If you are fortunate enough to get to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art before Sepember 1, 2008, find your way over to the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. There, tucked between displays of the arts of Africa and Oceania, you will notice (it is quite impossible not to) what at first glance appear to be the most color-saturated wall hangings you have ever seen.

From afar the biggest look like tapestries made up in dazzling shades of turquoise, sun gold, jungle green, and bright orange punctuated with broad bands of black and red. The patterns on the hangings are geometric and highly sophisticated. You wonder if, on a lark, someone has snuck a few pieces of twentieth-century abstract art into the gallery.

Move in for a closer look and prepare for astonishment. The "textiles," the largest of which are about four feet wide by six feet high, are made of the brightly colored feathers of birds native to the Amazonian rainforest. They mostly date from the sixth to the fifteenth centuries and were made by skilled Peruvian artisans who painstakingly tied and glued thousands of individual feathers onto cotton backings to create each piece. In the same way that feathers cover birds in tight, impermeable rows descending down the bird's body, the Peruvian artisans attached dense rows of feathers to the cotton backing one row just below the other. The feather textiles look plush and unbelievably soft. You would love to stroke them.

If you have never heard of the ancient tradition of decorative featherwork from precolumbian Peru, you are not alone. The Met has organized what it says is the first exhibition of this kind in an American art museum. The more than seventy works on display—including fans, headdresses, jewelry, miniature burial items, wall hangings and poncho-like ceremonial garments—come from public and private collections in the United States. Because of the obvious fragility of feathers, it is rare to find examples of featherwork in good condition. This show is extraordinary for many reasons, not the least of which is the excellent condition of most of the pieces exhibited.

According to The Met, feathers from colorful rain forest birds were used in ceremonies as early as the third millennium B.C., and by the time most of the pieces in this exhibition were created the art of featherwork was well established. Feathers were gathered from the Amazonian rainforest east of the Andes, then transported over the Andes to the artisans who lived along the Pacific Coast of what we now know as Peru. Remarkably, feathers from only about two percent of the rain forest species were considered worthy for featherwork, and most feathers came from such birds as macaws, parrots, Muscovy ducks, flamingoes, egrets, honeycreepers, and tanagers.

One intriguing observation is that bird feathers apparently do not fade. The colors do not fade because it is interference of light that causes colors in bird feathers, not pigments. The pieces in the exhibition absolutely shimmer with tropical color, lending a joyful spirit to the entire display.

The most impressive pieces are the large ones, such as the "tabards," which The Met describes as open-sided tunics worn for ceremonial occasions. A tabard from the Chimú culture dating from the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries is a gorgeous black, gold, blue, and orange geometric edge around an interior of pure orange. The opening for the wearer's head is edged in turquoise. A tabard from the Wari culture that dates from the seventh to the tenth centuries is similarly geometric and highly dramatic. The design could easily have come from the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, perhaps Crete or southern Greece.

Other wonderful pieces include a trio of eleven-inch long (27.8 centimeters) plumed fans made of wood and vegetable fiber in addition to feathers; some ear ornaments the size of flattened ping pong balls that are made of extremely small feathers used essentially like tiles in a miniature mosaic; and an elegant little bag used for carrying coca leaves. The little bag, a feather-covered pouch closed at the top with a drawstring, could easily be mistaken for a handbag straight out of a contemporary fashion magazine.

Also stunning are numerous hats and crowns, especially a regal headdress from the Wari culture dating from the seventh to the tenth centuries. A conical hat that rises up off the head, the piece is covered in an intricate graphic pattern of yellow, blue, orange, and green feathers. A clutch of larger black feathers perches on top of the hat like a bird.

Of special note and startling beauty are four Wari culture wall hangings that are part of The Metropolitan's collection. The pieces date from the seventh to eighth centuries and were designed in alternating rectangles of blue and gold feathers. The graphic design of these pieces is so contemporary that it is difficult to convince yourself that they date from a few hundred years after the fall of Rome. Though The Met says that much about these ancient Peruvian feather textiles remains mysterious, one thing is certain: the artisans who made them had an exquisite sense of color and design. All photographs courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
www.metmuseum.org