Michoacan Sculpture of a Standing Woman

Though her bold symmetry only makes a minimal concession to realism, this abstract woman glows with the energy of human life. Bare breasted, wearing jewelry, she was left long ago as a votive gift. Almost certainly, she represents the person who offered her before the Gods, a woman of ancient Mexico. Perhaps this is the only clue remaining to that forgotten human life, the embodiment of hopes and reams not so very different from those we might feel today. Just beneath the surface of the clay, we sense the heartbeat of a vanished world. – (PF.0372)