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Maya
Art
The art of the Maya, is a reflection
of their lifestyle and
culture. It
was an important trade
merchandise. The art was composed of delineation and
painting upon paper and plaster, carvings in wood,
Obsidian, bone, shells,
Jade
and stone, clay and stucco models, and terracotta figurines from molds.
The technical process of metal working was also highly developed but as
the resources were scarce, they only created ornaments in this media.
Music was very appreciated and there is also proof of Theater plays
being held in the public ceremonies. The Maya Kings commissioned finely
crafted works to furnish their palaces and attest to their sovereignty
and Warfare
victories,
 among them, carved thrones and throne backs, where a king might reign
supported by depictions of ancestors or gods. Figural mirror holders
served as “perpetual servants” who revealed the king’s dazzling but
fractured image in polished pyrite and hematite, mosaic mirrors, artists working in stucco
achieved realistic portraiture that captures age and wisdom. Painted
cups and vases for the elite depict scenes of court life, while clay
figurines portray members of the retinue that attended the king.
Representing ball players, servants, dwarfs,
hunchbacks, musicians, messengers, and
priests, along with elegantly coiffed women, these figurines all come
from tombs, where they also served their lords in death. Although, The
Maya Art was not only for the royalty, as the multiple findings in
households shows. On the other hand in
Aguateca, every one of the elite residences excavated so far has
included a workshop—a sign that Aguateca's sculptors, painters,
ceramic artists, and
scribes came
overwhelmingly from the ranks of nobility. A sampling of clay
figurines shows their range of inspiration. The enigmatic and
extremely fine sculptures from an Unknown Site, named Q for Qué? in
Spanish (What?), has been identified as
La Corona in
Northwestern Petén.
 Sculpture:
A common form of Maya sculpture was the stela.
The Maya somehow transported enormous stones through the jungle
from distant quarries, apparently without the aid of either wheeled
carts or beasts of burden. Artists then used only rudimentary stone
tools to execute the intricate carvings, before raising the
ponderous sculptures to their present vertical positions. The
largest in the Maya world is Stela E at
Quiriguá, that weighs an astonishing 65 tons and stretches 10.5
meters in length, with sculptures covering its 8-meter panels.
The Stelas were
large stone
slabs covered with carvings. Many depict the rulers of the
cities they were located in, and others show gods. The Stela almost
always contained hieroglyphs, which have been critical to determining
the significance and history of Maya sites. Other stone carvings include
figurines, and stone or wooden lintels (Right),
known only from Tikal
and El Zotz, with different scenes. The
Maya used a great deal of
Jade and
Obsidian in their art. Many stone carvings had
jade inlays, and there were also ritual objects created from jade. It is
remarkable that the Maya, who had no metal tools, created such intricate
and beautiful objects from jade, a very hard and dense material.
In a workshop of Maya sculpture, the subject matter had to conform to
local tradition; elements of style such as viewpoint of the figures,
gesture, depth of relief, and the treatment of faces had to be
recognizable as local art, and the artists observed the specific regalia
worn by rulers. Subject matter and style were bound by tradition. The
earliest Stela-Altar monuments, were plain, such as in
Monte Alto in the
Pacific
Lowlands, the site of the Famous early Preclassic "Fat
Boys" or Barrigones, and home to a Giant Head unique in Mesoamerica,
now vanished
 (See Photo) and
Naranjo
in the
Highlands.
The inhabitants of
Cotzumalguapa, near the early
Preclassic
Monte Alto, developed an original artistic style
and a writing system of their own, which found expression in a large
corpus of
monumental sculptures. These include rock carvings, Stelas,
Altars, Colossal Heads, and three-dimensional Sculptures, as well as a
variety of architectural sculptures such as carved stairs, pillars and
pavement stones. There are also numerous portable sculptures.
Characteristic of the Cotzumalguapa style is an extraordinary degree of
realism in the representation of human figures, which in many cases may
be considered as individual portraits, possibly representing kings and
nobles. In many cases, these individuals participate in complex scenes,
where they interact with other human characters or with supernatural
beings. Sacrificial scenes are frequent. Distinctive elements of the Cotzumalguapa style include speech scrolls shaped as vines with a
variety of flowers and
fruits.
Hieroglyphic signs usually are inscribed
in circular cartouches, but they may also acquire complex animated
forms.
