Lascaux paintings
Dordogne, France
Animals painted in a cave about 17,000 years ago.
06 · Art Library
The art of all humanity.
Painting, sculpture, architecture, textiles and music of all humanity.
Sources in every card · References
01The map of art
Where the art of humanity lives.
27 works on one map, from Lascaux to Rapa Nui and from Copán to Vienna, with day and night live. Press ▶ to fly from work to work; every point opens its card.
Fly through the art: press ▶ to fly
Every card is placed where its own place line says; a region is marked at one representative point. Base maps © Esri and OpenStreetMap contributors · continents: Natural Earth (public domain).
02World Art
Ten works, ten peoples, one humanity.
From the caves of Lascaux to The Great Wave: painting, sculpture and architecture of every continent.
Nothing here matches yet. Ask the librarian.
Terracotta Army
Xi'an, China
About 8,000 clay soldiers guard the first emperor, 3rd century BCE.
Benin Bronzes
Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria
Royal plaques and heads cast from the 13th century on.
Ife heads
Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Naturalistic Yoruba portraits in copper alloy and terracotta.
Moai
Rapa Nui
Nearly 1,000 stone ancestors facing their villages.
Sun Stone
Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico
Mexica monolith with the five suns and the twenty day-signs.
Kakadu rock art
Arnhem Land, Australia
Tens of thousands of years of painting in the rock shelters of country.
The Great Wave
Katsushika Hokusai, Japan
Woodblock print of about 1831, known across the world.
Taj Mahal
Agra, India
White marble mausoleum completed about 1648.
Mona Lisa
Louvre, Paris
Leonardo da Vinci's portrait, early 16th century.
03Maya and Mexican art
From the libraries of Mesoamerica.
Murals, pigments, masks and monoliths from the Mayan and Mexican libraries of NEO.
Nothing here matches yet. Ask the librarian.
Bonampak murals
Chiapas
Painted about 790 CE: court, battle and celebration in vivid Maya blue.
Maya blue
Pigment of the Maya
Indigo bound to palygorskite clay: a colour that has resisted centuries of rain.
Calakmul murals
Chiik Nahb, Campeche
Scenes of a market and everyday life painted on a pyramid.
Mask of Pakal
Museo Nacional de Antropología
Jade mosaic funerary mask of K'inich Janaab' Pakal of Palenque (died 683 CE).
Yaxchilán lintels
British Museum and Yaxchilán
Lady K'abal Xook's vision ritual carved in stone.
Hieroglyphic Stairway
Copán, Honduras
The longest known Maya inscription, with more than 2,000 glyphs.
Jaina figurines
Isla de Jaina, Campeche
Small clay portraits of Maya men and women from an island burial ground.
Codex-style vases
Petén and Calakmul
Painted vessels with gods, lords and myths, in the style of the books.
Huipil
Backstrap loom
The woven blouse whose designs name the wearer's town and cosmos.
Marimba
Guatemala and Chiapas
The wooden xylophone, national instrument of Guatemala.
Olmec colossal heads
Veracruz and Tabasco
Seventeen basalt portraits of rulers, about 1200–400 BCE.
Sun Stone
Museo Nacional de Antropología
Mexica monolith carved about 1500 with the five suns and the twenty day-signs.
Coatlicue
Museo Nacional de Antropología
Monumental image of the mother of the gods, with her skirt of serpents.
Tlalocan mural
Tepantitla, Teotihuacan
The mural known as Tlalocan, the paradise of the rain god, painted about 500 CE.
Quetzal headdress
Weltmuseum, Vienna
Masterpiece of the amanteca featherworkers of Tenochtitlan.
Talavera
Puebla and Tlaxcala
Tin-glazed pottery, Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (UNESCO, 2019).
Tenango embroidery
Otomí, Hidalgo
Animals and plants of the Otomí world embroidered in bright colours.
Mexican muralism
Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros
Twentieth-century murals telling Mexico's history on public walls.
Frida Kahlo
Casa Azul, Coyoacán
Self-portraits that join pain, identity and Mexican tradition.
Mariachi
Jalisco
Strings, song and trumpet; Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (UNESCO, 2011).
04Art in our libraries
Every library keeps its art.
The art of each bioregion lives in its own library.
Library
Mayan Library
Glyphs, codices and the art of the Maya world.
LibraryMexican Library
From the Sun Stone to the living art of the 68 peoples of Mexico.
LibraryThe map of art
Every work of this library on one map, with day and night live.
LibrarySymbols
The signs of the days, the Maya numbers and the symbols of the sky.