Ekphrasis and Cultural Discourse: Coatlicue in Descriptive and

Ekphrasis and Cultural Discourse:
Coatlicue in Descriptive and Analytic Texts
Luz Aurora Pimentel
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Abstract
Coatlicue, la diosa azteca de la vida y la muerte ha sido objeto de muchas
descripciones e interpretaciones con un fuerte sentido de identidad cultural e histórica
para México. Creo que una suerte de ejercicio metalingüístico, incluso de tipo
ecfrástico, capaz de someter semejantes descripciones a un escrutinio analítico de los
modelos descriptivos empleados en la representación verbal de Coatlicue podrían
dibujar interesantes figuras ideológicas en el proceso mismo de la descripción e
interpretación de un objeto cultural tan complejo y enigmático como lo es esta
misteriosa deidad de la vida y de la muerte. Para este propósito he elegido dos
importantes e influyentes textos que examinaré de manera comparativa: uno del gran
arqueólogo y crítico de arte, Justino Fernández; el otro del gran poeta, Octavio Paz.
Dos miradas, dos mundos, un monolito que hace mundo y nos habla de un mundo
extinto.
Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess of life and death, has been the object of many descriptions
and interpretations that have led to a sense of cultural identity for Mexico. I believe that
a sort of metalinguistic, even ekphrastic, exercise that subjects these descriptions to an
analytic scrutiny of the descriptive models employed in the verbal representation of
Coatlicue will yield interesting ideological formations in the process of rendering and
trying to account for as complex a cultural object as the mysterious goddess of death
and life. For this purpose two influential texts will be examined, one by a very important
archaeologist and art critic, Justino Fernández; the other by the great poet, Octavio
Paz. Two visions, two worlds, one monolith, itself a world that speaks of a bygone
world.
Originalmente, este trabajo fue leído como ponencia en el coloquio Literary Histories
and the Development of Identities. Department of Spanish and Italian, Queen’s
University, septiembre 28, 2001 (por invitación). Más tarde fue considerablemente
ampliado y publicado en Neohelicon. Acta Comparationis Literarum Universarum
XXX (2003) 1, 61-75
Ekphrasis and Cultural Discourse:
Coatlicue in Descriptive and Analytic Texts
La realidad, una vez más, sin cesar de ser lo que vemos,
se muestra como aquello que está más allá de lo que
vemos.
Octavio Paz
This will be, in more than one sense, “a twice told tale;” a tale about an enigma, about a
curious search for identity; about a stone, deciphered as the representation of the Aztec
earth goddess, goddess of life and death, of germination and decay; mother of
Huitzilopochtli, the war god; mother of all of us who are alive: Coatlicue, our mother?!
All those who have grappled with her inevitably start at the same underground
beginning: the unearthing of the Earth goddess. On August 13th, 1790, according to
León y Gama’s narrative of the events 1 , in the main square of Mexico City, a huge,
carved monolith was excavated. The very dimensions of this stone block—height: 2.50
m., width: 1.60 m.—turned the event into a feat of engineering as it was transported to
the Real y Pontificia Universidad de México, where it was placed in the same room that
had been allotted to some newly acquired Greco-Roman casts—a strange statuesque
cohabitation indeed! There it remained for some time, an object of colonial repulsion
and fear, until clerics and scholars proclaimed the old Earth goddess was a high risk:
she might rekindle pagan idolatry! Therefore, the colossal monster was buried again.
Nevertheless, its verbal brother—León y Gama’s description—remained above, thrived,
and travelled far and wide. Translated into other languages, it was in its Italian version
1
Antonio León y Gama, Descripción histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras que con ocasión del
nuevo empedrado que se está formando en la Plaza Principal de México, se hallaron en ella el año de
1790. México, 179. Cited in Fernández, 113.
1
that Alexander von Humboldt came across it. The description of the sacred “monster”
lingered in the German scholar’s imagination, so that in 1830, during one of his travels
to Mexico, he insisted on seeing the “horrible simulacrum.” So he persuaded the bishop
of Monterrey to exert his influence on the university authorities to have the monolith
unearthed again for his inspection.
Lo vimos acostado, y es cierto que asombra la enorme masa de este coloso,
antiguamente suspendido en el aire. Acompañé al obispo a su convento y luego
regresé a la universidad para contemplar aquel coloso una vez más; pero él había
vuelto a ver la luz del día por tan sólo 20 minutos, pues cuando yo llegué ya lo
habían enterrado de nuevo. Según dice el público malintencionado, la
universidad teme que si este monstruo es expuesto ante sus ojos, los jóvenes se
entreguen a la idolatría. En la plaza de Popayán fue destruido un ídolo, ¡porque
aullaba durante las tormentas!
