DOI issue:
Nr. 333 (February 1925)
DOI issue:Nr. 334 (March 1925)
DOI article:Barreaux, Adolphe: The art of the Mayas
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19984#0174
mceRnAcionAL
STELA AT QUIRIGUA
receiving considerable attention, was not all-
important to the Maya as to the Greeks. The
latter conceived and represented their divinities
and mythical heroes in human form; hence they
idealized this form until it embodied the finest
possible conception of strength and grace. The
gods and culture heroes of the Maya, on the other
hand, had fundamentally the physical character-
istics of reptiles, birds and lower mammals or
were, at best, grotesque figures of composite
origin. In many cases, however, these brute
deities were more or less humanized, resembling
in a general way the half animal, half human
gods of Egypt and Assyria. Human beings
appear only in the mundane guise of priests and
the ruling classes. The strange subject matter of
Maya art should not militate, against the appre-
ciation of its real artistic merits, for the products
SIDE OF STELA, QUIRIGUA
Jour thirty-Jour
MARCH I925
STELA AT QUIRIGUA
receiving considerable attention, was not all-
important to the Maya as to the Greeks. The
latter conceived and represented their divinities
and mythical heroes in human form; hence they
idealized this form until it embodied the finest
possible conception of strength and grace. The
gods and culture heroes of the Maya, on the other
hand, had fundamentally the physical character-
istics of reptiles, birds and lower mammals or
were, at best, grotesque figures of composite
origin. In many cases, however, these brute
deities were more or less humanized, resembling
in a general way the half animal, half human
gods of Egypt and Assyria. Human beings
appear only in the mundane guise of priests and
the ruling classes. The strange subject matter of
Maya art should not militate, against the appre-
ciation of its real artistic merits, for the products
SIDE OF STELA, QUIRIGUA
Jour thirty-Jour
MARCH I925