Native Art of South America

map of south america art

The continent of South America is home to wide ranging native arts, from the jungles of Brazil, to the civilization set up by the Incas of Peru.

In the northern region combining Colombia Venezuela and Panama Isthmus the Chibcha tribes were the leading cultural force, and among them the foremost group was the Muisca.

The strangest, most exotic art of Pre-Columbian America comes from the Isthmus region.

Just as Costa Rica and the land bridge of Panama link the two subcontinents, so also the craftsmen of those countries combined elements of the northern and southern cultures into a powerful, individual style.

Colombia achieved a cultural development which raised them above the level of the tropical agricultural societies.

The oldest designs found in pottery in Mexico from around 1200 B.C., are still used by the forest Indians of the Guaiacas tribe, who live between Venezuela and Brazil.

The more creative use of nature is seen at its maximum in interior Brazil.

Brazilian Indian artists have emerged never too far removed from the ritualistic and religious/cosmic dimension of their creations.

Before the Incas, The early Peruvian art in spite of many technological similarities, is basically different from what developed in other parts of the Americas.

Artistic genius, however, lay in other hands—in those of the cultures which had come before the Incas, notably the Paracas and the Nazca.

It was the potters of Moche and the goldsmiths of Chan Chan who possessed the real skill.

The Incas were latecomers; they surpassed all of their predecessors in imposing their will on the various Indian tribes and simply appropriated what older cultures had achieved before them, and who thereby won the enmity of other peoples.

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