The Mayans were a group of people under the Mesoamerican society characterized by their ancient architecture, complex writing systems, and contributions to astronomical systems, calendars, mathematics, and the visual arts.
The ancient Mayans’ art forms are sophisticated and include a wide variety of visual art forms, including ceramics, sculpture, relief carvings, monuments, intricate murals, and the use of materials such as jade, obsidian, and wood.
The Mayan culture was famous for its broad use of materials such as shells, bone, stone, textiles, precious metals, clay, jade, wood, obsidian, gold, and silver.
Although artists came from varying levels of society, the works of the “talented” would go noticed by the elite who would commission artworks as a representation of their wealth and “maintenance” of social status.
Some of the important subjects found in Maya art often contained imagery related to scenes from everyday Mayan life and murals that portray different Mayan Gods and high-ranking members of society.
Some of the Mayan patterns include imagery of bats, which are regarded as creatures with a dual nature and are incredibly superstitious signs. The bat is also symbolic of the division between good and evil and the unity of both.