“Each Maya court reckoned that it stood at the center of the world, a place with special access to the gods,” says Mary Ellen Miller, exhibit curator of “Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya,” opening tomorrow at the National Gallery of Art. “Both men and women emulated the gods in their beauty, splendor and power.”
Homing in on Mayan civilization’s “classic period” (A.D. 600-800), this fascinating exhibit, which comprises 130 treasures excavated from sites in Mexico and Guatemala, marks the first time scholars have focused on just one time slice of Mayan art.
Previous exhibits have overreached, attempting to survey the 1,000-year culture from its beginnings in the first millennium B.C. through the explosion of pyramid building and populations from A.D. 550 to 800, to its unexpected and unexplained demise in the ninth century.
Although the Mayas have long been viewed as one of the great civilizations in the New World — their astronomical, mathematical, linguistic and artistic achievements were impressive, sometimes unparalleled — they left scholars with many unanswered questions.
Recent research and archaeological digs, however, along with progress in unraveling their hieroglyphic writing, have yielded new information about the extensive cosmological understructure of the ritualistic and rich Mayan courts.
“Courtly Art” is the third exhibit in the National Gallery’s trilogy on major Mesoamerican civilizations. In 1983, “Art of Aztec Mexico: Treasures of Tenochtitlan,” presented the most comprehensive showing of Aztec art to date in the United States. In 1996, “Olmec Art of Ancient Mexico” displayed the mysterious, massive sculptures that initially influenced the Mayas as well as other Mesoamerican cultures.
Unfortunately, arts from these civilizations were not mounted as introductions to the Mayan exhibit. It’s the only major failing in this otherwise impressive selection of expertly and imaginatively sculpted stone stelae, lintels and figures, as well as examples of art made from shells, clay and special stones.
The god-ruler clearly dominates the exhibit as head of the court. He bore three alternative names: Ahaw (lord, king), Ah tepal (king and god) or Halach uinic (true man). Ahaw, who appears in many guises, connects his peoples, especially the court nobility, to the world of the gods.
In the first gallery, “Life at the Maya Court,” a king adopts the persona of an unidentified ruler in “Sculpted Stone Back.” He then becomes the god Itzamna , the important sky deity, as he leans aggressively toward his wife, or wife-goddess.
Nearby is a case with three impressive heads: The “Portrait Head of Pakal,” the famed founder of the rulers of the dynasty that ruled Palenque for three centuries; the expressive, psychologically probing “Portrait of an Unknown Noble,” also from Palenque; and another portrait from the city, “Old Man.”
For those who think of Mayan art as linear and two-dimensional, these naturalistic sculptures in the round will come as a surprise. The king Pakal is sculpted as the maize god, with hair brushed to the top of his head to simulate the leaves and silk of the corn plant. Using stucco, which is extremely malleable, the sculptor molded Pakal with a high forehead, pronounced cheekbones and, most prominently, an exaggerated, hawklike nose.
Courtiers made on a smallish scale also appear in the first gallery. One superbly modeled and painted lord, with vestiges of blue and red remaining, is seated on a jaguar throne, relaxing in warrior dress.
No civilization is complete without its concepts, and images, of good and evil. The story of the Mayan maize god — he’s the good guy— closely follows the harvest (the god’s decapitation) and renewed growth (his rebirth) in the Mayans’ sacred story of life and resurrection. Sculptors represented him as young and handsome.
Then there was the maize god’s nemesis — the bad guy — the old and ugly, but rich, “God L.” The god of trade and tribute, he ruled the Underworld in the “Cylinder Vessel With Underworld Scene” or “Vase of the Seven Gods.” One of the highlights of the exhibition, this extraordinary scene was painted exquisitely by an artist from Guatemala or Belize.
Salient parts of Mayan life featured in other sections include the importance of women at court, the life-or-death ritual game of the ball court, the scribes who wrote and painted the Mayan glyphs, and the love of bloody warfare as re-created in the horrific scenes of courtiers and mutilated captives from the important city of Bonampak.
Though surely a “blockbuster” in today’s terms, this focused and carefully curated show of objects representing a great civilization at its zenith repays close and unhurried contemplation.
WHAT: “Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya”
WHERE: National Gallery of Art, Fourth Street and Constitution Avenue NW
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays, through July 25
TICKETS: Free
PHONE: 202/737-4215
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