to make earrings, pendants, funerary masks, drinking vessels, furniture, and even entire artificial gardens. In fact, they used the gold they loved so much for practically everything but money; for that, they chose humbler commodities like beans...
More interested in bullion than beauty, the Spanish conquistadores who overran the Indians in the 16th century systematically plundered all the golden artifacts they could find, either converting them to ingots on the spot or shipping them to Spain to be melted down. As a result, pre-Columbian objets d'art are so rare that any display of them is a notable event...
Critics have said that some patterns show Pre-Columbian influence, but Mirko denies this. And Mirko's patterns are less mazy and diffuse than those of often hallucination-inspired Pre-Columbian...
...unique style thus developed under the tutelage of immigrant European craftsmen became known as mestizo (half-breed). It incorporated Christian and pre-Columbian conventions and beliefs, even included Oriental designs (copied from wares that had been imported via Pacific trade routes). The results were too precocious to pass for primitive, and not subtle enough to claim genuine sophistication. But as two current displays of post-Columbian Peruvian art testify, at its best the mestizo style was both lyrical and inventive (see color opposite...
...display, they range from a turquoise pre-Columbian mask from the Mixtec culture of Mexico (A.D. 1220) to a bargain Rembrandt, An Old Man Praying. The Rembrandt was picked up for an estimated $500,000 because other buyers were distracted by the painting's murky appearance (Cleveland has since removed the layers of umber-tinted varnish, bringing the Rembrandt back to mint condition, and dumbfounding Dutch experts who had seen it before and after cleaning). Even choicer to the connoisseur's eye are Cleveland's two ivories and, rarest of all, an engraving by Antonio Pollaiuolo...