A compact survey of the arts of pre-Columbian America from Mexico to Peru, illustrated with examples from the Denver Art Museum collection.

Pre-Columbian Art in the Denver Art Museum Collection

Young-Sánchez, Margaret

Denver Art Museum

Assembled almost entirely by Frederick and Jan Mayer, The Denver Art Museum's collection of ancient Costa Rican art is one of the finest and most comprehensive in the world, and it is a major component of the museum's acclaimed holdings in New World art. Nature and Spirit reveals to the modern world the richness and sophistication of indigenous thought and the incredible beauty of native art in the Americas.
Costa Rica boasts an astounding variety of wildlife. So it is not surprising that animals and supernatural human-animal hybrids are often depicted in the ornate gold, jade, stone, and ceramic objects fashioned by the region's ancient peoples. These treasures offer insights into the nature and spirit of their makers.
Generously illustrated and engagingly organized, Nature and Spirit is both an excellent introduction to Costa Rican art and an essential addition to any collection on native peoples of the Americas. Essays by art historians Margaret Young-Sánchez (Denver Art Museum) and Heather Orr (Western State College, Colorado), archaeologists Michael Snarskis (Costa Rica) and John Hoopes (University of Kansas), and anthropologist and linguist David Mora Marín (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) illuminate ancient Costa Rican artistic styles, as well as cultural and religious beliefs, and place the works in archaeological context.

Nature and Spirit: Ancient Costa Rican Treasures in the Mayer Collection at the Denver Art Museum

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

The Amazon Basin is now recognized as a cradle of cultural and technological innovation in the ancient Americas. It was there that the hemisphere’s earliest known ceramics (ca. 5000 b.c.) were produced. Located at the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil, Marajó Island was home to one of the region’s most populous and sophisticated ancient societies (a.d. 300–1300). Island chiefdoms built impressive mounds to support multifamily longhouses, ceremonial spaces, and cemeteries, and constructed channels, dams, and weirs to trap huge quantities of fish as the annual floodwaters receded. Aquaculture, rather than agriculture, provided the primary source of subsistence for the Marajó people. Their beautifully decorated ceramics reveal the skill and artistry of Amazonian potters and the complexity of their cosmology.
Lavishly illustrated, this volume presents ceramics from the Denver Art Museum, Barbier-Mueller Museums of Geneva and Barcelona, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, and private collections. Included are boldly painted burial urns, delicately incised figures, intricately carved and painted jars, bowls, and plates, and unique circular ceramic stools. Margaret Young-Sánchez and Denise Pahl Schaan’s essays describe Marajó culture, ceramics, and funerary practices. Maps and photographs round out this important contribution to South American art history and archaeology.

Marajó: Ancient Ceramics from the Mouth of the Amazon

Schaan, Denise Pahl

Showcases one of the most outstanding collections of pre-Columbian art ever assembled by a private collector that of G,rard Geiger. With comments from the world's most notable specialists on these civilizations, the publication provides access to this material, for the first time, to the public at large.

At the Heart of Precolumbian America: The Gérard Geiger Collection

Kerr, Justin

Joralemon, Peter D.

Pratt, Frances

5Continents

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Young-Sánchez, Margaret. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Young-Sánchez, Margaret

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Young-Sánchez, Margaret. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Pre-Columbian Art in the Denver Art Museum Collection

Nature and Spirit: Ancient Costa Rican Treasures in the Mayer Collection at the Denver Art Museum

Marajó: Ancient Ceramics from the Mouth of the Amazon

At the Heart of Precolumbian America: The Gérard Geiger Collection