Art
Maya art of their Classic Era (c. 250 to 900 CE) is of a high level of aesthetic and artisanal sophistication. The carvings and the reliefs made of stucco at Palenque and the statuary of Copán, show a grace and accurate observation of the human form that reminded early archaeologists of Classical civilizations of the Old World, hence the name bestowed on this era. We have only hints of the advanced painting of the classic Maya; mostly what has survived are funerary pottery and other Maya ceramics, and a building at Bonampak holds ancient murals that survived by chance. A beautiful turquoise color ('Maya Blue') survived through the centuries due to its unique chemical characteristics. Late Preclassic murals of great artistic and iconographic perfection have been recently discovered at San Bartolo. With the decipherment of the Maya script it was discovered that the Maya were one of the few civilizations where artists attached their name to their work.
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King Ahkal Mo' Naab III of Palenque, stone, 8th Century
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Jaina Island figurine, AD 650-800
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Illustration of a stucco relief at Palenque, dating to c. AD 670
Read more about this topic: Maya Civilization
Famous quotes containing the word art:
“And the glory of character is in affronting the horrors of depravity to draw thence new nobilities of power: as Art lives and thrills in new use and combining of contrasts, and mining into the dark evermore for blacker pits of night.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“An aphorism, honestly stamped and molded, has not yet been “deciphered” once we have read it over; rather, its exegesis—for which an art of exegesis is needed—has only just begun.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Making a logging-road in the Maine woods is called “swamping” it, and they who do the work are called “swampers.” I now perceived the fitness of the term. This was the most perfectly swamped of all the roads I ever saw. Nature must have coöperated with art here.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)