A collection of ceramics, textiles, gold jewelry and metalwork from the permanent collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts provides a look at the way ancient Americans thought about the human body and soul, the museum says.
Most of the 50 works on show in "Art of the Ancient Americas: Body and Soul Transformed" are burial offerings from Central and South America. They include painted and modeled ceramic vessels from Mexico and Peru that convey a wealth of detail about how people lived.Textiles were the single most important art form for body adornment in the ancient Americas, according to the museum, and works on display show the sophisticated weaving technologies and intricately symbolic designs they incorporated.
Among the exhibition's examples of jewelry crafted of gold and other precious metals, considered sacred and powerful substances, are earrings, noseclips, pendants and brooches in the form of bats, frogs, pumas and humans.
The exhibition will continue through May 14, 1995.