"This catalogue is published in conjunction with Lives of the gods: divinity in Maya art, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from November 21, 2022 through April 2, 2023, and at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, from May 7 through September 3, 2023"--Colophon. Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-233) and index.
Contents:
Photography credits. Contributors to the catalogue -- Lenders to the exhibition -- Map -- Note to the reader -- Wood, stone / Iyaxel Cojtí Ren -- Lively gods, godly lives / James A. Doyle -- Cosmic struggles, primeval transgressions / Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos -- Day, night / Stephen D. Houston -- Rain, lightning / James A. Doyle -- Maize, rebirth / Daniel Salazar Lama -- Divine humans, patron deities / Caitlin C. Earley -- Wood, stone / Iyaxel Cojtí Ren -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Index -- Accession numbers -- Photography credits.
Summary:
This engaging exploration of the Maya pantheon introduces readers to the complex stories of Mesoamerican divinity through the stunning carvings, ceramics, and metalwork of the Classic period. Lives of the Gods explores how ancient Maya peoples gave bodily form to the divine and explains the cosmological underpinnings of some of the greatest creative achievements of Maya civilization. Focusing on the Classic period (250-900 CE), the publication reveals how artists and scribes used diverse media-from the monumental to the miniature-to construct an aesthetic and a rhetoric of a powerful universe, as rich and complex as the more familiar Greco-Roman, Hindu-Buddhist, and Egyptian pantheons. In thematic chapters, the authors examine the mythical contents of Maya art, the relationship of divine lives with the landscape, the centrality of cycles associated with day and night, and the importance of maize as the ideal metaphor for the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Other chapters discuss the divine in the daily lives of Maya kings and queens, the Maya's close and personal dealings with protective patron deities, and the transmission of their traditions and worldview throughout the colonial period and into contemporary Maya communities. Exhibition: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA (21.11.2022-02.04.2023) / Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, USA (07.05-03.09.2023). "In Maya art, the gods are depicted at all stages of life: as infants, as adults at the peak of their maturity and influence, and as they age. The gods could die, and some were born anew, serving as models of regeneration and resilience. In Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art, rarely seen masterpieces and recent discoveries trace the life cycle of the gods, from the moment of their creation in a sacred mountain to their dazzling transformations as blossoming flowers or fearsome creatures of the night. Maya artists, who lived in what is now Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, depicted the gods in imaginative ways from the monumental to the miniature--from exquisitely carved, towering sculptures to jade, shell, and obsidian ornaments that adorned kings and queens, connecting them symbolically to supernatural forces. Finely painted ceramics reveal the eventful lives of the gods in rich detail. Created by master artists of the royal cities of the Classic period (A.D. 250-900) Maya, the nearly 100 landmark works in Lives of the Gods evoke a world in which the divine, human, and natural realms are interconnected and alive."-- Metropolitan Museum of Art https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2022/gods-divinity-maya-art (viewed December 21, 2022). "Focusing on the period between A.D. 250 and 900, Lives of the Gods reveals that ancient Maya artists evoked a pantheon as rich and complex as the more familiar Greco-Roman, Hindu-Buddhist, and Egyptian deities. The authors show how this powerful cosmology informed some of the greatest creative achievements of Maya civilization, represented here from the monumental to the miniature through more than 140 works in jade, stone, and clay. Thematic chapters supported by new scholarship on recent archaeological discoveries detail the different types of gods and their domains, the role of the divine in the lives of the ancient Maya, and the continuation of these traditions from the colonial period through the present day"-- Yale University Press.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.