10/20: Lima, Peru's Magnificent MALI Museum

As Lima’s museums were located in many different neighborhoods of the mammoth city unlike most cities where they are in the downtown core, we got a good sense of what the capital was like as we used public transportation to tour so many of the museums. We were luckily able to navigate the with comparative ease thanks to one person at the guesthouse.

First off, we took the El Metropolitano bus downtown to the Museo de Arte de Lima and known as MALI. When we got off the bus, we noticed the attractive Museum of Italian Art, one of many beautiful colonial buildings in the city’s center. Unfortunately, a dull haze didn’t show the buildings in their finest light.

The Courthouse was across the major intersection.

The blue-roofed building was the Institute for the Study of Military History.

The mammoth neoclassical art museum, built in 1871 as the Palacio de la Expedicion, was designed by an Italian architect and was one of the earliest buildings in the country with iron structures. Its metal columns came from the workshop of Gustav Eiffel who later built the famous tower in Paris. 

The museum’s grand entrance sported the colors of Peru’s flag.

These two murals were especially designed by Mariella Agois, a renowned Peruvian artist, for the large walls of the stairwell that led to to the Exhibition Palace's second floor. We read they were designed "to alter the perception of the museum's architectural space through the repetition of regular stripes and minimal chromatic variations."

The inhabitants of ancient Peru left a vast legacy that offered an understanding of their particular worldview. Despite the indisputable beauty of the pieces displayed in the galleries, they weren't created as works of art, nor were they purely decorative objects or depictions of actual customs. 

Generally, the pieces were conceived as symbols of power and elements for use in rituals of life and death. With very few exceptions, they were found at the burial sites of important individuals, whether as offerings to the gods or personal belongings which had been used during by the deceased in life and therefore could ease the journey to the afterlife.

To enlarge any photo, just click on it!

The journey to the afterlife and the relationship between the worlds of the living and the dead was one of the basic concerns of pre-Columbian society. 

Objects were created aimed at securing the benevolence of ancestors and gods to ensure political order, natural balance and social well being. Ceramics was a widely available medium that was the main component in the manufacture of ritual objects during pre-Columbian times. 

One of the areas in Peru we weren't able to on our trip was Nazca where a series of lines and figures that can only be seen from the air were drawn on the surface soil of Peru's coastal desert. 

Recent studies have suggested the lines were used as sacred sites for ceremonies related to the cult of water and fertility. Many of the geometric figures and figurative images depicted in the geoglyphs also appeared in Nazca ceramics.

More than fifty geometric motifs have been identified on Nazca ceramics, appearing individually or shown together. The elements most often depicted were stepped triangles, steps with spirals, spirals and zigzag lines. Though the meaning of the motifs hasn't yet been deciphered, they may have been a type of shorthand for creatures or objects found in the Nazca iconographic system.

These Nazca cups, dated from 100-650 AD, depicted snakes, fish and stepped motifs.

Andean man conceived of certain elements as having a sacred significance, investing them with divine powers. For example, the mountain or 'apus' had the power to watch over people and protect them or act as borders between different territories. In Mochia ceramics, the mountains were depicted as the setting of supernatural events, ritual sites or representations of the landscape. While some of the pieces we saw featured divine beings watching over sacrificial ceremonies, others showed animals embodying sacred attributes.

FYI: There will be references to both Nazca ceramics and pottery from the Mochia period in future posts!

In the Textile Gallery, we read that they served as indicators of status in life and death and featured elements taken from nature as well as supernatural beings and human figures. 

The headdresses, earpieces and other elements in the images told of the high rank of those who wore them and of the power associated with divinities.

Archaeologists have proved that some of the textiles were produced to accompany the deceased into the afterlife. They formed part of the 'grave goods' as textiles to wrap the body, as objects placed beside the body as well as decorations for the tomb. 

One of the museum’s highlights was the collection of 2,000 year old weavings from Paracas.

The colors and intricacy of the design were absolutely exquisite.

Because of the arid climate along Peru's coast, many textiles were preserved which made them the oldest and most continuous artistic tradition in the Andes. They included tunics, loincloths, turbans, belts and hats made in a variety of techniques which indicated the gender and ethnic identity of those who wore them

The conical hat had many geometric designs indicative of the Nazca lines.

A set of seven fiber balls and a spindle whorl with threads dating from 1100-1400 AD:

Among the most spectacular designs of pre-Columbian art, one stood out for its geometric patterns. While it initially appeared to be a purely abstract image, this textile fragment from 1100-1400 AD was later determined to be a stylized version of interlocking fish and snake heads.

Peru's Inca empire emerged in the 15th century barely 100 years before the European conquest. Despite its short duration, the empire integrated the knowledge of preceding peoples and expanded its domain from present-day Ecuador and Colombia to northwest Argentina. In its capital of Cusco and in the conquered territories, Inca power made itself felt through a distinctive architectural style based on carved stone blocks, an integrated system of roads, an organized structure of agricultural terraces and a formal language that gave priority to geometric shapes and elements of nature.

