Plan Ahead

Visiting Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty or Van Gogh’s Cypresses?

Read the additional visitor guidelines

MetPublications

Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art

Pillsbury, Joanne, Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, and James A. Doyle, with contributions by Iyaxel Cojti Ren, Caitlin C. Earley, Stephen D. Houston, and Daniel Salazar Lama (2022)

This title is in print.

Publication Details

Description
Table of contents
About the authors
Tags

Related Titles

Related Content

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (7)
Exhibition
Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art
November 21, 2022–April 2, 2023

In Maya art, the gods are depicted at all stages of life: as infants, as adults at the peak of their maturity and influence, and as they age. The gods could die, and some were born anew, serving as models of regeneration and resilience. In Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art, rarely seen masterpieces and recent discoveries trace the life cycle of the gods, from the moment of their creation in a sacred mountain to their dazzling transformations as blossoming flowers or fearsome creatures of the night.

Maya artists depicted the gods in imaginative ways from the monumental to the miniature—from exquisitely carved, towering sculptures to jade, shell, and obsidian ornaments that adorned kings and queens, connecting them symbolically to supernatural forces. Finely painted ceramics reveal the eventful lives of the gods in rich detail.

Created by master artists of the Classic period (A.D. 250–900) in the royal cities of what is now Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, the more than 100 landmark works in Lives of the Gods evoke a world in which the divine, human, and natural realms are interconnected and alive.