Statuary
Attitude
Actitud
Chac Mool
Henry Moore
Joan Miró
Egg
Postura
Prov.6:35
"He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts."
"Chac Mool, in both appearance and function, was one of the ugliest gods which the conquering strangers from the west had imposed upon the Maya, a deity from strange lands demanding strange sacrifices. He appeared in hundreds of massive stone statues throughout Maya lands, a fierce warrior shown lying flat on his back, his chest propped up by his elbows, his knees flexed, his feet resting firmly on the ground. This unnatural posture meant that his cramped stomach area provided a broad flat space into which was carved a big saucer held in place by the idol’s two stone hands. Obviously, the waiting receptacle was intended to be filled by donations from women who came to seek help from the gods, and on festive days it overflowed with flowers and bits of jade and even pieces of gold, a form of worship to which Ix Zubin did not object.
But the civil authorities, not the priests, ordained that on certain great days, Chac Mool, this brutal figure lying uncomfortably on his back, must receive rather more important gifts than bits of jade.
When this edict was made known, male slaves on Cozumel and all young men of the island grew apprehensive, for they knew that what the empty saucer resting on the god’s belly wanted now was a human heart, ripped out of a living body, and that nothing else would satisfy."~~~James A. Michener : Caribbean, Ch.2 Death of Greatness.
Galina Dub
Chac Mool
Henry Moore
The Reclining Figure emerged as Henry Moore’s ‘signature theme’ not quite from the very beginning but a little later, after his student years, from 1925. The key influence in this development may have been a visit to Paris in that year, where at the Trocadero Museum Moore saw a plaster cast of the Toltec-Mayan sculpture from Chichen Itzá known as ‘Chacmool’...”
“... The Chacmool became probably the most influential single sculpture in Henry Moore’s life; he hugely admired its mixture of solidity and vivacity, its relationship to the earth and its column-like legs...” (from ‘Henry Moore at Dulwich Picture Gallery’, 2004)
In 1947 Moore commented: ‘it was the art of ancient Mexico that spoke to me most . . . I admit clearly and frankly that early Mexican art formed my views of carving as much as anything I could do.’ In general Moore was struck by what he called the ‘intense vitality’ of ‘primitive’ art.
(Illustration, top, by Phillip Mursell, 2006).
Joan MiróCatalan painter Joan Miró combined abstract art with Surrealist fantasy to create his lithographs, murals, tapestries, and sculptures for public spaces.
Chess: "Statuary" "Attitude" "Actitud" "Chac Mool" "Henry Moore" "Joan Miró" "Egg" "Postura"
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