Official Inca art was a way of consolidating the empire's expansion from Cusco into conquered territories. Thousands of artisans were sent to provincial administration centers to supply items of worship through the production of ceramics and textiles. 

The Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 resulted in the disappearance of many pre-Columbian art forms and the imposition of Western art. 

The new colonial society saw the introduction of an artistic language based on images taken from reality as opposed to the essentially abstract and geometric nature of Inca art.

The presence of European artists led to the growing importance of local masters as well as the emergence of two main artistic traditions or 'schools' based in Lima and Cusco.

Probably originating in the Titicaca region of southern Peru and northern Bolivia (an area you'll read about in a much later post!), keros were ceremonial cups with tall sides which had a special importance in Andean societies during the pre-Columbian period. Due to their ritual use, they were generally produced in pairs.

During the colonial period, when the Spanish court recognized the noble rank of a number of descendants of the Inca rulers, they were given special status with regard to the rest of the Indian population.

These paintings depicted the genealogy of the Incas:

Although colonial painting took inspiration from European models, differences gradually emerged that gave it a distinct character. 

Subjects neglected or scarcely explored in Europe, like the old depiction of The Trinity below, achieved great popularity in Peru while other subjects were the product of local inventiveness! 

Paintings from the Cusco 'School' done in the first half of the 17th century:

The splendor of art in Cusco consolidated in 1673 with the arrival of Bishop Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo from Madrid who owned a notable collection of Spanish paintings. They proved to be a major influence on local artists such as the indigenous painter Basilio de Santa Cruz. 

The flourishing art scene finally helped shape a local style characterized by extreme idealization and an ornamental spirit expressed through the use of surface gilding which became famous in cities as far away as Santiago and Buenos Aires.

In the Silver Gallery, we learned that the discovery of Cerro Rico or Rich Mountain in Potosi, Bolivia, determined the early surge of silver mining. Through the forced labor of thousands of Indians, the region saw a wave of silver production that had no precedents in modern history. South American silver not only supported the Spanish monarchy but also radically changed the world economy. 

As a result, there was a renewed cultural unity in the southern Andean region. The wealth and originality of silver objects was one of the most vital expressions of this regional culture. Silver became the symbol of the Viceroyalty of Peru, a Spanish colonial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained most of Spanish-ruled South America and was governed from Lima. 

This Andean lectern, i.e. where the Catholic missal was placed, dated from 1670 and included angels, foliage, pomegranates, etc.

Rarely have we seen upright lions like this beautiful pair created from 1730-1790.

Going from the ceramics of the pre-colonial period to the Cusco school and even silver was an easy progression in the museum. But leaping from those themes and periods to the inception of photography in the mid-19th century was like traveling through a time machine for me! Commercial painters were hired to give life to black and white images. A genre of art that flourished at the turn of the 20th century in Peru's major cities was oil-painted photographs which I had never seen before.

Photo sculptures or cutout figures that played with volume, became internationally famous in the first decade of the 20th century but they largely disappeared by the 1920s. 

This was an enlargement of an oil-painted photograph done in 1917. The photo looked like so much like a painting but was made from applied pastels before oils were added.

The proclamation of independence in 1821 announced the end of Spanish domination. As a result, local society became more secularized and art genres changed to include more portraiture of the new ruling class and the emergence of a generation of painters trained in Europe. The activity of these artists was a total break with colonial art. 

In the 1920s, a search for a national art called Indigenism was spearheaded by Jose Sabogal who promoted the recovery of the Indian and an idealized rural world. In the 1930s, Peruvian artists began to include coastal and Amazonian motifs as part of a broader and more integrated vision of the country.

This painting called Huanca Indian was created in 1932.

The painter Camino Brent became one of the first followers of the indigenism movement. Several of his works reflected the painter's fascination with the magical elements of religiosity in the rural Andean world. It was possible to see the worship of Christ in this painting created in 1937.

On the museum's main floor in a darkened room were two magical tapestries now in Lima after being repatriated from the Gothenburg Museum in Sweden. Many pre-colonial objects from the Paracas culture (800 BC to 500 AD) were illicitly transported to private collections outside Peru and some eventually landed up in museums around the world.

It was so gratifying to learn that years of intense debate and negotiations resulted in the safe return of the textiles to their rightful home in Peru. 

Steven and I spent well more than two hours wandering around the MALI's breathless collections of pre-Columbian and colonial art. We were both impressed with how well the exhibitions were curated and, unlike the majority of museums around the world we’ve been to, the English translations beside the works were in perfect English. They added immensely to our understanding and appreciation of how Lima society shaped the art style of the world and was in turn shaped by it.

At the beginning of the post, I wrote that the museum had formerly been the site for the Palacio de la Expedicion. The museum was located in the large Parque de la Exposición which contained many beautiful buildings which were constructed for the Lima International Exhibition of 1872. We spent just a short time strolling through the park and admiring the buildings.

The Byzantine Pavilion:

A view of MALI from the park:

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get the name of this monument.

Lima had very few green spaces and gardens so it was a treat seeing these flowers in the park.

Next post: Gold & Erotic Art at Lima’s Museo Larco

Posted on December 19th, 2017, from Mexico City.