The exhibition Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler, at the British Museum until 24 January 2010, is sombre and disturbing - the chirpy half-rhyme in the title hits a wrong note. (The catalogue says not only that Montezuma is better spelled Moctezuma, but that his subjects are properly called Mexica, not Aztec.) What is shown is fascinating but often repellent. The carvings of skulls, hearts, feathered serpents and individual figures have a lugubrious weight, the bird-beaked gold ornaments are fierce, the figures ground out of hard greenstone, indeed all the free-standing figures, have a totem-like frontal symmetry. Many menace the viewer with staring eyes. The richest and most colourful objects, like the turquoise mask on the poster, are finely crafted, but the snarl of large white teeth threatens. In its own time much of what is here was frightening because it was supposed to be. The message is that the future is uncertain, that bad times are probably coming, that nature is malicious and must be propitiated.

LRB 5 November 2009 | PDF Download