Sunday, March 6, 2022

09 works, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, La Malinche, Mexico’s Eve, with Footnotes. #188

Ramos Martinez
La Malinche (Young Girl of Yalala, Oaxaca,  c. 1940
Denver Art Museum.

Marina or Malintzin (c. 1500 – c. 1529), or more popularly known as La Malinche  Malinche. She has been known as the mother of Mexico, and even Mexico’s Eve (the son she had with Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés was likely the first mestizo person, of European and indigenous Amerindian heritage), yet her name is also associated with betrayal.

Antonio Ruiz (b. 2.9.1892)
Malinche's Dream, c. 1914
Oil on wood
86 x 60 cm
I have no further description, at this time

Ruiz, Antonio (1897–1964), also known as El Corzo or El Corcito after a famous Spanish bullfighter, was primarily an easel painter from the 1920s to the 1950s. His small, jewel-like paintings, finely executed in a naïve style, show influences from Surrealism, Northern Renaissance painting, New Objectivity, and Mexican folk art. For his subjects, Ruiz drew from Mexican history and politics as well as everyday Mexican life, but he often added a magical realist twist to his images. He produced very little, about four paintings per year, and sold only three works during his lifetime. A number of his paintings are now in the Museo de la Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (Museum of Ministry of Finance and Public Credit). His paintings are often satirical scenes of daily life in Mexico, sometimes with dreamlike elements, absurd juxtapositions and incongruous proportions that ally them with Surrealism. His most well-known work, El sueño de La Malinche (The Dream of La Malinche), of 1939, portrays the indigenous woman who acted as translator for Hernán Cortez and bore him a child; in this image Ruiz makes a clear reference to the Conquest of Mexico and expresses his awareness of the complexity of Mexico’s history. More on Antonio Ruiz

Her life, shrouded in myth, is also a tale of legendary events confirmed by artifacts and eye-witness accounts. The way we understand Malinche has changed as contemporary notions of national identity have shifted. Today, some see her as a historic traitor, whose relationship with Cortés helped the Spanish brutally conquer Mexico. Others see her as a brilliant communicator who effectively negotiated ways to prevent the Spanish from making their conquest of the Americas even more violent than it was. Malinche was born to a noble family around the year 1500, when she was given the name Malinali, which converted to Malintzin when addressed with respect, which the Spanish pronounced Malinche (the Spanish called her Doña Marina).

Maurin, Nicholas Eustache (1799-1850) (after)
Conquest of Mexico: Hernando Cortes destroying his fleet at Vera Cruz, c. 1519
Litho
Museo de America, Madrid, Spain

A painting made by Nicolas Eustache Maurin romanticising the Castilian conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés, note the fact that all Mexicans are depicted as having Mediterranean phenotypical features rather than indigenous American ones.

La Malinche stands by his side interpreting as he offer gifts

Nicolas Eustache Maurin is a French engraver, born in Perpignan on March 6  ,  1799 , died in Paris in 1850. Maurin was the son of Pierre Maurin, painter and brother of Antoine Maurin, also a painter. Nicolas Maurin was a pupil of Henri Regnault and exhibited at the salons in 1833, 1834 and 1835. More on Nicolas Eustache Maurin

She spent her early life growing up in the Nahuatl-speaking borderlands of the Aztec and Mayan empires. As a girl, her father died, and when her mother remarried, she was sold to Mayan slave traders. As a slave she learned to speak Mayan, acquiring bilingual skills that would later serve as a crucial link for communication between the Spanish conquistador and the Mayans and Aztecs. In 1519, after a battle between Mayans and Spaniards, 20 young slave women were offered to the Spanish. Malinche (thought to be in her early twenties) was among them.

José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949)
Cortés and La Malinche, c. 1926
Fresco
San Ildefonso College

On the defeated race, symbolized by a dark-skinned figure whose face cannot be seen, miscegenation arises through the union of the two nude characters. Cortes in a dominant attitude and Malintzin with her eyes closed in a submissive and passive attitude.

This is probably José Clemente Orozco's most famous piece of public art. In this fresco Cortés and Malinche are starkly nude, carnal yet akin to Adam and Eve, sitting over the figure of a prostrate, perhaps degenerate, Mexico, the product of miscegenation, the mixing of races. With his arm across her, it is not clear whether Cortés is restraining her or protecting her. It is clear that Malinche is being portrayed here as the mother of modern Mexico. It is unclear if the artist believes this is good or bad. The contrast between the whiteness of Cortés and the brown skin of Malinche and the one they are sitting over is deliberate. More on this painting

José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others. Orozco was the most complex of the Mexican muralists, fond of the theme of human suffering, but less realistic and more fascinated by machines than Rivera. Mostly influenced by Symbolism, he was also a genre painter and lithographer. Between 1922 and 1948, Orozco painted murals in Mexico City, Orizaba, Claremont, California, New York City, Hanover, New Hampshire, Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Jiquilpan, Michoacán. His drawings and paintings are exhibited by the Carrillo Gil Museum in Mexico City, and the Orozco Workshop-Museum in Guadalajara.[2] Orozco was known for being a politically committed artist, and he promoted the political causes of peasants and workers. More on José Clemente Orozco

Hernán Cortés soon learned of Malinche’s valuable mastery of the indigenous language, and she began accompanying him to meetings, along with the Mayan speaking Spanish priest Geronimo de Aguilar, who had lived with the Maya for eight years after his ship hit a sandbar off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.

The three met with representatives of Moctezuma II, ruler of Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire (later destroyed and rebuilt by the Spaniards as Mexico City). Malinche spoke with the representatives in their native Nahuatl and interpreted their words into Mayan, which Aguilar then interpreted into Spanish for Cortes. As time went on, