Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art - Fall 2022
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's new exhibition is the first of its kind in the United States in a decade. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
In 250, Maya civilization was steadily growing. Over the next 600 years, the Maya built a network of cities that supported millions of people. The civilization began to decline in the ninth century; Spanish colonizers arrived in the 1500s.
The Spanish bishop Diego de Landa was responsible for a host of atrocities committed against the Maya people in the second half of the 16th century, including the destruction of sacred statues and carefully guarded books and texts, during a larger period of Spanish military, religious and cultural repression and colonialization.
“Many of the books that existed in the Classic period were probably destroyed by neglect centuries before Bishop Diego de Landa’s time,” exhibition co-curator Oswaldo Chinchilla tells Hyperallergic’s Rhea Nayyar. “The climate in the Maya region is not conducive to the preservation of organic materials especially. But these objects on display were originating from cities in ruins. The Spaniards weren’t invading these ruins, so that’s likely how these sculptures and architectural structures were preserved.”
Because few written records from the height of Maya power still exist, art historians, scholars and contemporary Maya communities have been able to glean information about the ancient civilization through the rare art and objects that remain.
Today, some Maya culture and traditions persist. The Met’s exhibition includes video of young dancers in Santa Cruz Verapaz, Guatemala, performing the Dance of the Macaws, which “explains the origins of social institutions and the rationale for religious rituals dedicated to the gods of the earth and the mountains,” per the museum.
“Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art” is on display at the Met in New York City through April 2, 2023. After that, it will be at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, from May 7, 2023 to September 3, 2023.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/major-maya-art-exhibition-opens-at-the-met-180981172/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20221201daily-responsive&spMailingID=47709865&spUserID=NzQwNDU3ODAxODcS1&spJobID=2360122138&spReportId=MjM2MDEyMjEzOAS2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EBq65usneY&t=12s
