For Westerners in the nineteenth century, and even for some today, art and architecture of ancient and far-flung peoples stood as evidence of cultural sophistication upon which to pronounce a global hierarchy of culture, from “primitive” societies of colonized peoples to their own advanced civilizations. The artworks considered most significant in determining that hierarchy were those classified as “monumental,” that is, elaborate architecture and stone sculpture. It was in this environment that Pre-Columbian arts gained scholarly attention. Explorers trekking through dense forests in Central America encountered awesome ruins of the stone and stucco Classic Maya cities, their plazas filled with statues depicting their ancient rulers. Although Aztec cities had been destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores in the sixteenth century, sculptures such as the Sun Stone and the Coatlicue, once hidden by Spaniards fearful of their idolatrous potential, were reexamined as evidence of their makers’ cultural complexity, no matter how unfamiliar. In South America, travelers flocked to the ancient Inka capital of Cuzco, admiring the fine Pre-Columbian masonry that remained as a visible foundation to colonial-era structures, and wondered about the people who had created the enigmatic ruins of Tiwanaku, high in the altiplano on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Those monuments also provided local populations with evidence of a glorious past on which to build their own post-colonial national identities. Today, even most non-specialists have a passing familiarity with those civilizations and their artworks, the Pre-Columbian world being firmly incorporated in the global history of art and culture.

In contrast, the Andean civilization of Wari remains little known. The Wari were not a minor, provincial group, but a large, thriving power that dominated the Middle Horizon period (600–1000 CE), exerting their influence over a vast area that exceeded that of the more celebrated Classic Maya. Multiple factors contribute to the Wari’s absence from the public imagination; not least among them is the dearth of those monumental arts that have traditionally functioned as a hallmark of civilization. Even as we move beyond facile ideas of cultural hierarchy, the biases of earlier eras remain embedded in our discipline. The Wari had little use for large stone statues representing gods and rulers, and although their structures are finely engineered, they display neither the pristine masonry of the later Inka or the entrancing sculptural decoration that embellishes so much Pre-Columbian architecture. Instead, Wari artists focused their labors on works in mediums often associated with craft, especially textiles and ceramics. It would be a mistake, however, to equate the lack of monumental stonework with a lack of cultural sophistication, as Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes, the stunning catalogue to the exhibition organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art, forcefully demonstrates. The catalogue provides a valuable overview of the skill and inventiveness of Wari artists, combining over two hundred illustrations with fifteen essays by distinguished international scholars from the fields of archaeology and art history that examine diverse aspects of Wari art and culture. The comprehensive nature of the catalogue makes it accessible to those unacquainted with the Wari, and it is a critical resource for specialists as well, containing the most current scholarship on this long-neglected civilization, examined through the lens of the spectacular artworks they left behind.

The volume opens with an introduction to the historiography of Wari scholarship and the nature of the Wari state, which scholars have long debated. At present, the consensus is coalescing on defining Wari as a true empire, the first expansionist state of the ancient Andes. Katharina Schreiber has been a major proponent of this interpretation, and her contribution to the catalogue advances the case in a concise and cogent manner. Yet, as she notes, when discussing Wari imperialism, it is important to recognize that they employed a number of strategies that go beyond definitions of imperialism that are rooted in militarism and conquest. In some cases they asserted territorial and administrative control, as evidenced by Wari outposts in locations far from their capital; in others they relied on soft power techniques, such as diplomacy and cultural influence. The latter appears to have been the strategy employed in their dealings with the Moche of Peru’s north coast, as discussed by Luis Jaime Castillo. Wari no doubt influenced Moche. Wari ceramics appear alongside Moche fineline painted vessels in Late Moche-period elite burials, a marker of social prestige. Locally produced vessels even begin to appropriate Wari polychrome styles, although the vessel forms and subjects remain typically Moche. Such Wari-influenced hybrid styles are not unique to the Moche area, but are found throughout the Andes. The appropriation of Wari style to manufacture ceramics conveying local subjects belies a simple imposition of Wari authority, but nevertheless provide a crucial index of cultural influence.

The proliferation of Wari style throughout the Andes, even if those goods do not index direct political control, assert the Wari’s dominance; still, although the dominant power, the Wari were not above incorporating elements of surrounding cultures into their own iconographic complexes. Wari religious iconography centers on the so-called Staff Deity and his band of supernatural attendants. The Staff Deity has a long history in Andean art, and was particularly dominant during the Middle Horizon period, appearing in the art of the Wari and its rival to the south, Tiwanaku. These two groups, and others whose pantheon contained a similar deity, no doubt had their own rituals and mythologies associated with it; in the catalogue, Anita Cook examines the deity’s connections with deeply rooted Andean cosmological conceptions that link death and renewal, human sacrifice and agricultural abundance. While the Wari expressed the deity in their own distinctive artistic style, they included aspects of iconography from other Andean cultures, possibly as part of a deliberate strategy to more easily incorporate disparate groups into the imperial fold.

The bulk of the volume’s essays examine specific types of Wari art, and include technical analysis of the most commonly used media along with functional studies of the role of objects in Wari culture. Textiles and ceramics dominate, although other media, for example miniature figurines of precious and symbolically laden materials, such as turquoise-colored stone, are included as well. Instead of monumental arts, these objects were a primary means of conveying religious ideology and state power to ancient viewers and modern scholars alike. Caches of ceramics decorated with figures from the Staff Deity complex that were deliberately smashed tell of the crucial role of ritual feasting in Wari statecraft, but textiles are the most breathtaking remnants of Wari aesthetics. Textiles were perhaps the most important art form in the ancient Andes, and the Wari were masters of the medium, as attested by the diversity of technique, the quality, and the quantity of cloth that has survived. Chapters address different facets of textiles and textile production, including tapestry tunics, feather work, and tie-dyed garments. Wari textile designs range from abstract geometries to figural representations, although these were often highly distorted and abstracted to the point that, at first glance, they could be mistaken for works of mid-twentieth-century modernism. (It is no wonder that Western artists such as Josef and Anni Albers found inspiration in Pre-Columbian art.) Even those who have long admired the visual games played by Wari weavers will benefit from curator Susan Bergh’s excellent analysis of tunic design and her careful description of each figural type, which makes the sometimes subtle differences within the stock cast of characters comprehensible. Additionally, Bergh’s examination of dozens of Wari tunics allows her to tease out deliberate patterns in the repetition of motifs and colors. What these patterns may mean is as yet unclear, but they nevertheless provide insight into structures of Wari thought.

By incorporating a wide variety of Wari arts from the figural to the abstract, and across media, the catalogue presents Wari art as a totality. The lavish illustrations, most of which are in full color, provide a visual database from which trends emerge, an internal logic coalesces, and the Wari become more understandable. Despite the lack of monumental forms, Wari artwork does not lack sophistication, and its influence ran deep. Centuries following the decline of the Wari Empire, its culture continued to reverberate in the art of later Andean societies, such as the Inka, its echoes enduring until the arrival of the Spaniards heralded the end of the Pre-Columbian world and the beginning of a new era of Andean history.