Nazca
Acrylic painting on Archival Canvas in a Black Metal Floater Frame.
This painting is part of my Ecological Landscape series.
The Nazca people were an archaeological culture that flourished from @ 100 BC to 800 AD beside the arid, southern coast of Peru in the river valleys of the Rio Grande de Nazca drainage and the Ica Valley. The Nazca produced an array of crafts and technologies such as ceramics, textiles, and geoglyphs. I reference them in the narrative to the previous painting in this gallery.
What are the Nazca Lines?
There are three basic types of Nazca Lines: straight lines, geometric designs and pictorial representations.
There are more than 800 straight lines on the coastal plain, some of which are 30 miles long.
Additionally, there are over 300 geometric designs, which include basic shapes such as triangles, rectangles, and trapezoids, as well as spirals, arrows, zig-zags and wavy lines.
The Nazca Lines are perhaps best known for the representations of about 70 animals and plants, some of which measure up to 1,200 feet long. Examples include a spider, hummingbird (pictured here), cactus plant, monkey, whale, llama, duck, flower, tree, lizard and dog.
Preservation:
People trying to preserve the Nazca Lines are concerned about threats of pollution and erosion caused by deforestation in the region.
The Lines themselves are superficial, they are only (4 to 12 in) deep and could be washed away... Nazca has only ever received a small amount of rain. But now there are great changes to the weather all over the world. The Lines cannot resist heavy rain without being damaged.
In 2012, squatters occupied land in the area, damaging a Nazca-era cemetery and allowing their pigs to have access to some of the land.
In 2013, machinery used in a limestone quarry was reported to have destroyed a small section of a line, and caused damage to another.
In December 2014, Greenpeace activists irreparably damaged the Nazca Lines while setting up a banner within the lines of one of the famed geoglyphs. The activists damaged an area around the hummingbird by grinding rocks into the sandy soil.
Access to the area around the lines is strictly prohibited and special shoes must be worn to avoid damaging the UN World Heritage site.
This painting is part of my Ecological Landscape series.
The Nazca people were an archaeological culture that flourished from @ 100 BC to 800 AD beside the arid, southern coast of Peru in the river valleys of the Rio Grande de Nazca drainage and the Ica Valley. The Nazca produced an array of crafts and technologies such as ceramics, textiles, and geoglyphs. I reference them in the narrative to the previous painting in this gallery.
What are the Nazca Lines?
There are three basic types of Nazca Lines: straight lines, geometric designs and pictorial representations.
There are more than 800 straight lines on the coastal plain, some of which are 30 miles long.
Additionally, there are over 300 geometric designs, which include basic shapes such as triangles, rectangles, and trapezoids, as well as spirals, arrows, zig-zags and wavy lines.
The Nazca Lines are perhaps best known for the representations of about 70 animals and plants, some of which measure up to 1,200 feet long. Examples include a spider, hummingbird (pictured here), cactus plant, monkey, whale, llama, duck, flower, tree, lizard and dog.
Preservation:
People trying to preserve the Nazca Lines are concerned about threats of pollution and erosion caused by deforestation in the region.
The Lines themselves are superficial, they are only (4 to 12 in) deep and could be washed away... Nazca has only ever received a small amount of rain. But now there are great changes to the weather all over the world. The Lines cannot resist heavy rain without being damaged.
In 2012, squatters occupied land in the area, damaging a Nazca-era cemetery and allowing their pigs to have access to some of the land.
In 2013, machinery used in a limestone quarry was reported to have destroyed a small section of a line, and caused damage to another.
In December 2014, Greenpeace activists irreparably damaged the Nazca Lines while setting up a banner within the lines of one of the famed geoglyphs. The activists damaged an area around the hummingbird by grinding rocks into the sandy soil.
Access to the area around the lines is strictly prohibited and special shoes must be worn to avoid damaging the UN World Heritage site.