STONE

Carving into stone has become through history a major category in Art. In the early civilizations, such as in the culture of Teotihuacan in Mesoamerica, this art was considered an artisanal activity, which required trained skills and formation. These craftsmen, who worked these material created; decorative objects, ritual objects, religious and politic symbolic objects.  Furthermore, from the Preclassic until the Postclassic period, the people from Teotihuacan used great quantities of metamorphic rock. They also used many other different types of stones, for example; Sandstone, Limestone, Basalt, Greenstone (which was prized with great symbolic value and was related to fertility), and the most important of all the stones was the Obsidian. The craftsmen worked the Obsidian rock, turning it into vital utensils such as knives and points.

However, the main techniques the workmen used were PERCUSSION, CUT, PERFORATION and SMOOTHING. For example, basalt trowels were used to polish. Other relevant tools were; chisels of flint, scalpel of semiprecious stones and wedges of bone and wood were some of the tools used to carve the forms of the objects. The difficulty in the elaboration of this work came with long hours of hard work. In addition, this could support the idea that the works were done for the “élite”.

Moving on to visual forms, one can see that the predominant forms, in what concerns to “Stone”, are the geometrical and abstract forms. For example, the “Jaguar emerging from a plumed portal with stars associated with the planet Venus” which is made out of; stone, stucco and pigments. One can observe the different parts of the sculpture and note that each of the parts are geometric. For instance, its mouth is a clear rectangle with carved, low relief, details such as teeth and lips. Also, the fact that some of its parts are polychrome makes it easier to identify the proper forms. 


Gabriela Valero