Las ciudades perdidas de los Mayas. Vida, obra y descubrimientos de Frederick Catherwood

by Fabio Bourbon, Frederick Catherwood (Illustrator)

Vida y obra del artista ingles Frederick Catherwood, el protagonista de una de las mas importantes expediciones arqueo­logicas en la America decimononica.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Architecture, Anthropology, Biography, Art

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Fabio Bourbon è uno scrittore di formazione classica, specializzatosi nella divulgazione della storia delle civiltà del passato e dell’arte antica.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The American lawyer John Lloyd Stephens and the English artist Frederick Catherwood made a trip through the Yucatán Mexico in 1839-40. There was a belief in those days that the primitive peoples of Meso America were descendants of the Egyptians. Pyramids and hieroglyphs were the common factor.

They weren’t the first. There was an expedition to Palenque in 1807 with drawings by a Mexican artist Luciano Castañeda and a Guatemalan colonel that made an expedition to Copán in 1830. In 1834 the Mexican Juan Galindo published a book called “Antiquités Mexicaines.”

In the early 19th century, travel to exotic lands was enticing many to seek out new places. Catherwood had travelled to the Middle East and had done a series of drawings which had translated into illustrating books for other travellers, including “Landscape Illustrations of the Bible.”

Stephens himself was coming back after exploring the same regions of the Middle East. In the summer of 1836, Stephens saw the Catherwood painting “View of Jerusalem” in London. The two met and the start of a long friendship was about to begin.

Stephens returned to New York and published a memoir called, “Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petrea and the Holy Land” in 1837. It was a considerable success, selling 20,000 copies in two years.

Encouraged by Stephens, Catherwood sailed to New York and established a building to house a “panorama” of the Middle East. These were large scale paintings on canvas and mounted on rollers. The viewer was able to see these spectacular views for a low cost (this happened much before movie theatres would come into being). Catherwood made money and Stephens had a great idea.

Unlike the previous explorers, no one had truly recorded the Mayan regions as planned by Stephens and Catherwood. They needed a pragmatic reason to go. In September 1939, the post of American charge d’affaires for Central America became vacant and Stephens asked president Van Buren to take the post. It worked and they set out in 1839.

The views drawn by Catherwood are breathtaking in scope. Remember, none of these archeological sites had been developed so it was common to see trees growing out of the pyramid of Chichén Itzá. In many cases they hired locals to clean the area around a building or monument. In Copán, where some 40 idols were discovered, if they hadn’t cleared the area, they would not have found the idol.

This is where Catherwood shines. His architectural drawings and maps give us a glimpse, not just into the past, but by adding people into the image, we see the scale, not to mention the customs of the day. There is a beautiful rendering of women around an old water well, or my favourite the men hauling water out of the cenote at Bolonchen. It’s as if we are caught in the moment.

Of course, travelling in those days was not for the feint of heart. Both men came down with malaria several times but add in the political agitations going on in the area of Guatemala and Honduras, the two were lucky to survive the expedition. Even the Charge d’affaires position was short-lived.

Once published, Incidents of Travel was a stellar success. Catherwood also published his own book, Ancient Monuments in Central America. The world had taken notice, and thanks to Catherwood’s detailed drawings of the glyphs, the idea of peoples of Egypt had disappeared and the Mayans were now being respected in their own right.

Of course a follow up trip was pushed by their published that prompted a return expedition in 1842. This trip, however proved even more challenging. The men once again became sick and even the drawings seemed rushed. At the time, they also brought along the newly created Daguerreotype but even that was lost in the humid terrain.

Back in America, after all their success, the two went their separate ways. Stephens had more continued success while Catherwood had a variety of up and downs along the way. Both men died almost a year within each other but their real success was what was caught in this book.

Kudos to the publisher for this collection of beautiful illustrations. It shows off Catherwood’s talent. Personally I am not sure how he did it with all the mosquitoes eating him alive. The camera lucida would help with laying in the structure of the image but the talent lies within. The background story by Fabio Bourbon really helps to understand the context of this time period.

It was a truly memorable book to read especially since we made trip to many of these same archeological sites almost fifteen years ago. Few hardships and mosquitoes involved.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me 10 years to read this book. I've enjoyed it many time over the years, but mainly to look at Catherwood's gorgeous illustrations. I finally got around to actually reading this book and learned that the artist died in a shipwreck in the north Atlantic. His ship was rammed by another vessel and the captain escaped in a lifeboat, leaving the passengers to fend for themselves. What a sad end to a remarkable life.

[Frankie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This large-format book was full of Catherwood's glorious artwork, and that's the reason for owning it. The text, while an adequate brief history of Catherwood's life and his Central American expeditions, was not very well written.

[Bill Leach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frederick Catherwood was a notable artist who accompanied John Stephens on his expeditions to Central America to explore ruined cities of the Mayan civilization. He is noted for the care and accuracy of his works, still being useful to scholars today. The author notes that in spite of the work he did and the positive reception of it by the public, little is known of his personality and the only surviving depiction of him is a figure which he drew into one of his paintings.

Catherwood addressed the problem of recording large, detailed buildings by using the camera lucida.

At the time of the investigations of Stephens and Catherwood, numerous theories existed that the ruins were the remains of various Europeans cultures that had made it to Central America at earlier times. Such theories proposed the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and many others including the lost tribes of Israel. Catherwood's drawings showed the architecture, art and symbols to be completely different, thereby showing that the ruins were the remnants of American cultures.

Bourbon provides a biography of Catherwood, concentrating on the periods when he worked on recording the remaining structures, their frescoes and the Mayan script. Many of Catherwood's drawings are presented in large size, making it a beautiful book.

[Javier Lardone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slowly read through each page as i spent a lot more time contemplating the incredible drawings amd sketches and wondering what it rook doe Underwood and parrner to survive this epic adventure

[Diana Suddreth · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a marvelous adventure this book is. I learned so much about the discoveries of the Mayan ruins in Mexico and Guatemala and the often ill-fated explorations of Frederick Catherwood and John Lloyd Stephens. The persistence of Catherwood and Stephens as they battle the jungle and malaria is heroic and unusual and the result was the beginning of modern studies of the Mayan culture as unique to the Americas.

Catherwood's illustrations are incredible and the book sadly reveals how the bulk of his work was destroyed in a fire or otherwise disappeared over time. In fact, there are many sad facts throughout the book, from Catherwood's financial difficulties to his untimely death in a shipwreck.