Showing Images Take Flight: Feather Art in Mexico and Europe by Alessandra Russo

This beautiful catalog presents a stunning range of feather mosaics from Mexico and Latin America that were created during the time of the Spanish Empire. It presents new photographs of these complicated, beautiful works, and through essays and analysis explores the history, aesthetics, importance, and religious and cultural significance of the pieces. Scholars analyze the complicated use of varied materials in the artworks, which include not only feathers but also jade, turquoise, and gold, and they draw lessons about the Mesoamerican understanding of ornithology and natural history.No book has ever brought together so many images of artworks from this tradition, let alone assembled a team of scholars to offer such trenchant analysis. It will be essential for art historians, scholars of colonialism, and historians of the Spanish Empire alike.