[We saw him lying down, and, true, the huge mass of this colossus—once
suspended in the air—is amazing. I accompanied the bishop to his convent and
then went back to the university in order to contemplate the colossus once more,
but he had seen the light of day for just 20 minutes; when I arrived, he had been
buried again. Rumour has it that if this monster is displayed, young people might
give themselves up to idolatry. In Popayán Square an idol was destroyed…
because it howled during storms!] 2 (Zea, 11-12)
For years Coatlicue continued to be buried. Early in the XXth century it was
unearthed again but displayed with shame, because it was considered an aesthetic
monstrosity. Nowadays she has a place of honour, at the entrance of the Aztec section
of the Museo de Antropología e Historia (see fig. 1)—itself a work of architectural art.
As Octavio Paz says, the evolution of Coatlicue goes “from goddess to devil, from devil
to monster, and from monster to masterpiece” (“de diosa a demonio, de demonio a
monstruo y de monstruo a obra maestra”), and yet, in spite of all these changes she is
still the same block of stone vaguely shaped as a human body (1994, 76).
For more than a century, León y Gama’s appreciations were echoed in the many
descriptions of the monolith, constantly calling her a “monster” or a “horrible
2
Unless otherwise stated, translation of texts into English is mine.
2
Figure 1. Coatlicue (photo by Michel Zabé), Imágenes del Museo Nacional de
Antropología. Número especial de la revista Arqueología mexicana. México,
s/f.
3
simulacrum.” Furthermore, it may be noticed that in Humboldt’s description the statue
is always referred to as “he;” in fact, originally its name was not even Coatlicue but
Teoyamiqui (giver of death); others have called him/her/it Tlazeolotl, god(dess) of trash
and decay; yet others have identified him/her/it with Huitzilopchtli, the Aztec war god. 3
Be it as it may, the seemingly ill-assorted array of representational items
sculpted on this block of stone—claws, eyes, fangs, skulls, different kinds of snakes,
rattles, hands, hearts, feathers…—turns this monolith into a veritable iconotext, for the
myriad of heterogeneous objects represented in a fairly realistic manner are to be read as
hieroglyphs, as signs in which a synthesis of all the Aztec pantheon and cosmology is to
be found.
Thus, it is the many “lithoreadings” that have finally fixed her name and sex for
us: due to the many serpents that surround her, figuratively interpreted as a “skirt,” she
has been named Coatlicue Mayor (Coatlicue = “she with the serpent skirt”); other
gender markers are the two sagging stone protuberances in the “trunk,” interpreted as
her “breasts.” Though this of course does not do away with the generic ambiguity, for
this part of her body, with the cut skin at the neck, incorporates Xipe Totec, the god of
germination and liberation, who is always dressed with the skin of the flayed sacrificial
victim. He/she(it?)-Coatlicue might be wearing the skin of a sacrificed virgin. Once an
3
In his description of Mexican museums, Frederick Ober (1887, 306) quotes Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s
narrative of the objects that Moctezuma showed him and Cortés, one of which was the war god
Huitzilopchtli. The description of this sculpture fairly corresponds to Coatlicue, hence the attribution
of the name to the stone block in question. Many of the details, however, alongside the fantastic
bedecking of the idol do not correspond to Coatlicue, hence the confusion of identities. “This figure
[Huitzilopochtli] was entirely covered with gold and jewels, and his body bound with golden serpents;
in his right hand he held a bow, and in his left a bundle of arrows. The great idol had round his neck
figures of human heads and hearts made of pure gold and silver, ornamented with precious stones of a
blue color” (306). As may be observed, there is no mention of the striking twin-serpent head, or of the
necklace of hands. There are no heads around her neck, but that could be accounted for by theft since
they are reported as being made of pure gold. Most significant, however, is that there is no mention of
her sagging “breasts”—unless of course the detail was lost to perception in that maelstrom of chaotic
items.
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academic end was imposed on those endless debates, nowadays her name and sex are
fixed; the eyes that contemplate her no longer see her purely as an object of revulsion
and fear, nor is she perceived as the “terrifying image,” the “horrible simulacrum” that
León y Gama described, terms that continued to be repeated well into the second half of
the XXth century. New poetic and scholarly descriptions, analyses, and interpretations
have reshaped her for our contemplation.
The erudite historical and anthropological discourse about Coatlicue has shaped
both the eyes of our body and those of our mind, so that we have learned to “see” her
through the filter of the many descriptions and interpretations about her. Now, it so
happens that these descriptions fit all the characteristic features of that rhetorical figure
called ekphrasis—defined as the verbal representation of a visual representation—
textual features such as the interaction between the ekphrastic text and the verbal
context surrounding it, in the interpretation of the plastic object which is nothing else
but the attribution of meaning stemming from textual re-presentations and reconstructions of the plastic object. One may say that, in general, the ekphrastic text is
guided by the ideological principles that inform the verbal context in which it appears,
modifying our perception and interpretation of the plastic object which it is supposed to
“re-present” verbally.
