A Study of Maya Art: Its Subject Matter & Historical Development

by Herbert J. Spinden, J. Eric S. Thompson (Introduction)

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 underlie its manifestations.

Among the important topics that Spinden covers are fine analyses of the interrelation of Maya art form and symbol—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 wide ranges of manifestation: 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 archaeology proper.

Today, more than 60 years after its first publication, Spinden's book remains a rich, unexhausted work, filled with countless perceptions and amazingly apt descriptions, keen analyses and estimation that have since proved to be prophetically accurate. While much work obviously has been done since Spinden wrote, most of this simply expands certain areas in Spinden.

Unabridged republication of original (1913) edition, with new introduction and bibliography by J. Eric S. Thompson. More than 750 illustrations, plus a map.

Genres: Anthropology

342 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1913

About the author

Dr. Herbert Joseph Spinden, Ph.D. (Harvard University, 1909; B.A. Anthropology, Harvard, 1902) was an anthropologist, archeologist, and art historian who specialized in the study of Native American cultures of the U.S. and Mesoamerica. Spinden was appointed curator of Anthropology at the Buffalo Museum of Arts and Sciences in 1926.

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old school Maya but wonderful original photos and line drawings original from 1913. Wonderful to read and speculate how conclusions (erroneous) are drawn and how much arch. and exploration have changed.