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Description

"Tyrian purple. Lamp black. Lead white. Cadmium yellow. Ultramarine blue. The materiality of color, as it is often discussed, has a fixed quality. Pigments and dyes derived from many natural substances-minerals, earths, plants, and animals-have stable optic qualities. Lapis lazuli can be reliably counted upon to be blue. Dyes made from cochineal consistently fall within a certain range at the red end of the spectrum. Similarly, we might expect that the green feathers of a bird such as the Festive Parrot (Amazona festiva), after molting, would be replaced by equally green plumes. As the excerpt above suggests, from a letter written in Brazil by the Portuguese humanist Gandavo, this need not always be the case. In this chapter, I will discuss the cultural and conceptual ramifications of the feather alteration practices of the Tupi 'nations' of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century coastal Brazil, one of the most sophisticated featherworking cultures of the Americas."

ISBN

9781409429159

Publication Date

2012

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing Limited

City

Surrey, England

Disciplines

Ethnic Studies | Fashion Design | Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts | Indigenous Studies | Latin American Languages and Societies | Latin American Studies | Latina/o Studies | Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology

Comments

In Andrea Feeser, Maureen Daly Goggin, and Beth Fowkes Tobin (Eds.), he Materiality of Color: The Production, Circulation, and Application of Dyes and Pigments 1400-1800.

Copyright

Andrea Feeser, Maureen Daly Goggin, Beth Fowkes Tobin and the author

Crafts of Color: Tupi <em>Tapirage</em> in Early Colonial Brazil

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