Moche Ceramics: Pre-Hispanic Realism

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The best known thing pertaining to the Mochican culture who inhabited Peru’s north is their ceramics which have been highly praised by archeologists for the deep attention to detail, decoration, and style of the carvings. The ceramics serve as an offer to the dead. As a result of this, the Mochican ceramics allow us to peer into their thoughts and beliefs pertaining to life after death.

Moche Ceramic

The principal characteristics of these artifacts which are their cream and red colors are severely eye catching. The artists of these sculptures used full range of colors and contributed their own carving style: globular bodied creations with flat bases, and stirrup-like handles.

How Did They Make Them?
In all likelihood, they used were moldings of the figures. Mochican artisans were expert ceramic sculptors, imprinting in them an aesthetic quality uncontested by another civilization until the arrival of the Spanish. Aside from being offerings to the dead, many artists portrayed daily life in their ceramics.
Each sculpture was prepared in a special manner and created from scratch. However, they used molds for large-scale production. We can tell from decoration that there were clearly two types of sculpture. One intended for religious ceremonies which were sculpted to extreme detail. The other was more for everyday purposes with little decoration.

The Style
As aforementioned, theses sculptures were two toned. Despite having established a standard style, there were various other styles to the aesthetics of the ceramics which encompass bottles, pots and cups. All of these artifacts are representations of masculine and feminine personas. The designs were made using flat colors and the carved characters were drawn in profile.
The decor did solely concentrate on anthropomorphic themes, but it also accounted for the representation of biodiversity, everyday activities, technology, rituals and sexuality. The designs are complemented with geometrically perfect signs.

Two Types of Ceramics:

• The Protrait: This Mochican man’s face was painted by artists. They tried to be as realistic as possible. Thanks to the details in the man’s face found in the eyes, mouth and cheeks, we can tell that the artists wanted to establish a specific feel or emotion in the sculpture. Unlike other cultures at the time, women had a special place in ceramic sculpture. The sculpture represents his masculinity as well as his maternal essence.

Portrait Ceramic

• The Erotics: The representation of Mochican sexuality was also present in these sculptures. The Mochicans had no taboos when it came to privacy and were therefore free to portray the male and female genitalia within a cultural context. Through the use of disproportion, the Mochicans magnified human genitals to accentuate the representation of sexuality. In their culture, sexuality applies to nature and is not bound to humans. For that reason, they believed that reproduction was an extension of the divine. And nnd neither humans nor animals could be outside of it.

Representation of Mochican sexuality