Theoretical work on ekphrasis has not dealt with this textual phenomenon as a
meaningful, integral part of essays and scholarly articles on works of art. Perhaps this is
because the supposed “objectivity” of such scholarly works is taken for granted,
presuming that what is interpreted is the plastic object itself, while the ekphrastic text
would just be a transitive vehicle towards the analysis of the plastic object. I believe the
reverse is true. In fact, the ekphrastic text in critical and analytical essays, just as much
as in narrative or poetry, modifies our perception of the plastic object, reorganizes and
5
orients our gaze according to the values established by the verbal text, which in turn
operates as a filter in the selection of the details that will go into the description. It is my
contention that the basis for the interpretation of the work of art is, in the end, not the
plastic object as such but its ekphrastic other. Thus, in order to explore the hermeneutic
and analytic possibilities of what may well be called critical or academic ekphrasis, I
have chosen to examine two contrasting, highly influential views of Coatlicue: the
prestigious art critic and archaeologist, Justino Fernández’ essay, “Coatlicue,” and
Octavio Paz’ “El arte de México: material y sentido.” Two tales about the monster
transformed into a work of art; two tales transforming this block of carved stone into a
powerful icon of cultural identity.
Harmonious, beautiful Coatlicue
In his vast scholarly work on prehispanic art and especially in his book-length essay on
Coatlicue, Justino Fernández gives us the most comprehensive review and analysis of
this work of art; he orchestrates his extraordinary erudition about Aztec religion, ritual,
and myth with the heterogeneous objects that have been carved into the monolith that
we now know as Coatlicue. As we read his essay we realize that the ideological stance
that orients his analytical and hermeneutical work is the belief in the supreme
rationality of the sculpture. Fernández is intent, from beginning to end, in debunking
the cultural myth of Coatlicue’s monstrosity and of the Aztecs’ supposed primitivism
and irrationality; all his descriptive and analytic work is therefore oriented towards
proving and demonstrating not only the rationality but the beauty of Coatlicue, based on
traditional—Western—notions of harmony and proportion. For this purpose he
mobilizes descriptive models of high rationality in order to organize and arrange
hierarchically all the apparently chaotic elements that conform the statue. He resorts to
6
three basic structures: the proportions of the human body and two geometric forms, the
cross and the triangle.
El escultor consiguió expresar a maravilla un mundo de formas dinámicas, pero
domeñado, limitado por dos grandes estructuras fundamentales: la cruciforme y
la “piramidal.” Dominio del inte1ecto y de la razón, estrechamente relacionados
con la concepción religiosa, sobre un mundo de fuerzas caóticas y misteriosas,
que acaba por ser ordenado y claro en su concepción —rígida y dinámica a la
vez— y por lo tanto en su expresión formal. No es una mentalidad “prelógica” la
que concibió a Coatlicue, por el contrario, sus estructuras son de una clara lógica
y sus formas de una sensibilidad vigorosa y altamente imaginativas. Tiene todos
los caracteres, para nosotros, de una obra de arte cabal y grandiosa.
En una concepción tan rigurosa como es Coatlicue, de tan profundo sentido
religioso, ninguno de sus elementos principales puede tener origen en el azar,
sino que tiene una razón de ser como son y de estar donde están. Así, es
necesario tomar en cuenta cada uno de ellos.
Que en Coatlicue hay una referencia a la forma general del cuerpo humano, no
cabe la menor duda y puede decirse que tiene: pies, piernas, tórax, pecho,
espalda, brazos y cabeza, que son sus partes integrantes. Ahora bien, que casi
todos esos elementos se hayan, digamos, substituido por otros simbólicos, no
altera su orden fundamental, ni mucho menos lo altera el que sus proporciones
no sean “naturales.” Veamos cuáles son ésas que he llamado, por ahora,
“substituciones.”
En la zona primera, los que debieran ser pies, son garras de águila, con cuatro
grandes uñas, sobre las cuales sendos pares de ojos parecen ver hacia lo alto.
Una gruesa serpiente preciosa, cubierta de un entrelazado rectangular en cuyos
intersticios hay chapetones circulares, al centro y entre las garras, surge sinuosa
bajo la falda mostrando sus colmillos. También bajo la falda y a los lados
exteriores de las piernas, salen dos largos manojos de plumas (...) En la parte
posterior y entre las garras, que ahora tienen una sola enorme uña, asoma otra
cabeza de serpiente, o de tortuga, mostrando sus colmillos, bajo el colgaje que
pende y que le oculta los ojos y parte de la cabeza; quizá sus ojos, dislocados,
son los que se encuentran sobre las garras (...) (118)
(..) De esa manera las tres estructuras fundamentales de Coatlicue: la cruciforme,
la “piramidal” y la humana forman unidad indivisible, puesto que cada una de
ellas es necesaria a las otras dos. El simbolismo explica el orden cósmico
inflexible y dinámico que al ser visto como mito esencial y como orden
religioso, da sentido a la existencia humana. (124)
[The sculptor achieved a masterly expression of a world of dynamic forms, yet
tamed, confined by two great fundamental structures: the cruciform and the
“pyramidal.” This shows the power of intellect and reason—intimately linked to
the religious conception—over a world of mysterious and chaotic forces, which
results in the order and clarity of its conception—both rigid and dynamic—and,
therefore, in the order and clarity of its formal expression. The mind that
conceived Coatlicue is not “pre-logic;” quite the contrary, its structures evince a
clear logic; its shapes, a vigorous and highly imaginative sensibility. It has, for
us, all the attributes of a full-fledged, great work of art.
