The idea that the so-called primitive art of Africa and Oceania has had considerable influence on a number of major twentieth-century artists is hardly novel. Such a relationship was demonstrated and solidified by, among other things, Robert Goldwater’s pathbreaking study Primitivism in Modern Art, a number of exhibitions in the past half-century in London and Paris, and a major show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York ten years ago. But the impact of the pre-Columbian art of Mexico …