Mayan art exhibition opens in New York; then it will arrive in north Texas

New York — The ancient Maya’s veneration of gods through all kinds of imagery ranging from the divine to the profane is the focus of a new exhibit opening at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art next week with pieces from Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.

Read also: Migrants in Dallas who speak only Mayan languages

After exhibiting at the Met, the exhibit is scheduled to travel to the Kimbell Museum of Arten Fort Worth.

Sculptures, ceramic plates, bowls, stone panels, small figures and huge pieces that were part of the funerary monuments Lives of the Gods: deities in Mayan art (something like “The Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art”), the first major exhibition of Mayan art in the United States in a decade. The exhibition brings together nearly 100 works by artists of the classical period (from 250 to 900 AD).

Oswaldo Chinchilla, curator of the exhibition, said during a presentation to the press that the deities painted or sculpted in the works can be terrifying, but they can also be tender and manifest themselves in childhood and maturity, as well as in their death and return to life.

“(Mayan) artists have often chosen to show curious scenes in which powerful deities are being brought down by weaker opponents,” said the Guatemalan, who is also an adjunct professor of anthropology at Yale University.

“In ceramic vessels we sometimes see humor and even profanity, yet there is a deep religious meaning,” he added.

The exhibition, which begins Nov. 21, includes rarely seen works as well as recently discovered works. Some are part of the collections of other museums and many others have been lent by the governments of Mexico and Guatemala. The exhibition has a first section called “Creations”, which displays mythological episodes related to the origin of the world. This is followed by “Day”, which shows divinities of the day such as the Sun God K’inich, and the third section is “Night”, with works that represent the Jaguar God, protagonist in the imagination of the gods of the night.

Another section, “Rain”, includes depictions of the rain god, Chahk, and the god of lightning, fertility, and abundance, K’awiil. The “Maize” section tells of the life, death and rebirth of the god of maize, the main crop of the Maya. The works on display always show him young and beautiful and relate him to two other precious products of the Mayan economy: jade and cocoa.

“Knowledge” is a section that delves into the work of the scribes, and the final section, “Protector Gods,” includes passages showing kings and queens adopting the attributes of the gods.

“The Life of the Gods” includes works signed by the artists, with their names carved into stone monuments and decorated vases. The limestone work “Panel with Nobility Woman”, for example, is signed by K’in Lakam Chahk and Jun Nat Omootz.

One of the works, “Estela con escena mitológica,” is a large block of stone found in Chiapas, Mexico, showing a figure facing a huge bird that has torn off his arm. On the left is a crocodile growing out of tree branches. In Mayan mythology, the gods who became the sun and the moon shot down a huge bird.

Joanne Pillsbury, curator of early American art at the Met, said the works on display have “great visual complexity and aesthetic sophistication.”

“As archeology continues to make important discoveries, our knowledge of Classic Maya visual culture is further enriched, and exhibitions like this one shed light on new ways of understanding the relationships between ancient communities and the sacred,” he said.