Читать книгу The Codex Mendoza: new insights онлайн

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Building on Robertson’s observations, Kathleen Steward Howe (1992), who studied the codex as a member of the research group that produced the outstanding four volume study edited by Patricia Rieff Anawalt and Frances F. Berdan (1992), agreed on the presence of a single master painter. However, she suggested that he could have worked in a workshop, since variation in the technique of color application indicated that colors could have been applied by different collaborators (Howe 1992, 26). She noted that, even if the colors are mostly flat washes in Part 1, a brown color has been superimposed on an underlying yellow layer on the temples’ thatches (28). In Part 2, yellow and blue are always applied as flat washes, reds and yellows are blended to produce an “amber color”, and green is shaded to indicate modeling in warrior costumes and feathers; according to her interpretation, this green shading is a European trait. Howe also noted that the black frame lines were always painted before coloring, while the black elements within costumes were traced before the color if the costume is blue or orange, but after if the color is yellow or red. In her opinion, such details show that a group of people, working in a specific order, painted the manuscript. According to her observations, the painter who used the black color did not paint any other area and the painters who applied the colors were mostly acting according to pre-colonial modes; only the one who painted the green color seemed to be more influenced by European modes, maybe because he or she was younger in age. She observed that the same collective work was performed in Part 3, where the figures show a more evident volumetric intention. The men’s mantles, for example, show grey shades traced by the same painter who traced the frame lines of the drawing (presumably the principal artist) (28-29). In her words, “The use of color in the Codex Mendoza reflects both indigenous conventions and European conventions. The consistent use of a particular system of color application for individual pigments indicates a workshop system. The choice of the system of pigment application made by individuals within the workshop would seem to reflect the strength of their tie to the indigenous manuscript tradition rather than the newly introduced European system” (29). Nevertheless, “The amalgam of European and indigenous elements produced by the Mendoza artist speaks eloquently of both the speed of acculturation and resilience of the pictorial manuscript tradition” (25).