Ancient Maya art comprises the visual arts of the Maya civilization, an eastern and south-eastern Mesoamerica culture made up of a great number of small kingdoms in what is now Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. Many regional artistic traditions existed side by side, usually coinciding with the changing boundaries of Maya polities. This civilization took shape in the course of the later Preclassic Period (from 750 BC to 100 BC), when the first cities and monumental architecture started to develop and the hieroglyphic script came into being. Its greatest artistic flowering occurred during the seven centuries of the Classic Period (c. 250 to 950 CE).
Maya art forms tend to be more stiffly organized during the Early Classic (250-550 CE) and to become more expressive during the Late Classic phase (550-950 CE). In the course of history, influences of various other Mesoamerican cultures were absorbed. In the late Preclassic, the influence of the Olmec style is still discernible (as in the San Bartolo murals), whereas in the Early Classic, the style of central Mexican Teotihuacan made itself felt, just as that of the Toltec in the Postclassic.
After the demise of the Classic kingdoms of the central lowlands, ancient Maya art went through an extended Postclassic phase (950-1550 CE) centered on the Yucatan peninsula, before the upheavals of the sixteenth century destroyed courtly culture and put an end to the Maya artistic tradition. Traditional art forms mainly survived in weaving, pottery, and the design of peasant houses.
Maya art history
The nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century publications on Maya art and archaeology by Stephens, Catherwood, Maudslay, Maler and Charnay for the first time made available reliable drawings and photographs of major Classic Maya monuments. Following this initial phase, the 1913 publication of Herbert Spinden's A Study of Maya Art laid the foundation for all later developments of Maya art history (including iconography).Spinden 1975 The book gives an analytical treatment of themes and motifs, particularly the ubiquitous serpent and dragon motifs, and a review of the 'material arts', such as the composition of temple facades, roof combs and mask panels. Spinden's chronological treatment of Maya art was later (1950) refined by the motif analysis of the architect and specialist in archaeological drawing, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, in her book A Study of Classic Maya Sculpture.Proskouriakoff 1950 Kubler's 1969 inventory of Maya iconography, containing a site-by-site treatment of 'commemorative' images and a topical treatment of ritual and mythical images (such as the 'triadic sign'), concluded a period of gradual increase of knowledge that was soon to be overshadowed by new developments.
Starting in the early 1970s, the historiography of the Maya kingdoms – first of all, Palenque – came to occupy the forefront. Art-historical interpretation joined the historical approach pioneered by Proskouriakoff as well as the mythological approach initiated by M.D. Coe, with an archaeological illustrator, Merle Greene Robertson, and a professor of art, Linda Schele, serving as driving forces. Schele's seminal interpretations of Maya art are found throughout her work, especially in The Blood of Kings, written together with art historian M. Miller.Schele and Miller 1986 Maya art history was also spurred by the enormous increase in sculptural and ceramic imagery, due to extensive archaeological excavations, as well as to organized looting on an unprecedented scale. From 1973 onwards, M.D. Coe published a series of books offering pictures and interpretations of unknown Maya vases, with the Popol Vuh Twin myth for an explanatory model.Code 1973, 1975, 1978, 1982 In 1981, Robicsek and Hales added an inventory and classification of Maya vases painted in codex style,Robicsek and Hales 1981 thereby revealing even more of a hitherto barely known spiritual world.
As to subsequent developments, important issues in Schele's iconographic work have been elaborated by Karl Taube.E.g., Miller and Taube 1993; Taube et al. 2010 New approaches to Maya art include studies of ancient Maya ceramic workshops,Reents-Budet 1994 the representation of bodily experience and the senses in Maya art,Houston et al. 2005 and of hieroglyphs considered as iconographic units.Stone and Zender 2011 Meanwhile, the number of monographs devoted to the monumental art of specific courts is growing.Greene Robertson 1983, Tate 1992, Looper 2003, Simmons Clancy 2009, O'Neil 2012 A good impression of more recent Mexican and North American art historical scholarship can be gathered from the exhibition catalogues Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya (2004)Miller and Martin 2004 and Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art (2022).Pillsbury et al. 2022
Architecture
The layout of the Maya towns and cities, and more particularly of the ceremonial centers where the royal families and courtiers resided, is characterized by the rhythm of immense horizontal stucco floors of plazas often located at various levels, connected by broad and often steep stairs, and surmounted by temple pyramids.Stierlin 1994 Under successive reigns, the main buildings were enlarged by adding new layers of fill and stucco coating. Irrigation channels, reservoirs, and drains made up the hydraulic infrastructure. Outside the ceremonial center (especially in the southern area sometimes resembling an acropolis) were the structures of lesser nobles, smaller temples, and individual shrines, surrounded by the wards of the commoners. Dam-like causeways (sacbeob) spread from the 'ceremonial centers' to other nuclei of habitation. Fitting in with the concept of a 'theatre state', more attention appears to have been given to aesthetics than to solidity of construction. Careful attention, however, was placed on directional orientation.
