Vessel with Black-and-White Motifs

In the American Southwest, there is an Indian ceramic tradition that began to take form in the early centuries A.D. and has continued unbroken to the present time. Characterized by its many superbly varied styles, the art has been sustained by diverse Pueblo peoples and some of their neighbors, whose ancient and more recent settlements have long been established in the arid regions of Arizona and New Mexico. Ceramic artist of the Ácoma Pueblo, west of Albuquerque, produced an especially distinguished series of vessels during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This large olla is shaped with a truncated neck that slopes in a gentle curve to the high, rounded shoulder; the full, swelling body tapers smoothly down to the rounded bottom. A finely painted pattern of black-and white abstract designs covers the surface. The dominant decorative features are three medallions, each rimmed by black petals. Within each medallion, and divided by a central vertical strip adorned with zigzag triangles, are twin semicircular, double-ended bands filled with fine hatch marks; these, in turn, enclose inner designs of curving, triangular elements. The medallions themselves are separated by diamonds that frame hatched checkerboards, while complex triangular elements step down from the rim and up from the red-painted bottom. The austere color and multiple abstract motifs stem from past centuries of Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblo) ceramic styles. As is often seen in early works, the artist presents playful visual ambiguities between positive and negative space.