 Ceramic:
Unlike the monuments, whose royal proclamations were intended for public
view, the ceramic vessels are often very anecdotal and are where the
ancient Maya, in a sense, really let its feelings go free. One aspect of
Mayan art is often overlooked, and that is the tremendous variety of
excellence in style and design that it contains. Ancient Greek vase
paintings are equally excellent but in comparison to the Mayan are
mono-stylistic. Mayan art gave almost free reign to the artist, who was
not required to produce a product that fit "the cannon of the culture" in
every way. In its encouragement of individual genius and its variations
from one workshop to another, the products of which were intended in
good part to be given or sold to the royalty of other cities, Mayan vase
paintings are more akin to the art of the modern period than the art of
any other pre-modern people. The principal valuation seems to have been
on artistic quality rather than adherence to standardized forms.
Furthermore, like Greek and Chinese artists, Mayan painters and
sculptors sometimes signed their work. Accordingly, their work was not a
"cultural product" or a "city's product" but a person's product.
They excel in all aspects of ceramics, including Flasks for several
porpoises, Incense burners, burial Urns and articulated ceramics.
Different names were used for different artifacts:
uk’ib’, “drinking vase”,
jaay, “bowl”, lak,
“plate”, and jawa[n]te’, “tripod
plate”. Often the work produced by a particular
artist, was heavily sought after by the elite classes of Maya
society, the most renown is Aj Muwan from
Naranjo, maker of the 7 and 11 god vases
among other fine pieces.
It
appears that literacy was confined to the elite (as in all pre-modern
cultures) and artists and the literate were of the same class; indeed,
it is probable that Mayan artists were often the younger sons and
daughters of the ahaw, the rulers, of Mayan cities,
as the
Yaxhá case illustrates, as the minor
son of the ruler was known only after his paintings. One should look at
these paintings as an appreciator of art, not as an anthropologist. How
do the artists use color, or ignore it? How do they use line, thin or
thick, space human figures, show life and energy, incorporate
calligraphy into their work?. Of note is that: "After a
review of thousands of ceramic pieces and hundreds of thin section
examples of Maya ceramics from major lowland sites, we identified
the types of ceramics that had volcanic ash tempering added to the
clay paste and determined that volcanic ash made up more than 20% of
the ceramic paste matrix of the ash tempered ceramic collections.
The ash and assemblage of crystals (biotite, hornblende, hypersthene,
and zircon) all are consistent with
Guatemala Highland tephra" (Drexler
et al., 1980; Rose et al., 1981).
Figurines from
Cancuén's Tomb 28
 The pottery found in the Maya sites and caves, is the more common way to
date and identify the commerce between the different regions, The
archeologist divide the different styles in periods that share style and
features, the most beautiful is the polychrome specially the Codex
style, from the late Classic occupation in
El Mirador,
the Ik site now known to be
Motul de San
José and the Alta Verapaz (Chamá) vases and plates that
were exported all over the Maya
zone.
Most pieces of pottery were decorated with images of humans, animals ,
or mythological
 creatures. Many highly detailed clay figurines were made
by the Maya, portraying humans and gods. These were made with molds and
by hand. The Maya had every day and ceremonial pottery, and it was the
main sacrifice object used in the
Maya Caves rituals, the
destroying of the physical representation of an object is significant
because its destruction activates and brings the offerings spirit to the
world, allowing it to be used in the supernatural realm. Several
examples of offering destruction were also unearthed in the Caves. The
presence of obsidian blades, censers fragments, charcoal, and
fire-cracked rock all attest to bloodletting and a burning event, or
events. According to the Popol Vuh, humans were made from corn found in
a cave, and bloodletting was one of the obligations set out by the gods
when they gave people the world. The Incense or "Incensarios",(
saklaktun) used to
burn Copal (Pom) from Tiquisate, Escuintla in the
Pacific
Lowlands are particularly fine, and
were
exported throughout the Maya World.
A very well known style is the Chamá Polychromes, named for
the type site in Guatemala, which lies in a fertile valley on the Chixoy river, in the Alta Verapáz, Guatemala’s hilly middle country,
situated between the great Classic Era cities of the
Petén
in the Lowlands, and the more
sparsely populated highlands to the west and south. The region lies
on one of the major
Precolumbian trade routes,
but is peripheral to the prominent lowland Maya cities, and its
architectural remains are not spectacular. Many of these polychrome
masterpieces have been excavated intact from the tombs and palaces
of the elite, and are recognized as among the finest expressions of
Maya artistic genius. Indeed, their presence is often an indicator
of Classic "Maya-ness" (Reents Budet 1994). Chamá-style
cylindrical vases have distinctive black-and-white chevron motif
bands painted around the rim and base, with a bright white, and
strong red-and-black palette , applied to a distinctive yellow to
yellow-orange background. The preferred decorative template is
either a static scene or individual repeated on each half of the
vessel surface, continuous scene wrapped around the cylinder, such
as on the well-known Ratinlinxul Vase.
