Someone at the evil empire noted that this was by “Jose Ignacio Redondo,” but I’m still not sure.
What does stand out is that there might be slight racial-agenda overtones here, with the victim being so much lighter-skinned, and the priests unusually course-faced in nature. If I didn’t know better, it seems like there might be a distinctly Christian-type influence in striving to depict this situation as barbaric and savage, which of course, it could be argued as being such, anyway. Just that there might be an agenda here.
Definitely there’s a Christian vibe in both posture and theme, but at the left, the man holding the victim’s hand is showing compassion, they are looking at each other’s eyes, and the earlier shows grief in his facial expression.
The way he holds his arm and hand is gentle, and he is placed in a lower position than the victim. In fact, all three men holding him are genuflecting, denoting reverence for what is happening rather than glee, with somber faces.
I want to consider this a case where they tried to add more light to the victim and it backfired, but it is true that often Aztec’s human sacrifice practices were used to handwave the terrible acts done by the European colonists.
Well… there is absolutely no reason for glee in this ceremony if one understands the bare basics.
I agree with most of what you say, but to my eye those are some very weird-looking “Aztecs,” almost as if they were being depicted as Africans for some reason. And not exactly handsome ones, at that. No, this and this(etc) are much closer to what I’d expect them to look like, not unlike their modern descendants.
What you suggest might be true, but the depiction still reeks to me of agenda.
Someone at the evil empire noted that this was by “Jose Ignacio Redondo,” but I’m still not sure.
What does stand out is that there might be slight racial-agenda overtones here, with the victim being so much lighter-skinned, and the priests unusually course-faced in nature. If I didn’t know better, it seems like there might be a distinctly Christian-type influence in striving to depict this situation as barbaric and savage, which of course, it could be argued as being such, anyway. Just that there might be an agenda here.
Definitely there’s a Christian vibe in both posture and theme, but at the left, the man holding the victim’s hand is showing compassion, they are looking at each other’s eyes, and the earlier shows grief in his facial expression. The way he holds his arm and hand is gentle, and he is placed in a lower position than the victim. In fact, all three men holding him are genuflecting, denoting reverence for what is happening rather than glee, with somber faces.
I want to consider this a case where they tried to add more light to the victim and it backfired, but it is true that often Aztec’s human sacrifice practices were used to handwave the terrible acts done by the European colonists.
Well… there is absolutely no reason for glee in this ceremony if one understands the bare basics.
I agree with most of what you say, but to my eye those are some very weird-looking “Aztecs,” almost as if they were being depicted as Africans for some reason. And not exactly handsome ones, at that. No, this and this (etc) are much closer to what I’d expect them to look like, not unlike their modern descendants.
What you suggest might be true, but the depiction still reeks to me of agenda.