Among the various types of stone structures should be mentioned: Ceremonial platforms (usually less than 4 meters in height) Courtyards and palaces Other residential buildings, such as a writers' houseCoe and Kerr 1997: 100-101 and a possible council house in Copan Temples and temple pyramids, the latter often containing burials and burial chambers in their base or fill, with sanctuaries on top; outstanding example are the many clustered dynastic burial temples of Tikal North Acropolis Ball courts Sweat baths, particularly those of Piedras Negras and Xultun, the latter one with remains of stucco decoration.
Among the structural ensembles are: 'Triadic pyramids' consisting of a dominant structure flanked by two smaller inward-facing buildings, all mounted upon a single basal platform; 'E-groups' consisting of a square platform with a low four-stepped pyramid on the west side and an elongated structure, or, alternatively, three small structures, on the eastern side; 'Twin pyramid complexes', with identical four-stepped pyramids on the east and west sides of a small plaza; a building with nine doorways on the south side; and a small enclosure on the north side housing a sculpted stela with its altar and commemorating the king's performance of a k'atun-ending ceremony.
In the palaces and temple rooms, the 'corbelled vault' was often applied. Though not an effective means to increase interior space, as it required thick stone walls to support the high ceiling, some temples utilized repeated arches, or a corbelled vault, to construct an inner sanctuary (e.g., that of the Temple of the Cross at Palenque).
The northern Maya area (Campeche and Yucatan) shows architectural characteristics of its own. Its Classic regional styles, called Puuc ('Hills'), Chenes ('Sources'), and Rio Bec,Gendrop 1983 are characterized by mosaic facades in stone; geometrical reduction of realistic decoration; stacking of rain god snouts to build facades; use of portals shaped like serpent mouths; and, in the southernmost or Rio Bec area, the use of solid pseudo temple-pyramids. The most important Puuc site is Uxmal. Chichen Itza, dominating Yucatán from the Late Classic to well into the Post-Classic, features Classic buildings in Chenes and Puuc style as well as Post-Classic building types of Mexican derivation, such as the radial four-staircase pyramid, the colonnaded hall, and the circular temple. The latter features were inherited by the succeeding kingdom of Mayapan.
Far to the South, the Guatemalan Highlands had their own longstanding building traditions. However, by the Classic period, settlements did by and large not participate in the great artistic traditions of the Lowland area. In the Postclassic period, the architecture of relatively young hilltop sites, such as the Quiché capital Q'umarkaj, shows strong Toltec influences, not unlike the architecture of Chichén Itzá and Mayapán to the north.Coe and Houston 2015: 224-226 No significant murals or sculptures have been preserved from the Postclassic Highlands.
Stone sculpture
The main Preclassic sculptural style from the Maya area is that of Izapa, a large site on the Pacific coast where many stelas and (frog-shaped) altars were found showing motifs also present in Olmec art.Guernsey 2006 The stelas, mostly without inscriptions, often show mythological and narrative subjects, some of which appear to relate to the Twin myth of the Popol Vuh. However, next to nothing is known about the settlement's former ethnic composition. Artistically, Izapa is closely related to Kaminaljuyú, a huge and almost completely destroyed site once dominating the Guatemalan Highlands.Coe and Houston 2015: 73-80 Among its scattered remains are highlights of Late Preclassic sculpture, such as Monument 10, an altar with an intricate figural relief accompanied by a long inscription.
For the Classic Period of the central Maya area, the following major classes of stone sculpture (usually executed in limestone) may be distinguished.
Stelas. These are large, elongated stone slabs usually covered with carvings and inscriptions, and often accompanied by round altars. Typical of the Classical period, most of them depict the rulers of the cities they were located in, often disguised as gods. Although the rulers' faces, particularly during the later Classic Period, are naturalistic in style, they usually do not show individual traits; but there are notable exceptions to this rule (e.g., Piedras Negras, stela 35). The most famous stelas are from Copan and nearby Quirigua. These are outstanding for their intricateness of detail, those of Quirigua also for sheer height (stela E measuring over 7 metres above ground level and 3 below). Both the Copan and Tonina stelas approach sculptures in the round. From Palenque, otherwise a true Maya capital of the arts, no significant stelae are known. Lintels, spanning doorways or jambs. Particularly Yaxchilan is renowned for its long series of lintels in deep relief, some of the most famous of which show meetings with ancestors or, perhaps, local deities.Tate 1992 Panels and tablets, set in the walls and piers of buildings and the sides of platforms. This category is particularly well represented at Palenque, with the large tablets adorning the inner sanctuaries of the Cross Group temples, and with refined masterworks such as the 'Palace Tablet', the 'Tablet of the Slaves', and the multi-figure panels of the temple XIX and XXI platforms.Stuart and Stuart 2008 King Pakal's carved sarcophagus lidwithout equal in other Maya kingdomsmight also be included here. Relief columns flanking doorways in public buildings from the Puuc region (northwestern Yucatan) and similar in decoration to stelas.Mayer 1981 Altars, rounded or rectangular, sometimes resting on three or four boulder-like legs. They may be wholly or partly figurative (e.g., Copan turtle altar) or have a relief image on top, sometimes consisting of a single Ahau day sign (Caracol, Tonina).Martin and Grube 2000: 89