It lasted only 3 generations, at the end of the 7th
and it was presumed to be an fleeing elite from
Altar de Sacrificios, located
at the confluence of
La Pasión and Chixoy rivers where they form The
Usumacinta, that introduced this fine style.
 Painting:
The Maya excel in the painting mainly in Ceramics, but the murals both
in buildings and in caves, were also important to them, they use several
vegetal as well as mineral colorants to perform their masterpieces as
the brilliantly rendered murals at
San
Bartolo, that constitute the most
elaborate mythological scenes known for the ancient Maya. The mural is
approximately 2000 years old, with more than 40 feet of this spectacular
painting exposed, we are given a unique glimpse into the ancient
mythology of the Maya. Other early examples of Mural painting are found
in La Sufricaya
and Uaxactún. They also painted their Temples in red and white,
as well as the monuments. Recent investigations in the
well preserved Rosalía Temple in Copán,
have proved that in some buildings, the paint
was mixed with Mica to make the buildings glitter in the sun, being
Guatemala the only known source of this mineral in the Maya area,
but it was used only in a
Katún ending celebration, not in
the regular maintenance and repainting. The Murals in
San
Bartolo and the Tombs in
Río
Azul are exceptional painting examples, that contain a
wide range of colors, including the Maya Blue.
The ancient Maya
combined skills in organic chemistry and mineralogy to create an
important technology – the first permanent organic pigment–. The
unique color and stability of Maya Blue, the most durable Maya
color, that only recently has been
 reproduced.
The Maya blue pigment is a composite of
organic and inorganic constituents, primarily indigo dyes derived
from the leaves of añil (Indigofera suffruticosa or Indigofera
guatemalensis) plants combined with palygorskite (Sepiolite), a
natural clay, cooked at 100 oC, that makes it
turn from blackish to its exquisite tone. Smaller trace
amounts of other mineral additives have also been identified.
Due to its attractive turquoise color and light fastness, Maya blue
was widely used in mural paintings, sculptures, ceramics and
codices.
The
stucco was prepared with an organic adhesive from the
local tree named Holol, mixed with burned limestone and Sascab,
a natural occurring mineral that
does not need to be burned, and in the outer layer a finer Limestone
with Barita, that is finer that the Sascab.
The Maya words tz'ib
or
tz'ib'al
refers to painting in
general, including both imagery and writing. The practitioners of these
crafts, called ah tz'ibob ('they who paint'), were both master
calligraphers and painters, which signed their work. The large corpus of ancient
 Maya painting
includes portraits and names of several ah tz'ibob, depicts them at
work, and presents their patron deities. The Vase rollout show below is
a very distinctive class named The
Holmul Dancers.
There is a lot of drawings and
Graffiti found in Maya sites such as
Tikal and
Nakum, also
in
Caves, made by
common people.
The most typical colors found in the Caves are black and red. Visual
inspection suggests that black was usually derived from charcoal,
although other black pigments, like manganese may have been used.
The red (usually an orange-red) comes from iron-rich clays found in
the caves themselves, as well as ground hematite (a bright, deep
red). Yellow and blue are rare, the former occurring at
Cueva de
las Pinturas in Guatemala.
Maya caves also contain graffiti and positive and stenciled
handprints and, more rarely, footprints, both positive and negative.
Sculpted cave art constitutes the other major group. Rock carvings,
or petroglyphs, are made by incising, abrading, and pecking, the
most common techniques employed in the production of Maya cave
sculpture. Another class of cave sculpture includes
three-dimensional images modeled in crude clay, a rare and very
fragile art form
The bark paper was used since the early Classic to make books, of
those none is well preserved, but 4 Post Classic
codices survive today.
 Performing
Arts:
For the
ancient Maya, performance, including dance (Ak'ta)
and singing (K'ay), was integral at all levels of society, from
large state ceremonies involving hundreds of people to an individual
whistling on the way to the fields. Murals depict processions with large
bands of drums (chunk'u), flutes
(Xul), and rattles (Zoch). Performers in supernatural costumes
accompanied and reenacted mythical scenes, such as the example to the
right known as the "Holmul
dancers". Royal participants donned
elaborate costumes and danced. Such large ceremonies would fill the
plazas with noise and spectacle, spreading onto the building platforms
above. The performances united the community as performers and audience
shared the experience. At the same time, participants were divided into
different social groups according to their roles. Taube points out that
"Acoustics were clearly important to the Maya." Many of the cities
had open plazas for ceremonial dances where, as Mayan art
illustrates, kings and rulers performed in jade and seashell belts.