Given the rigour with which Coatlicue was conceived, given its deep religious
sense, it is not possible that any of its elements was left to chance; each has a
reason for being as it is, and for being where it is. Therefore, it is necessary to
7
account for each of them.
There is not the slightest doubt that in Coatlicue there is a reference to the
schematic form of the human body, and so, one can say that it has feet, legs,
trunk, back, arms, and head as its constitutive elements. Now, granted that
almost all of these have been replaced, so to speak, by other symbolic elements;
this, nonetheless, does not alter its fundamental order, nor is it altered by the fact
that its proportions are not “natural.” Let us now examine what I have
provisionally called the “replacements.”
In the first zone, where the feet ought to be, there are eagle claws, with four
great nails, over which corresponding pairs of eyes seem to gaze upward.
Between the eagle claws, writhing from under the skirt and showing its fangs, a
thick, precious serpent emerges; it is covered with a trellised rectangle, with
circular plates in its interstices. Two bundles of long feathers also emerge from
under the skirt (…) On her back, and between the claws that have now one
single enormous nail, there lurks the head of another snake or turtle, showing its
fangs under the hanging skirt that hides its eyes and part of its head; perhaps its
displaced eyes are the ones lying on its claws (…)
Thus, the three fundamental structures of Coatlicue—the cruciform, the
pyramidal, and the human—constitute an indivisible unit, for each one is
necessary to the other two. Its symbolism explains an inflexible, dynamic cosmic
order, which, seen as essential myth and as religious order, confers meaning to
human existence.]
As may be observed, the human body and the abstract geometric forms are
privileged as guiding principles in this description; they literally come to the foreground
and help to organize and shape our perception of this stone block. Furthermore, all the
elements are organized and hierarchized in terms of strict spatial models; Fernández
starts his description of the “feet” and proceeds upwards in an orderly manner. These
structures—as so many cases or pigeon-holes ordering the heterogeneity of the details—
anchor the chaotic and the centrifugal into neat, rational boxes. “Where the feet ought to
be” we find claws with eyes on them, but because we have been trained to see this
section of the statue as “feet,” we rationalize the literally displaced, eccentric position of
the eyes. Our amazement at finding eyes where feet should be is thus tamed; so is the
weird, writhing serpent between the two “feet”, how is that to be read in terms of the
human form? As a supplementary “foot”? But then, from under the skirt (the appeasing
human form once more) “feathers also emerge.” How are we to see this (and seeing is
interpreting)? As wings? Nonetheless, our reason is satisfied because everything is
8
ordered according to a rational form, and we also think of the plumed serpent that has
been turned into a trite, almost banal symbol of mexicanity. Most of all, however, we
are satisfied by the rational, harmonious correspondences (see figs. 2 & 3).
Fernández superimposes the cross and the ideal triangle on the statue in order to
appreciate the rationality of its construction; yet, too much of the right half of that ideal
triangle is left empty and not all of the left half is filled by this petrified geometry Still,
Fernández’ superposed geometric structures end up modifying our perception of
Coatlicue: when we next see her at the entrance of the Museum we’ll see, palimpsestlike, those lines conferring her harmony, rationality; we’ll see the pyramid if we look at
her sideways, but most of all, we’ll see the human form first and foremost, even though
“she” has eyes on her “feet,” hands around her “neck,” two heads that make up one;
eyes in the front and in the back, so we are at a loss to ascertain which is which…
Figure 2. Justino Fernández’ drawings of Coatlicue (115).
9
Figure 3. Justino Fernández’ drawings of Coatlicue (115).
Fernández’ next move is to connect his rational structure to Aztec myth:
unexpectedly, the dynamics of the centrifugal movement is resumed. Each realistically
represented item—serpents, fangs, hands, claws, feathers—is a sign to be read on the
cosmic text of the Aztecs’ complex religion. A case in point is a quoted passage from
the creation myth describing the goddess of earth in terms that are strongly contrasting
and especially illuminating of the organizing role that the human body has in
Fernández’ description of Coatlicue.
