The Kimbell Art Museum Presents "Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea"

[Judi Lynn]

Saturday, August 28, 2010
The Kimbell Art Museum Presents "Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea"

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FORT WORTH, TX.- Rarely does an exhibition offer an entirely fresh way of viewing the art of a great civilization. Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea does exactly that––by revealing and interpreting the importance of water to the ancient Maya. Shark teeth, stingray spines, sea creatures and waterfowl appear in works of stone and clay; supernatural crocodiles breathe forth rain; cosmic battles take place between mythic beasts and deities—all part of a new and vivid picture of the Maya worldview.

Over 90 works, many recently excavated and never before seen in the United States, offer exciting insights into the culture of the ancient Maya, focusing on the sea as a defining feature of the spiritual realm and the inspiration for powerful visual imagery. Surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, denizens of Maya cities responded to the oceanic, inland and atmospheric waters that shaped their existence.

“In 1986, the Kimbell Art Museum’s landmark exhibition The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art shed new light on the importance of dynastic lineage and blood sacrifice to the Maya,” commented Eric Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum. “Recent archaeological discoveries and the deciphering of the Maya glyph for water have led to a new, broader understanding of the expansive influence that water in all its myriad forms had on both the daily life and spiritual beliefs of the Maya people. This exhibition is the next important chapter in Maya research, and I am thrilled that the Kimbell Art Museum will showcase it.”

At the height of its achievement, between 300 and 900 AD, the Maya civilization spanned hundreds of cities across Mexico and Central America. With a culture highly advanced in mathematics, astronomy, architecture and art, the Maya practiced a complex religion and used a refined pictorial writing system composed of more than 800 glyphs. The interpretation of this language has played a role in the understanding of Maya culture. While 90% of glyphs are now understood, it was only in the late 1980s that a glyph for the sea had been identified. Until this key glyph had been unlocked, the importance of the sea in Maya culture had not been fully studied or appreciated. The identification of this glyph, translated literally as “fiery pool,” was part of a growing awareness of the centrality of the sea in Maya life, which has culminated in this exhibition and its companion book.

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