Graphic and Photographic Documentation - Reed College

The author stresses the variable approaches of different photographs. She devotes 6
½ pages to the 19 th century explorer-photographers, with an especially instructive
reading of Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon. There are several references to Uxmal.
Howe contextualizes the photographs through discussion of the market and various
social and political movements. She notes that America’s ancient stones “serve as a
focus for conflicts over race, origins, national identity, spiritual meaning, and
indigenous rights” (p. 56). Maler’s unique 1891-1893, extremely wide angle albumen
silver print of the entire façade of the Governor’s Palace, Uxmal, is reproduced in her
chapter (fig. 10).
K
Kubler, George
Esthetic Recognition of Ancient Amerindian Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
Although Kabah and Sayil are not mentioned and Uxmal and Labná appear on only
one page, this book provides essential context for understanding early explorations,
drawings, photographs, prints, and publications of these four sites. The main body of
the text consists of brief accounts of some seventy persons, from Christopher
Columbus (1451-1506) to Wendell Clark Bennett (1905-1953), organized
chronologically. These include Brasseur, Charnay, Holmes, Stephens, Spinden,
Prokouriakoff, Seler, and Morley, whose work and ideas are essential to
understanding these four Puuc cities as they have deteriorated and been restored and
as we experience them today. As specified in the title, Kubler’s primary concern is to
trace changing attitudes in the ways in which ancient American objects have been
viewed esthetically. Since the esthetic character of Maya art and architecture is more
difficult to describe than such things as construction or the reading of hieroglyphics,
and since it is has not generally been considered an essential component of
archaeology or sometimes even of anthropology, Kubler’s contribution is especially
revealing.
Kutscher, Gerdt
Bauten der Maya: Edificios mayas. Edición póstuma a cargo de Gerdt Kutscher.
Monumenta Americana Herausgegeben vom Ibero-Amerikanischen Institut Preussischer
Kulkturbesitz Schriftleitung: Peter Masson, Vol. IV. Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1971.
L
Le Plongeon, Alice Dixon
Dr. Le Plongeon’s latest and most important discoveries among the ruined cities of Yucatan”.
Scientific American. Supplement 448 (3 August 1884): 7143-7144.
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