Los dos grandes dioses, Tezcatlipoca y Quetzalcóatl, hicieron bajar del cielo a la
señora de la Tierra. Era un monstruo grandioso, lleno de ojos y bocas en todas
sus coyunturas. En cada articulación de sus miembros tenía una boca y con sus
bocas sin número mordía, cual muerden las bestias. El mundo está lleno de agua,
cuyo origen nadie sabe. Por el agua iba y venía el gran Monstruo de la Tierra.
Cuando la vieron los dioses, uno a otro dijeron: Es necesario dar a la Tierra su
forma. Entonces se transformaron en dos enormes serpientes. La primera asió al
gran Monstruo de la Tierra desde su mano derecha hasta su pie izquierdo, en
tanto que la otra serpiente, en que el otro dios se había mudado, la trababa desde
10
su mano izquierda hasta su pie derecho. Una vez que la han enlazado, la
aprietan, la estrechan, la oprimen, con tal empuje y violencia, que al fin en dos
partes se rompe. Suben la parte inferior y de ella hacen el Cielo; bajan la parte
superior y de ella forman la Tierra... Ésta es aquella diosa que llora alguna vez
por la noche, anhelando comer corazones de hombres, y no quiere quedar en
silencio en tanto que no se los dan, y no quiere producir frutos, si no es regada
con sangre humana. (Garibay, 3 ss., quoted in Fernández, 129)
[The two great gods, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, brought the Lady Earth
down from heaven. She was a great monster, full of eyes and mouths in all her
joints. In each joint of her limbs, she had a mouth and with her innumerable
mouths she bit and tore, just as beasts bite. The world is full of water, whose
origin is unknown. Back and forth swam the great Monster Earth. When the
gods saw her, they said to each other: we must give Earth her shape. Then they
turned themselves into two huge serpents. The first seized the great Monster
Earth from right hand to left foot; meanwhile, the other serpent, into which the
other god had been turned, fastened her from left hand to right foot. Once she
has been thus entwined, they squeeze her, press her, and harass her with such
energy and violence, that she is finally torn in two. They hoist the lower part up,
thus making Heaven; they bring down the upper part, from which they shape the
Earth… This is that goddess who sometimes wails at night, yearning to eat
men’s hearts, and she will not keep quiet until she is fed with them, nor will she
yield fruit unless she is watered with human blood. ]
There are various striking similarities between this description and Coatlicue:
the two serpents that divide her—in the myth the two gods turning into serpents; in the
sculpture the two serpents that serve as a kind of “belt” dividing her “body” in two—
and the fact that she is “full of eyes and mouths in all her joints.” The great monster
Earth has eyes everywhere, like Coatlicue. It may be noticed that, although there is a
general reference to the human body in this Aztec text—joints, limbs, eyes, mouths—
the human form is not brought to the foreground but remains in the background, as a
vague reference. The contrast here could not be more telling; as Paul Westheim says:
El arte europeo, orientado hacia la antigüedad clásica, parte del hombre y
conduce al hombre. Está basado en el concepto y en la medida del hombre. El
arte del México antiguo (…) parte del mito y conduce al mito. Conduce al
hombre a una esfera de lo divino imposible de captar mediante conceptos y
medidas humanos.
[European art, influenced by classical antiquity, starts from man and leads back
to man. It is based on human concepts and measurements. The art of ancient
Mexico (…) starts from myth and leads back to myth. It leads man to the sphere
of the divine, impossible to be apprehended through human concepts and
measures.] (1970, 369)
11
In fact, in Coatlicue, the monolith, the reference to the human body is so vague
and abstract that it has led to telling mistakes. For instance, in Jose Pierre’s L’Univers
surréaliste, a fascinating book about the many works of art from “primitive” cultures
that have inspired modern art—not only surrealism but cubism, among other
movements—one of the illustrations offered is precisely Coatlicue, but she was
photographed from the back; no front view is offered (see fig. 4).
Apparently nobody noticed the mistake; the back is presented as though it was
the front! That in itself is significant of the abstract nature of Coatlicue’s supposed
human form, since the back is nothing but a thematic variation of the front: there are
eyes, and the back of her head is an exact replica of her “face,” which is made up of two
converging snake heads in profile; the belt is also buckled by a skull in the middle; the
“feet” are also made up of an assortment of claws and serpents, etc.; so that if the
mistake is humorous, the fact that no one realized it is, in itself, significant.
One last aspect of this creation myth that I would like to stress is the avowed
need to “give Earth her shape.” And yet, what comes to the foreground in the mythic
account is not triangles or crosses—important as these elements may be in the Aztec
cosmic vision—what we get instead are the most disorienting spatial indications: in the
beginning, the “Lady Earth” is brought down from the sky; once she is torn in two, the
lower part is hoisted up to make Heaven, while the upper part is brought down to make
Earth—our sense of space and directionality is also torn to pieces. If we add to this the
Aztec concept of “Heaven below” (cielo de abajo), we can only conclude that, if
Fernández is right in rejecting the notion of Aztec culture as “pre-logic,” the logic that
we are faced with is certainly not Western and cannot possibly be encompassed by
geometric shapes bearing the same meaning for them as for the Western, Greco-roman
tradition.
