Mayan Art
Facts About Mayan Art
- Mayan art is one of the most beautiful forms of art in the ancient New World. It has impacts from the Olmec civilization. Other Mesoamerican civilizations, including Teotihuacan and the Toltecs, affected Mayan art. The Mayans are well known for their use of jade, obsidian and stucco.
- Many pieces of Maya art involve nature or their gods. Most Mayan art that survives today are ritual objects.
- The Maya managed to create highly detailed and beautiful pieces of art mostly by hand.
- Most Maya art shows gods, rulers, heroes, religious scenes and their lives. The attention of Maya art pieces is on human figures, whether gods or people. Animals and patterns were used as decoration on pottery and other objects.
- The Maya calligraphy is popular on statues and carvings. Maya art has many sizes which range from tiny pieces of carved objects to gigantic pyramids.
- The Mayan art is an image of their lifestyle and culture. The art was made of painting upon paper and plaster, carvings in wood and stone, clay models and terracotta figurines from molds.
Pottery
Mayan Pottery
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Many examples of Maya pottery survive today. Along with clay vessels, the Maya created many ceramic figures of humans and animals. Several examples of the technique of applying paint to a wet clay surface have been found at Maya sites. Most pieces of pottery were decorated with images of humans, animals , or mythological creatures. Many detailed clay figurines were made by the Maya, representing humans and gods. These were made with molds and by hand. Many of these figures were buried with rulers, which is how they survived to the current day.
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Sculptures
The Maya created a huge number of sculptures, many of which can be seen at Maya sites and museums. A common form of Maya sculpture was the stele. These were large stone slabs covered with carvings. Many portray the rulers of the cities they were located in and others show gods. The stele almost always contained hieroglyphs, which have been important in determining the significance and history of the Mayans. Other stone carvings include figurines and stone beams which show scenes of blood sacrifice. The Maya used a lot of jade in their art. Many stone carvings had small parts of jade, and there were also ritual objects created from jade. An excellent example is the death mask of Lord Pacal, ruler of Palenque. A life-size mask created for his corpse had "skin" made from jade and "eyes" made from pearl and obsidian.
Paintings
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The murals, which date from 790, show scenes of nobility, battle, and sacrifice. At San Bartolo, murals were discovered in 2001. These paintings date from 100 A.D., and are the some of the oldest Maya paintings discovered. Some of these paintings represent a Corn god myth. |
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