The Art of the Divine at the Kimbell

As we entered the exhibit Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art, on display at the Kimbell Art Museum, we were greeted by a 14-foot-tall stela or pillar carving of Yuknoom Took’ K’awiil (say that five times fast), one of the last great rulers of Tikal. He’s clothed in his best ceremonial attire – a long cape, an intricate pectoral (chest piece), and a snake-like headdress topping his precisely curled hair. Part of his name, K’awiil, links him to the god of lightning, exemplifying the idea that Mayan rulers were the gods’ representatives on Earth.

Vessel with a Mythological Scene, Maya, Guatemala or Mexico, 7th–8th century, ceramic with pigment. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Purchase, Nelson A. Rockefeller Gift, 1968, 1978.412.206

It’s almost impossible to express how much presence this sculpture has. The king stands proudly at the entrance to the exhibit, as if he were standing watch over his own lands. He’s both intimidating but at the same time welcoming. Displaying signs of power and connectivity with the sacred, he proclaims his control over his domain. He is a god-king etched in stone.

This is a common theme in the exhibit, with many (if not most) of the items showing the Maya’s intimate relationship with the divine. The gods were not mythical beings, they were obvious to the Maya in everyday life. The exhibit outlines this in five sections; Day, Night, Rain, Maize, and Knowledge. These sections of the installation highlight the importance and roles of deities in the daily lives of the Maya.

Day, where we live and act, is the seen world; it is reality. Night is the unknown – death, mystery, then rebirth in the morning for a new Day. Rain is the giver of life and an unpredictable power, both feared and revered. The god of Maize is often portrayed in various stages of life – birth, growth, decline, and finally death – a repeating cycle at the center of a culture that relied on the maize crop for sustenance.

A quick aside here: if you see a figure in Maya art in the act of writing, or scribing, it may well be a god. The transfer of knowledge was seen as semi-divine and highly valued. Unfortunately, most of the knowledge and history of the Mayan people was lost with the destruction of perhaps thousands of codices (books) during the Spanish conquest of the Americas. So now we are dependent on four surviving codices and the art left behind by this ancient civilization for our understanding of this complex society.

Panel Fragment, Maya, Mexico, 7th–8th century, stone. Museo de Sitio de Palenque Alberto Ruz L’Huillier, Mexico, Secretaría de Cultura–Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.

The collection currently on display at the Kimbell is truly one-of-a-kind, featuring many items never before seen in the United States. Comprising almost 100 pieces of pre-Conquest art, the exhibit represents 14 Maya sites in Central America. Over 20 institutions are sharing parts of their collections for this exhibit, marking a phenomenal collaboration that occurs only rarely in the museum world. The items on display originate in the “Classical Period” of Mayan art (250-900 CE) and were crafted in and around many of the magnificent capital cities of the Maya. Seven of these pieces contain something extraordinarily rare in pre-Columbian art: the artist’s signature. This lends a special connection to the moment, a feeling of “I was here, and I made this” from the past.

Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art is on display at the Kimbell Art Museum from May 7 until September 3, 2023. It is brought by the Kimbell Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For ticket pricing and hours of operation, please visit www.kimbellart.org.