Josef and Anni Albers visited the archeological site Tenayuca in 1937, and Albers took numerous photographs of the massive Aztec temple that sits at its center. The temple is adorned with stone serpents with a spiraling form that likely inspired the main motif of his painting Tenayuca.
The composition also appears to hover or float, which replicates the sense of space present in photographs Albers took from the top of the pyramid looking down. Tenayuca illustrates the artist's interest in how perceptual experiences of three dimensions might be translated into two dimensions.
Josef Albers, Tenayuca, 1943. Oil on Masonite. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Purchase with the aid of funds from Mr. and Mrs. Richard N. Holdman and Madeleine Haas Russel.