12
Figure 4. Goddess Coatlicue, in Jose Pierre, L’Univers surréaliste. Paris,
Éditions Aimery Somogy, 1983.
13
A case in point is the cross as the shape of the Aztec universe; only it has five—
not four—cardinal points (see fig. 5). Each of these five points is inextricably associated
to a given time, colour and/or animal, and they all must be thought of in complex
conjunction. The iconic similarities, however, facilitated the Christian evangelic
mission, thus giving way to the fascinating religious syncretism of Mexico.
Figure 5. The five regions of the universe. Feyérváry-Meyer Codex, in
Westheim (30).
14
The plasticity of this fusion, for example, is evident in the work of the late XIXth
century Mexican painter, Saturnino Herrán, with his project for a vast fresco at the
Palace of Fine Arts (see fig. 6).
The project was never fully carried out; only this magnificent sketch remains,
“Nuestros dioses”, in which we see the figure of Christ actually emerging from the
elements that conform the body of Coatlicue: the two entwined serpents become
Christ’s legs; the skull, his loin-cloth; the cross is already present as the structure at the
basis of the statue; furthermore, the hands are there, in place, with only the nails added
by the painter; finally, Coatlicue’s sagging breasts are replaced partly with Christ’s
shoulders and chest, partly with his long hair streaming down on both sides of his head.
What is interesting about this painting is the partial invisibility of Christ’s figure; it is
not immediately perceptible but gradually emerges from the familiar heterogeneity of
elements in the Coatlicue statue; so that, for a moment, we are taken in by the
impression that this is just another representation of the goddess.
Thus, and despite the depth and erudition of Justino Fernández’ analysis, the
image that he creates of this Earth goddess is one of extreme harmony and rationality,
not because the chaotic aspects are denied but because they are reorganized in structures
that are brought to the foreground in order to emphasize certain features, while keeping
others—the more chaotic and irrational—in the background. Beautiful, harmonious,
geometric Coatlicue is before our eyes and is superimposed on the materiality of the
stone block that we have, materially, before our eyes, giving it a particular form and
meaning.
15
Figure 6. Saturnino Herrán, “Nuestros dioses”, in O’Gorman, Edmundo et al.
Cuarenta siglos de plástica mexicana. México, Editorial Herrero, 1971, 72-74.
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Philosophical, surreal Coatlicue
Octavio Paz also starts by re-telling the story of Coatlicue’s unearthing, but his is a
more panoramic view, with an emphasis on an evolution of sensibility and appreciation:
“from goddess to devil, from devil to monster, and from monster to masterpiece.”
The first thing that strikes us in Paz’ description of Coatlicue is the absence of
form. His description of the statue is nothing but a vague haphazard inventory of details:
“fangs, split tongue, serpents, skulls, chopped hands.” Paz is not interested in the
rationality of this sculpture in terms of its geometric forms or its “logic;” the logic that
Paz reads into Coatlicue is that of semiology. He concurs with Fernádez and other
archaeologists in the appreciation of the realistic representation of elements functioning
as signs, but where Ferández, for example, will read these signs, palimpsest-like, in
conjunction with other texts, Paz reads these signs into the stone itself.
He hablado de belleza. Es un error. La palabra que le conviene al arte
mesoamericano es expresión. Es un arte que dice, pero lo que dice lo dice con tal
concentrada energía que ese decir es siempre expresivo. Expresar: exprimir el
zumo, la esencia, no sólo de la idea sino de la forma. Una deidad maya cubierta
de atributos y signos no es una escultura que podemos leer como un texto sino
un texto/escultura. Fusión de lectura y contemplación, dos actos disociados en
Occidente. La Coatlicue Mayor nos sorprende no sólo por sus dimensiones
—dos metros y medio de altura y dos toneladas de peso— sino por ser un
concepto petrificado. Si el concepto es terrible —la tierra, para crear, devora—
la expresión que lo manifiesta es enigmática: cada atributo de la divinidad
—colmillos, lengua bífida, serpientes, cráneos, manos cortadas— está
representado de una manera realista, pero el conjunto es una abstracción. La
Coatlicue es, simultáneamente, una charada, un silogismo y una presencia que
condensa un “misterio tremendo.” Los atributos realistas se asocian conforme a
una sintaxis sagrada y la frase que resulta es una metáfora que conjuga los tres
tiempos y las cuatro direcciones. Un cubo de piedra que es asimismo una
metafísica. (83)
[I have spoken of beauty. It’s a great mistake. The word that fits Mesoamerican
art is expression. It is an art that speaks, but what it says it says with such
concentrated energy that the saying is always expressive. To express: to press the
juice, the essence, not only of the idea but of its form. A Mayan deity bedecked
with attributes and signs is not a sculpture that we may read as a text but a
textsculpture. The fusion of reading and contemplation are two dissociated acts
in the West. Coatlicue Major amazes us not just because of her dimensions—two
and a half meters in height and two tons in weight—but because it is a petrified
concept. If the concept is terrifying—in order to create, the earth devours—the
expression that manifests it is enigmatic: each attribute of the divinity—fangs,
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split tongue, serpents, skulls, chopped hands—is represented in a realistic
manner, yet the whole is an abstraction. Coatlicue is, simultaneously, a charade,
a syllogism, and a presence condensing a “terrible mystery.” The realistic
attributes are linked according to a sacred syntax, the resulting sentence being a
metaphor that conjugates the three tenses/times and the four directions. A stone
block that is, likewise, a metaphysics.]
