Minor Arts.
While the richly ornamented temples and the great monoliths attract first attention as works of art, the humbler products of the potter, the weaver, and the lapidary also attained to grace and dignity.
The Mayas were expert potters and employed a variety of technical processes in the decoration of their wares, such as painting, modeling, engraving, and stamping. We can only take time to examine a few examples of the best works, leaving the commoner products practically undescribed. Suffice it to say, that tripod dishes were much used, as well as bowls, bottle-necked vessels, and cylindrical vases, and that the common decorative use of hieroglyphs serves to mark off Mayan pottery from that of other Central American peoples. The realistic designs are drawn in accordance with the highest principles of decorative art. Serpents, monkeys, jaguars, various birds, as well as priests and supernatural beings, are used as subjects for pottery embellishment. Geometric decoration is also much used.
The polychrome pottery is rare and exceptionally beautiful, with designs relating to religious subjects. The background color of these cylindrical vases is usually orange or yellow, the designs are outlined in black, and the details filled in with delicate washes of red, brown, white, etc. The surface bears a high polish made by rubbing. [Plate XVIII] reproduces the design units on two vases from Chamá, Guatemala. The first example pictures a seated man with a widespreading headdress made of two conventional serpent heads from the ends of which issue the plumes of the quetzal. The hieroglyphs are Mayan day signs—Ben and Imix on the left and Kan and Caban on the right. The second example presents a god before an altar. This god has the face of an old man and his body is attached to a spiral shell. This divinity was probably associated with the end of the year.
Fig. 25. Mayan Basket represented in Stone Sculpture.
In the next illustration an engraved design on a bowl from northern Yucatan is given. A jaguar attired in the dress of man is seated in a wreath of water lilies. After the vessel had been formed, but before it had been fired, this design was made by cutting away the background and incising finer details on the original surfaces. Other designs in relief were obtained by direct modeling or by stamping. The stamps were moulds or negatives made from bas-relief patterns.
The textile arts of the ancient Mayas can be recovered in part from a study of the monuments since the designs on many garments are reproduced in delicate relief. The designs are mostly all-over geometric patterns, but borders reproducing the typical “celestial band,” a line of astronomical symbols, are also seen. The techniques of brocade and lace were understood by the ancient weavers. In the minor textile art of basketry the products must also have ranked high; a typical basket pictured on a lintel is given in [Fig. 25].
Jade and other semi-precious stones were carved by the Mayas into beautiful and fantastic shapes. There was a considerable use of mosaic veneer on masks and other ceremonial objects. Metal was unknown during the first centuries of Mayan florescence, later it was rare and could not be used for tools, but the working of gold and copper in the manufacture of ornaments was on a high plane.
Having now passed in brief review the objective side of Mayan remains, let us turn our attention to the subjective.