Peru-Ensayos-Presente y Futuro: Amano-Pasión Textile Museum for pre-Hispanic Peruvian art

Amano-Pasión Textile Museum for pre-Hispanic Peruvian art

Introduction

oshitaro Amano was a Japanese businessman who by 1930 had forged his business fortune in South America, losing it as a result of the Second World War, because he was deported to Japan. After the war, he returned to America to rebuild his companies and settled in Peru around 1951.

For Peru, Yoshitaro Amano is a memorable character because he dedicated his fortune and time to locate and protect Peru's cultural heritage from destruction and looting. Amano, like María Reiche and other people, understood the immense value of the pre-Hispanic legacy and proposed the task of preserving it for future generations. Without Maria Reiche the Nazca lines would be today quarries or human settlements, without Amano the beautiful textiles that are shown in their museum would have been combustible or destroyed as garbage. They were ahead of the ignorance, apathy and disinterest of the Peruvians themselves for their past.

For the common people the prehispanic textiles lacked value, they used them as firewood, or they practiced the target shooting with vessels considered worthless; for Amano a magnificent set of works that he collected and preserved (his collection has 20 thousand complete pieces -or 'museables'- and 20 thousand valuable fragments for archaeologists and historians).

Mario Amano, his son and follower of his task, tells an anecdote about the origin of the museum that his father began to build in 1961:

"He collected, but he also dug. One day I was in a ditch, digging, and Mr. Graña, owner of the neighboring hacienda Huando, who, seeing him so interested in his work, invited him to visit a nearby hacienda where there were also 'huacas'. Before they stopped to eat where Mr. Ishiki, a Japanese who ran a restaurant. They talked and when they heard about my father's passion, and seeing him so interested in it, after lunch, he said: 'Sígame', and showed him the thousands of pieces of ceramics and textiles that he had in his house ... present. This is how this museum began. " http://www.museoamano.org/amano/

A stroke of luck for Yoshitaro Amano, a stroke of luck for Peru because that fortune fell into the hands of the right person. Fate knows how to make its master moves.

Yoshitaro Amano, discovered and rescued textiles from the Chancay culture, and to avoid its disintegration through time he applied careful conservation techniques. Before settling definitively in Peru, before in 1929 he had already visited Machu Picchu, perhaps this is the origin of his fascination with the pre-Hispanic past.

Between the 50s and 60s he made his fortune in the fishing field, and as an educated person with a good education, he also devoted his time to archeology, which allowed him to recognize the value of the Chancay culture, whose maximum wealth was in his textiles and ceramics.

In his many trips around the country, Mr. Amano observed the objects abandoned by the tomb robbers, he was able to recognize their value and importance, which motivated him to dedicate a large part of his time and fortune to recover and preserve the abandoned objects in the deserts of the coast to expose them in their house of Miraflores.

Yoshitaro's collection was already important, but it also had a dimension that demanded rigor, research and professionalization. He bought the land adjacent to his house and, in 1961, began the construction of the museum.

In 1964, he founded the Amano Museum, one of the first buildings designed in Peru to serve as a museum. This museum was recognized as one of the most important exhibition spaces of Peruvian textile art and a bridge of cooperation between Japanese and Peruvian researchers.

Yoshitaro Amano died in 1982, but his memory remains and is renewed in the amazement caused by the visitors the sight of the magnificent works he rescued. Amano was not born in Peru, but with María Reich and other foreigners who loved our country, he is sent by the fortune goddess, that's why "it's worth a Peru".

Fifty years later, the Amano family remodeled the museum to maintain the tradition of service and research of its founder. Today, AMANO, PRECOLOMBINO TEXTILE MUSEUM and shows wonderful works of pre-Columbian ería textile, in optimal conditions of exposure.

There were times of economic crisis, and although in 2010 the family had to sell the house of Yoshitaro to avoid closing the museum, today thanks to the support of private and public institutions of Japan, and the professional collaboration of Peruvians, the Museum has been renovated and the exhibition continues. Hopefully for a long time more.

The Museum - Exhibition

The Mano museum houses the most important textile collection in the country. For the PERMANENT EXHIBITION it has four rooms divided into three exhibition concepts:

a) TEXTILE CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE:

Tour of the beginning of textiles in the world, the first raw materials and its history in the Peruvian territory. Here the textile history of the Chavín, Paracas, Nasca, Mochica, Huari, Sihuas, Lambayeque, Chimú, Chancay, Chuquibamba and Inca cultures is traversed.

These two garments are a sign of mastery, and surely are worthy of a princess.

b) ROOM OF RAW MATERIALS AND TEXTILE TOOLS:

Exhibition of all the necessary textile process for the creation of the impressive textiles in the museum, from the selection of the raw material, the dyeing, the spinning and the selection of the suitable looms. Examples of the achieved textile mastery and the various applications given to the fibers are also shown.

c) YOSHITARO AMANO ROOM:

Room and warehouse that allows privileged access to part of the museum's warehouses, where the classic drawers have been placed showing the textile development achieved by the Chancay culture. The room has beautiful examples of the various textile structures and techniques dominated by this society of skilled textile workers and potters who lived more than 900 years ago.