Thus, the realistic representation of natural objects as signs is inseparable from
its stone realization: not only the sculpture as a collection of signs to be read against
other texts, but against itself: a textsculpture, a veritable iconotext (Mitchell). The stone
block is treated semiologically as a “sacred syntax,” and philosophically as a
“syllogism” a “petrified concept,” a “metaphysics.”
This sweeping historical perspective on Coatlicue allows Octavio Paz a (dis)play
of two cultural movements: one pointing towards radical originality; the other towards
an incorporation of prehispanic art into modern art. From a strongly romantic
perspective, Paz defines the originality of pre-Columbian civilizations in terms of
cultural isolation.
...las dos grandes civilizaciones americanas fueron, en el sentido nato de la
palabra, originales: su origen está en ellas. Esta originalidad fue, precisamente,
una de las causas, quizá la decisiva, de su pérdida. Originalidad es sinónimo de
otredad y ambas de aislamiento. Las dos civilizaciones americanas jamás
conocieron algo que fue una experiencia repetida y constante de las sociedades
del Viejo Mundo: la presencia del otro, la intrusión de civilizaciones y pueblos
extraños. Por eso vieron a los españoles como seres llegados de otro mundo,
como dioses o semidioses. La razón de su derrota no hay que buscarla tanto en
su inferioridad técnica como en su soledad histórica. Entre sus ideas se
encontraba la de otro mundo y sus dioses, no la de otra civilización y sus
hombres. (78)
[...the two great American civilizations (i.e. Mesoamerican and Inca) were,
strictly speaking, original: their origin is in themselves. It was precisely this
originality one of the causes—maybe the decisive one—of their defeat.
Originality is synonymous with otherness and both of isolation. The two
American civilizations never came across what was a repeated, constant
experience for the societies of the Old World: the presence of the Other, the
intrusion of alien peoples and civilizations. That is why they saw the Spaniards
as creatures from another world, as gods or demigods. The reason for the defeat
of the Aztecs is not to be sought for in their technical inferiority but in their
historical solitude. Their ideas included the notion of another world and its gods,
but not another civilization and its men.]
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Paz perceives a lack of cross-fertilization in pre-Columbian cultures as the
distinctive mark of both their originality and their isolation. Implicit in his analysis is
the parallel situation between pre-Columbian and Greco-Roman cultures. As in the
latter, there were a number of ideological, philosophical, religious and cultural
affinities, but, unlike the civilizations of Greece and Rome coming in contact with as
radically different cultures as the Persian, the Indian or the Chinese, there was no
equivalent cross-fertilization for the Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations. This is the
ideological background that Octavio Paz sets as a foil against which the XXth century
phenomenon of the revaluation of the so-called “primitive” art is displayed: the
dialectics of self and other resulting in a redefinition of identity.
...la conciencia estética moderna, al despuntar nuestro siglo, descubre las artes
de África, América y Oceanía. El arte moderno de Occidente, que nos ha
enseñado a ver lo mismo una máscara negra que un fetiche polinesio, nos abrió
el camino para comprender el arte antiguo de México. Así, la otredad de la
civilización mesoamericana se resuelve en lo contrario: gracias a la estética
moderna, esas obras tan distantes son también nuestras contemporáneas. (80)
[…at the beginning of our century, the modern aesthetic awareness discovers the
arts of Africa, America, and Australia. Western modern art, which has taught us
to appreciate equally a black mask or a Polinesian fetish, has also paved the way
towards the understanding of the art of ancient Mexico. Thus, the otherness of
Mesoamerican civilization turns into its opposite: thanks to modern aesthetics,
those very distant works are also contemporaneous with our world]
Between isolation and cosmopolitism, Coatlicue moves between the monstrosity
of the incomprehensible and the high value of a universally acclaimed work of art.
