John D. Hoag, professor emeritus of art history at the University of Colorado at Boulder, will present a series of lectures on Mayan art this spring at the Boulder Public Library Auditorium.
The series, which is free and open to the public, will begin on March 24 at 6:30 p.m. Subsequent lectures will be presented on March 31, April 7 and April 14, all at 6:30 p.m. in the library auditorium.
Hoag will describe the course of Mayan civilization with emphasis on the art from its origins in the pre-classic period, before 250 A.D., through the collapse of the southern Maya in the late 8th and early 9th centuries, to its new beginning at Chichen Itza and other areas of the northern Yucatan.
The first lecture will focus on the Olmec antecedents of the Maya and their development on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala and in the highlands. Mayan sites to be discussed include el Mirador, Nakbe and Lamanai, as well as the earliest activity at Tikal.
Later lectures will focus on early kingship in Tikal and related sites, the influence of Teotihuacan on Mayan politics and art, late classic political entities and the development of local styles at Tikal, Copan, Palenque and elsewhere. A discussion of the Mayan collapse and the new beginning at Chichen Itza and Tulum will be included in lectures three and four.
Hoag has been a member of the CU-Boulder fine arts faculty since 1965, and has visited Mayan sites in Guatemala, Belize and Mexico annually for the last two decades.
Prior to that, he was an instructor at Yale University where he received his master聮s and doctoral degrees in art history.