Performing Arts

Mayan art is undoubtedly an awesome expression of the Mayan people’s cosmovision, which is entirely distinct as the occidental one.

Mayan art is omnipresent in the countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, but as the Mayan world is so widely spread and rich in art, I will just cover the Mayan art in the territory of Mexico.

The Maya civilization gave its artists a no cost reign, and they produced Mayan ceramic vessels, which are merely outstanding in style and design.

Mayan pottery for everyday use was less decorated, but the finest pieces of art with sophisticated patterns, exquisite colors, and images of human beings, animals or mythological creatures had been produced for the royalty.

Mayan paintings are one more brilliance of the Mayan art. Mayan murals, decorated tomb walls and temple chambers were painted with excellence. These spectacular works of art also reveal the Mayan mythology.

Tombs in the Yucatan Peninsula like the ones of Palenque, in Chiapas state, of Calakmul, in Campeche state, and of Dzibanche, in Quintana Roo state, are exceptional, as they were decorated with a considerable range of colors, including the Maya Blue.

Performing arts, such as Mayan dance and Mayan music, was and still is an integral component of the society, whether at individual or ceremonial functions.

Mayan music was a cultural activity for children and adults on every level, but the instruction of playing musical instruments was only given to artists.

Paintings on different Mayan murals show these performing arts, where individuals with various musical instruments and performers dressed in supernatural costumes are representing mythical scenes or crucial events, like on the famous Mayan murals of Bonampak, in the state of Chiapas, Mexico.

Tombs in the Yucatan Peninsula like the ones in Calakmul, Campeche state, and in Dzibanche, Quintana Roo state, are exceptional, as they had been decorated with a considerable range of colors, including the Maya Blue.

The steles, large stone slabs covered with carvings, were a typical form of Mayan sculpture. Each stela was primarily dedicated to represent the men and females of the governing class, and Mayan glyphs had been elaborately carved to state the name, the dates and deeds of each 1.

The Mayans also produced ritual objects, funeral offerings, and the most lovely personal ornaments for the members of the high ranking class, like Mayan masks, earrings, necklaces and pectorals.

Amongst the most renowned funeral Mayan masks are the ones belonging to king Pakal and to the “Red Queen” of Palenque, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, with delicately elaborated plates of jade, integrated with turquoise, obsidian and mother of pearl and assembled to imitate the functions of the dead king and queen.

Mayan art includes other genres like Mayan literature, Mayan writings of Mayan Codices on paper produced of fig tree bark, and the innumerable amount of masks carved in stone and made of stucco on pyramids and temples in each component of the Mayan world, which depict the brilliance and uniqueness of this civilization.