A Study of Maya Art: Its Subject Matter & Historical Development Book
Width: 8.5
Description
This book created a field of art history and interpretation. Before Herbert Spinden, one of the world's great experts on Middle American civilizations, wrote "A Study of Maya Art," Maya studies consisted of a few field reports of excavations, some architectural surveys, and the germs of paleography. It was Spinden's contribution to provide the first cartography of the ranges of Maya art, to offer the first understanding of its subject matter, and to supply the first appreciation of the alien aesthetics that underline its manifestations.
Among the important topics that Spinden covers are fine analyses of the interrelation of Maya art form and symbol - the use of the human form in art conventions and symbolic functions the role of ornamentation - the meaning of the jaguar and feathered serpent motifs - the Maya deities and monsters - calendrical devices - and similar pictorial material. Once the basic religious and philosophical ideas of Maya art are considered, Spinden goes on to a wide range of manifestations: town planning, structural architecture, specific building plans, carved altars, memorial stelae, ceramics, metalwork, textiles, jewelry, shellwork, stone carving, and even the few surviving Maya manuscripts. Both the so-called Old Empire and the New Empire are covered, as well as intermediary areas. Besides drawing on archaeological materials Spinden also assembles and organizes Conquest material that elucidates the archeology proper.
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Country of Origin: Democratic Republic of the Congo