Maya Prehistoric culpture

Based on an inherited tradition for interaction between royalty and supernatural powers, Maya kings of the early centuries of the Common Era portrayed themselves in the roles and costumes of deities and elaborated sacred imagery on all manner of works of art. The recent increase in the scholarship on the ancient Maya allows for a much more detailed examination of this important period in their history. At a time when the hereditary rulers of city-states were sustained by the prosperity gained by maize agriculture, they surrounded themselves with a cultivated nobility. They held forth in courts that included artists, architects, scribes, astronomers, diviners, courtiers, and servants of all sorts. The titles of many a Maya king, or lord (ajaw), his wife, his subordinates, and his enemies are known today, as are details of his life, his times, and his treasures.

The exhibition in Metropolitan Museum features stone sculpture in a number of forms, from large commemorative monuments, or stelas, to small, precious works of jade, a material of infinite value to all ancient Mesoamerican peoples, and one principally used for the fabrication of personal ornaments. Ceramic sculpture has a solid presence in the exhibition, appearing in a variety of shapes and encompassing numerous lidded vessels of diverse sorts—large cache vessels often embellished with complex iconographic schemes and/or further covered with stuccoed surfaces, and smaller, more intimately scaled examples reproducing natural forms. Ceramic censers in human form, bowls with complex relief images, and vessels in the shapes of deities are included. Bone and shell were used widely in ancient times for everything from object handles to personal ornaments, examples of which are on view. Works in jade are also well represented. Invariably green in color, Maya jade objects take the form of celts, beads, plaques, pendants, and three-dimensional sculpture, their hard and polishable surfaces decorated with delicate incised patterns, low-relief images, hieroglyphic inscriptions, and even narrative scenes.

Maya lords themselves are represented in the exhibition. They appear on stone sculpture as standing profile figures, elegantly arrayed as deities. The 76-inch-tall granite relief, a commemorative monument known as Stela 11 (Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala City), from the highland site of Kaminaljuyu (Guatemala) is one of the earliest such Maya images, dating to the last centuries of the first millennium B.C. This well-preserved sculpture illustrates the necessary elaborateness of costume and accoutrements required for the kingly role in ritual performance. Wearing a wide belt with a great, down-curving beaked profile at the center, the figure supports a stacked helmet mask with the same profiles. The great beak is associated with a divinity known rather prosaically to modern scholars as the Principal Bird Deity. He is presented in Maya myth as a brilliant emanation of early light, or sun. The transformed king in his deity regalia is placed between the earth symbol below his feet and the bird of the heavens at the top of the stela. The Kaminaljuyu lord is portrayed as the universal bridge between the heavens and the earth.

Kingly images in other materials are also included, such as the Censer with Seated King (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), the fourth–fifth-century ceramic sculpture in the shape of a cross-legged lord holding a small tray of offerings out in front of him. The rising of smoke from such censers honored deified ancestors in rituals. Funerary masks encrusted with jade are considered the last "portraits." A Funerary Mask (Museo Histórico Fuerte de San Miguel, Campeche) from Calakmul displays the type. Calakmul, in the interior lowlands of the Mexican state of Campeche, was a powerful Maya city from the first to the ninth century.

Indian Prehistoric Sculpture

Indian sculpture developed with time to show more realistic picture & depict the picture of contemporary social life. As the life of people in India during ancient time was influenced by foreign themes, its traces can be found in Indian sculpture. As civilization progressed various impacts of it were left on the development of sculpture. So, the developmental stages in the history of Indian sculpture are a summarized impact of the passing time.

Religious linkage of art
Basically, in terms of themes and developments Indian art is considered as religious. To appreciate the sculptural art of India some background knowledge about the country`s faiths is required.kali Through the sculptures, the Hindu & Jain religions found their depiction at maximum level. In fact, the Jain and Hindu styles overlapped with each other to achieve greater extent in expression. Both of these styles overlapped to produce the elaborate all-over patterns carved in the forms of bands that became the feature of Indian architecture in later period. The sculptures of Jains are often found carved on a gigantic scale. For example: The marked feature of the art of them can be said as the domes that were constructed on the level of corbel stones. The earliest prehistoric sculpture in India was produced in stone, clay, ivory, copper, and gold.

Linkage with Social Context
The comprehensive analysis and chronology of the earliest known stone sculptures of India illustrates the deep rooting of its theme in the social context.vaman The north Indian City of Mathura is famous for sculpture dating prior to the Kushan period. It also includes numerous new attributions of objects that were based primarily on epigraphic and visual analysis. The sculptures attributable to these pre-Kushan periods reveal new evidence for the reasons behind the emergence of the anthropomorphic image of the Buddha at Mathura, the predominance of a heterodox sect of Jainism, and the proliferation of cults of nature divinities. All the information throws light on progresing civilization process that took place in India.

