Lecture: Stephen D. Houston

A Gleam in the Forest: Meaning and Material in Ancient Maya Color

Colors alone or in combination had profound meaning for the ancestral Maya. They also had a history of use and a rich vocabulary to describe their many nuances. This talk explores a world where color invoked perceptions of materials, directions, and the bold palette of a natural or built setting, expressed in painting and books. Such systems of color require local study, in ways contrastive with comparable arrays in other parts of the world.

Stephen D. Houston, a specialist in Maya civilization, serves as Dupee Family Professor of Social Sciences at Brown University and Chair of the Senior Fellows, Pre-Columbian Studies, Dumbarton Oaks. A MacArthur Fellow, Houston gave the 72nd Andrew W. Mellon Lectures at the National Gallery of Art and was awarded, by the President of Guatemala, the Order of the Quetzal in the grade of Grand Cross, that country’s highest honor. He is also lead author on a standard book about Maya color, Veiled Brightness: A History of Maya Color (U of Texas Press, 2009).