Olmec: People of Stone

My buddy might be moving to Japan! So we decided to get in one more sketching outing before he heads off. (Actually he’ll be back, it’s only a scouting trip for now, but soon!) I’m impressed with his sense of adventure. But yes! We decided to take in the Olmec exhibition at the Pointe-à-Callière.

This giant head is as tall as a tweenager and five times as wide. It looks like a big baby head, but the meanest big baby you ever met. He’s probably a warrior, but it might be an athlete, playing the mesoamerican ball game ōllamaliztli.

The Olmec are my favorite of the Mesoamerican peoples, artistically speaking. I love the strange distortions in their art style. These slouching fellows with the elongated skulls are about the size of a GI-Joe, carved from jade, and were found placed in a conversational grouping of about a dozen figures, buried in a grave mound.

Who knows the meaning of these carvings? But they look like little wizards having a deep conversation.

I didn’t check if there was any information on this stone head – The label just says; ‘Zoomorphic Head’.

It sure looks like a dragon hey? It’s hollow, with an opening in the skull (as with both of the figures coming up next) and it’s my completely unsubstantiated opinion that they would have placed smoking fires inside, sending up spooky tendrils; completing the dragon-like illusion.

The next two figures are from later periods; the imagery in these areas gets more and more ornamental over time; more fun to draw :)

The oddly flattened crown on this figure was probably backed with a flowered or feathered headdress making it twice as large and very colorful. And, the ornaments next to the ear of the larger face are dangling human hands! The reverse side of the stone figure below is a human skeleton facing the opposite direction.

Very ominous!

I have to imagine him as a high-priest wearing a stretched human skin on his head. There’s also a spherical hole in the center of the chest – just the right size for a human heart.

Just saying.

We know these cultures practiced human sacrifice, but there was no discussion at the exhibition what that opening in the chest was for.

Another detail you probably won’t spot; the portly gentleman below is wearing a belt made of entwined serpents. I love this sort of fantastical, mythological stuff! Magic was real to people in those days. I should spend more time reading about these old priests and their gods, but really, I just enjoy sketching and imagining what things were like.

All sketches 6×9″ sketchbook pages, drawn at the museum and painted in a nearby café.
Pigments; mostly Goethite and Pyrrole Orange. The darks are Indigo, Bloodstone and Tyrian Purple.