Today, most of the Indian sculpture is stored in a museum, is inevitably isolated from its original context.To understand and interprete the sculpture, it requires more research. To visualize the architectural setting, religious motivation & inspiration and to draw out its philosophical meaning becomes difficult when the sculpture is removed from its original placement. For understanding of the profound meaning and purpose behind producing art pieces, one has to revert back to sculpture of the prehistoric period (c. 3000-1500 BC) and the beginning of the historic era (4th century B.C.). Indian sculpture had started developing from the Indus Valley civilization during the 2nd and 3rd millenium BC. Some of the evidences of sculpture that remained today reveal the carvings of nature`s objects, deities, and animals.

-bronze-dancing Giving specific examples of this artwork found among the ruins of the Valley include the bust of a priest in limestone and a bronze-dancing girl. At the beginning of the 4th century BC, there was a spread of the Buddhism and its teachings. During this period, about 85,000 monuments were constructed with the image of Buddha and the central themes and teachings of Buddhism were engraved on many rocks and pillars.


God :Logical formation of concept
The study regarding the development of image worshiping in India using various media like terracotta, stone and bronze, some idea of the diverse forces that were acting on Indian thought, religion and iconography can be drown. A notable feature of Indian sculpture is that various aspects of Indian culture, folk and classical thoughts are reflected through the sculptures, which includes themes dealing with love of nature, sensuality, fertility, eternity and divine omniscience etc.

It is said that in the early phase, the concept of an "image" first developed in literary Shivasense and then the word gained a sculpted physical shape. Therefore, most of the times, it is based on an idealized human form. Natural forces were personified for the purpose of identifying them and then deified. Most early deities were therefore abstractions of natural phenomena like rain, water, earth and wind. These deities are in human form with additional attributes like multiple heads or hands with a belief that the deity will endow them with supernatural power. Even the concerned feelings with sensuality and fertility can be understood in the context of procreation and fecundity, which are fundamentally natural phenomenon. This symbiotic relationship can be understood from the manifestation in the imagery of yaksha-yakshi, the vanadevata concept of nature spirits and the mother goddess whose human imagery forms the major part of early Indian sculpture. Natural spirits were represented in sculpture by voluptuous female forms.

The most remarkable development in the history of Indian sculpture was use of colours in the sculptures. Indian art of sculpturing mixed with the painting to give more visual impact .In the production of the Ajanta caves and Buddhist monasteries and prayer halls the technique was used. The most important aspects of Indian sculpture is the images produced during the Buddhist and Hindu periods are on the wide range of existence. Some of the details about these images are known but it shows the relationship of its creation with the dominant religious ideas of that time.

As the ichnographically developed imagery of Hindu deities like Shiva, Vishnu and Durga developed mainly based on mythology of sect and beliefs that rooted into minds of people. Therefore, Indian sculpture can be considered as the vehicle or channel that strongly conveys these forces to the devote visiting to the temple. But the point that captures the sensibility is the eternal presence of the image and the awesomeness of the genius power enshrined in the image of the deity.

godThe real skills of the Indian sculptor can be found in his imagination & visualization of the deities` ideal proportions, youthful bodies and expressions. The extent of proportion that is fixed in the Shilpa texts i.e. manuals prescribing about proportions and iconography were strictly followed without much alteration in it. Generally, the deities were endowed with attributes and most iconographical details were already decided for the sculptors & he was bound to follow it. However, the expressions of various emotions, body flexions, yogic concentration and narrative compositions remained influenced by individualistic skills that allows the sculptors to experiment with the forms of sculptures. Sculptors tried at every age for infusing the deity with the breath of life or prana. Sculptures of deities with their consorts, celestial beings, couples directional deities, composite animals and decorative central ideas resulted in forming the mass of images that adorned the walls of the temples and their interiors. The deities were carved strictly as per the religious cannons and installed in sacred places by performing a special consecration ceremony.

NarshimaIn the 1st century AD, the theme behind the art has changed drastically where the human figure replaced the images of Buddha and his teachings. These images treating Buddha, as a human figure became important in all acts related with worshiping. To emphasize immortality of Buddha, images were created showing halos and engravings on his palms and feet. The Buddha statues that were created in the 5th century focus more on the details of facial expression & feelings rather than the body. As from the 4th to the 6th centuries, Hinduism was established as the India`s official religion, resulting in the production of numerous images of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Most of the images from this period are found today in temples and museums throughout various parts of India.