A Survey of Ancient Peruvian Art. 323 



set it in sharp contrast to other Peruvian art-types. As a rule, ? ^' 

 the other Peruvian cultures are marked by conventionalization. 

 The Proto-Chimu, on the contrary, is comparatively free from 

 conventionalization and is marked by strong realism, especially 

 in the animal forms, ^'portraits" and "landscapes." In close 

 association with the elaborate modelling in the round went 

 painted decorations of a type always easy to identify. These 

 paintings were usually in dark reddish brown on a cream-colored 

 slip. In a few cases such colors as light red, orange and buff 

 were used in the vase-paintings. The outlines of the figures 

 are marked by a grace that is unusual in Peruvian art, and in 

 the grouping of the various scenes a striking command of the 

 principles of composition and grouping is displayed. Some of 

 the vase-paintings of this period partake of the nature of genre 

 painti™t, and they help us in no slight degree to reconstruct the 

 material culture and customs of the people whom they depict. 



It is but right to say here a word or two regarding the reasons 

 that have led Uhle, Joyce and several others to believe that the 

 Proto-Chimu and the Proto-Nasca are the earliest Peruvian arts. 

 The architecture associated with remains of this culture takes 

 the form of massive walls built up of large balls of clay placed 

 in position while still wet and allowed to dry in such a manner 

 that they partly ran together, thereby forming a solid mass 

 of material. Stratigraphic evidence proves that this architecture, 

 of which only a little is left, is the oldest.^ 



Reserving further comments on Proto-Chimu art for a later 

 page, we will now run over the outstanding features of Proto- 

 Nasca art, always bearing in mind the fact that it was probably 

 not only contemporaneous with Proto-Chimu but also closely 

 associated with it on ethnic grounds. 



Undoubtedly Proto-Nasca will, in time, serve more truly to 

 explain certain problems than will Proto-Chimu. At the same 

 time, regarded merely as an art, it is not so remarkable. It is 

 more like other Peruvian arts, for reasons that will later appear. 

 Unlike the Proto-Chimu, Proto-Nasca is not characterized by 

 graceful modelling and graceful painting. Rather, it sacrifices 

 both the form of the vessels and the lines of the paintings to a 

 remarkable wealth of coloration. To the novice, it is true, the 



^ Joyce, 1912, p. 179; Uhle, 1913, pp. 102-103; Means, 1917. 



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