Decoding art: the Staff God relief from Chavín de Huántar (part 1)
About this video
A short close-reading of the Staff God relief from Chavín de Huántar. The narrator shows that the god's staffs are made of curling forms with hidden faces and snake heads, that his belt is an abstracted face with snakes for hair, and that his hands and feet have talons evoking felines and birds of prey.
You'll be able to
- describe the staffs, belt and talons of the Staff God.
- explain how the artist hides faces and snakes inside other forms.
Key words
- stele
- An upright carved stone slab; the narrator calls this relief a stele.
- abstracted
- Simplified or changed so it no longer looks realistic.
- talons
- Sharp claws, like those of felines and birds of prey.
Transcript
- [Narrator] The steely shows the god holding staffs composed of numerous curling forms. Beneath the god's hands, we see upside down and sideways faces, and the staffs terminate at the top in two snake heads with protruding tongues. The god's belt is a compressed abstracted face with two snakes extending from where the ears should be, perhaps substituting the snakes for hair and turning the face with its snake hair into a belt.
The god's hands and feet have talons rather than human fingernails, evoking felines and birds of prey.
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