A Survey of Ancient Peruvian Art (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Survey of Ancient Peruvian Art It will be the writer's endeavor to present in this paper a brief review of the various types of art to be found in pre-columbian Peru. The work is the fruit of some four years' study, two years of that period having been devoted to a systematic collec tion of data in various places and under the, direction of various people. As the main purpose will be to establish a basis for the classification of Peruvian art-objects, the study will be con fined to those regions where the form and stratigraphic relations of the various art-types that make up the sequence of cultures have been determined with a reasonable degree of precision. The reader is urged carefully to bear in mind the fact that many of the various types are to be found in regions far removed from those here to be specified. But in those regions which are far from the source of an art-type or culture new environmental and psychological conditions almost inevitably exercise an influ ence which results in profound modifications of the original type. The writer hopes that this paper will help to link certain of the Peruvian arts or cultures with certain types of objects from such regions as Ecuador, Eastern Bolivia, North - western Argen tina and Northern Chile. It may even be possible in time to gather material evidence which will conclusively prove the basic unity of all the more advanced types of art in aboriginal America. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.