"These (belts) would have made a tremendous sound as they performed
dances in the ceremonial plazas," Taube says. As in Other aspects of
the Maya realm the gods enjoyed all these activities.
Musicians in
Xibalbá
Music Was a cultural
activity that was performed by both child and adult, by commoners and
elite. However, music was explicitly divided between classes. Certain
musical instruments and instrumentation were limited to the elite class.
One function of music was therefore to indicate prestige through the use
of music and musical instruments. Certain instruments were not available
to the common Maya because of the complexity involved in creating them.
There are three families of musical instruments that show how the Maya
created sound. Wind instruments are the most common musical artifacts.
Although
 ceramic ocarinas and flutes are the most abundant, the Maya also
played wooden trumpets, bone flutes, conch shells and reed flutes. The
second category of musical instruments are instruments that
produce sound by the vibration of a tightly fixed membrane. The ancient
Maya drums are the most frequent example of this instrument type,
including ceramic, (see rigth), wooden
and friction drums. The
last of the instrument families consists of rattles, turtle carapaces
and drums with no membrane. Children’s burials with “youth” instruments
may indicate music education initiated at childhood. Some
ballgames were
reenactments of creation stories, while others were sporting events.
Music and dance celebrations surrounding the events varied according to
the type of ballgame played. On a much smaller scale, hundreds of
figurine whistles have been found at sites and were possibly carried
around to create impromptu music by individuals and small groups. The
Rabinal Achí
is a Musical Theatre Play, still represented by the
A´chí in Baja
Verapaz, was declared
Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible
Heritage of the Humanity in 2005 by the UNESCO
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CERAMIC |
Río Azul's
Chocolate Bowl |
Cougar Pot, Chocolá, Pacific Lowlands |
Incensario,
Pacific Lowlands,
3 Faces of K'inich Ahau,
Sun God |
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Uaxactun Platel |
Kaminal Juyu Vase, Preclassic |
Kixpec, Alta Verapaz, (Chamá
Style Vase) |
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Kinich Ajau, sun god, in 22 ruler's tomb, from
Tikal |
Vase, Late Classic, Petén
Ik site |
Carved Bowl, Mid Classic,
Petén |
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PAINTINGS |
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Bone painting Tikal |
San Bartolo Mural |
Río Azul tomb |
Hunahpú killing
Itzam Ýe', (Vucub Caquix). Popol Vuh Scene,
Petén |
La Sufricaya, Mural 7, Early
Classic |
Burial 116
Tikal,
Ceramic
Vessel in the form of a slice of conch shell. The shape
represents an artist's paint container. The glyph in the center reads "kuch sabak"
literally "container for ink". |
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Lady of Tikal bowl |
Naj Tunich Cave,
drawings |
Naj Tunich Cave, Petén
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MUSIC |
Pacific Lowlands, Early
Classic double whistling vessel. Filling the vase with liquid
will cause the figure to whistle |
Petén Lowlands, Middle Classic
Flute in an Ax shape.
Beads inside the body of the
flute change the tone as they move up and down. |
Conch Players figurines,
Yaxhá, Petén
Lowlands |
Ceramic Drum, Petén Lowlands, displayed at Museo Nacional de
Arqueología |
Rattle, in form of a Shaman, Petén Lowlands. |
Maize God Whistle, Petén Lowlands. |
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Drummer in Ceramic Vase |
Musicians Playing Bone Flute (TikalMuseum) |
Trumpet scene in a
Motul de San José
vase |
Flute Early Classic 300 AC
Pacific Lowlands |
Triple Flute, Middle Classic Petén Lowlands |
Classic Flute, Alta Verapaz |
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Lord preparing to dance |
Whistle, Waka´
Petén |
Whistle,
Pacific Lowlands |
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SCULPTURE |
Pacific Lowlands, Escuintla, Women Figurine |
Petén stylized figure |
Early Classic, Petén, Ball Player |
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Middle Preclassic Sculpture,
Kaminaljuyú |
Bilbao, Cotzumalguapa Monument 16 |
Jade Pectoral Nebaj |
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Figurine Waka' |
Jade Funeral Mask -
Tikal |
Carved Stone Box,
Hul Nal Ye Cave,
Chisec, Guatemala |
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Zoomorph P,
Quiriguá, Izabal,
Photo by Maudsley |
Monument 1, Chocolá, Suchitepéquez |
Cancuén, Panel |
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