Among this series of paintings, Teotihuacán stands out both geographically and culturally. Chichén Itzá and Uxmal are Maya sites from southern Mexico; Teotihuacán was founded by a distinct civilization in the central Mexican highlands centuries before the height of Maya culture.
The Temple of Quetzalcoatl, Teotihuacán, Distrito Federal, Mexico
Dodge was intentional in capturing the sites’ differing architectural and decorative styles. He emphasized the intricate carvings that decorate the façade of the Temple of Quetzalcoatl at Teotihuacán, showing animalistic faces jutting out between raised geometric features. In the background, stone steps rise at a steep angle toward the top of the pyramid.
Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacán, Distrito Federal, Mexico
The Pyramid of the Moon stands at the northern end of the Teotihuacán city complex, looming over an open space opposite the Temple of the Sun. Both temples served as important locations for ritual functions during the city’s occupation.
Across all these sites, Dodge’s work captures the romantic 1930s view of Mesoamerican exploration. His impressionistic style emphasizes the scale of the architecture as well as its vivid beauty among the natural environment, with even decay portrayed in lively color. Even so, the buildings remain lonely and unpopulated points in the landscape, merely mysterious relics of time past, unconnected in Dodge’s art to the descendant cultures that surround them. Popular publications of the time often shared that tone and framed archaeologists as brave explorers uncovering lost civilizations. In reality, ordinary people like those Dodge depicted at Mitla (see the first image in this exhibit) are the bearers of this cultural continuity. Dodge’s paintings, however romanticized, are a glimpse into the past of living communities.