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The tradition of pre-colonial Aztec featherwork was an important decorative arts form practiced throughout Mesoamerica for purposes such as ceremoniously honoring leaders and paying homage to Aztec gods and goddesses. Under the instruction of Catholic missionaries during the Spanish Colonial period, the pre-Hispanic, indigenous artistic tradition of featherwork mosaics was transformed to depict and project Christian scenes and stories, rather than indigenous ones.

This paper will cover pre- and post-Colonial Aztec featherwork mosaics, and the importance of feathers within this transformed indigenous art tradition. The project aims to explore the nature of materiality in feather mosaics, both in Aztec and Christian religions. In this essay, it will be argued that the luminosity in feather mosaics served to bridge the gap between the natural and divine worlds in both Europe and the Aztec Empire.

Just as the colorful feathers of these mosaics could communicate the connection between the sacred and the secular in the Aztec culture, feathers could likewise convey ideas of Christianity and the religious world through their displays of divine color and light.


quetzal on a branch