Mexican Wall-Paintings [antikvár]

Mural painting was employed as one of their means of artistic expression by all the peoples of advanced culture who inhabited present-day Mexico. As far back as several centuries before Christ, walls of temples or palaces or tomb interiors were sometimes painted. But later, with the development of architecture, there was a corresponding increase of surfaces that permitted the execution of large murals, and so we find them even on the vaults of Maya ceilings. But painting being so susceptible to the depredations of time, nature and man, only a fraction of these ancient murals has survived, a number grossly disproportionate to that of the buildings themselves or the sculptures that we possess. Though the art is ancient its discovery is quite recent. The first description of Maya murals is to be found in a book by John Stephens, the great explorer of the Maya zone, which was published in 1843. * Little by little, further explorations, a more intense examination of sites difficult of access, and larger scale excavations have revealed a relatively important group of these priceless historical and artistic monuments.There has been much discussion of the technique employed by the Indians in the painting of their murals. True fresco, dry plaster-painting (fresco secco) and other methods have been suggested. Actually it seems that the same method was not always used, but that the walls of Bonampak were certainly painted in fresco.* John L. Stephens (1805-1852), American traveller. Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (1841) and Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843).