Coatlicue has come full circle: too original/isolated to be truly appreciated, she was
discarded as a monster or feared as a devil; seen with modern eyes, from outside, she
has been recuperated as our own via the revaluation coming from the other, she has
become one of the icons of cultural identity. And thus, the path of the other has led to
the self. But here, Paz operates what I would call a form of cultural syncretism, for he
has performed the miraculous cross-fertilization. Coatlicue has been recognized as one
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of the important antecedents of modern art. She has fed modern art, not because she is
rational and harmonious and fits Western notions of beauty, but because she has
contributed to modify such standards of beauty. At the same time, she sinks her/our
roots into the past, preserving her otherness, her essential mystery.
Coatlicue es lo demasiado lleno y colmado de todos los atributos de la
existencia, presencia en la que se concentra la totalidad del universo; y esta
plétora de símbolos, significaciones y signos es también un abismo, la gran boca
maternal del vacío. Despojar a los dioses mexicanos de su carácter terrible y
horrible, como lo intenta a veces nuestra crítica de arte, equivale a amputarlos
doblemente: como creaciones del genio religioso y como obras de arte. Toda
divinidad es tremenda, todo dios es fuente de horror. Y los dioses de los antiguos
mexicanos poseen una carga de energía sagrada que no merece otro calificativo
que el de fulminante. Por eso nos fascinan. (Paz, “Risa y penitencia,” 125)
[Coatlicue is too full of the attributes of existence; a presence in which the
totality of the universe is concentrated. But this plenitude of symbols, meanings,
and signs is also an abyss, the great maternal mouth of the Void. To strip the
Mexican gods of their horrible and terrifying characteristics, as our art criticism
has sometimes attempted to, is to amputate them twice: both as the creations of
religious genius and as works of art. Every divinity is awful; every god is a
source of horror. The gods of the ancient Mexicans are so charged with sacred
energy that the only fitting adjective is fulminating. That is why they fascinate
us.]
*****
Coatlicue is a joint invention of stone and texts. As a particular form of representation,
the ekphrastic text is also “the invention of otherness in sameness” (Bessière).
Coatlicue, as Paz observes, continues to be the same block of stone, vaguely shaped in
the human form. The same material block of stone, yet two equally influential
descriptions, guided by two different principles, two different interpretations of the
stone’s meaning, have created for our contemplation at least two Coatlicues: the
beautiful, rational, harmonious Coatlicue of Fernández vision, and the modern semiotic
phenomenon, the surreal Coatlicue of Paz and the surrealists. Coatlicue is an important
cultural iconotext; a plastic and ekphrastic palimpsest where artists, writers and art
historians have read some of the riddles of our complex identity. “Once more, reality,
20
without ceasing to be what we see, shows itself as that which is beyond what we see”
(Paz, “El arte de México,” 76).
Works cited
Fernández, Justino, “Coatlicue,” en Estética del arte mexicano. México, UNAM, 1972.
Garibay K., Ángel María, Épica náhuatl. México, UNAM, “Biblioteca del Estudiante
Universitario,” núm. 51, 1945.
Ober, Frederick A., “A Day in the Museums,” en Travels in Mexico and Life among the
Mexicans. Boston, Estes & Lauriat Publishers, 1887.
Paz, Octavio, “El arte de México: materia y sentido. Diosa, demonia, obra maestra,” en
Los privilegios de la vista II. Arte de México. Vol. 7 de las Obras completas.
México, F. C. E. 1994, pp. 75-88. (Publicado originalmente en Sábado.
Suplemento literario de Uno más uno, núm 1, México, 19 de noviembre de
1977.)
———, “Risa y penitencia,” en Los privilegios de la vista II. Arte de México. Vol. 7 de
las Obras completas. México, F.C.E. 1994, pp.118-131.
Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de, Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España. Angel
María Garibay K., ed. México, Editorial Porrúa, “Biblioteca Porrúa,” 4 vols.,
núms. 8 a 11, 1965.
Westheim, Paul, Arte antiguo de México. Mariana Frenk, trad. México, Biblioteca Era,
1970.
Zea Leopoldo, Mario Magallón (comps.), Humboldt en México. México, F. C. E.,
UNAM, Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia, Colección
“Latinoamérica Fin de Milenio,” 13, 1999.
List of illustrations
1) Coatlicue (fotografía de Michel Zabé), Imágenes del Museo Nacional de
Antropología. Número especial de la revista Arqueología mexicana. México, s/f
2) Justino Fernández’ drawings of Coatlicue (115)
3) Justino Fernández’ drawings of Coatlicue (115)
4) La déesse Coatlicue, en Jose Pierre, L’Univers surréaliste. Paris, Éditions Aimery
Somogy, 1983
5) The five regions of the universe. Féyerváry-Meyer Codex, in Westheim (30).
6) Saturnino Herrán, “Nuestros dioses,” in O’Gorman, Edmundo et al. Cuarenta siglos
de plástica mexicana. México, Editorial Herrero, 1971, 72-74
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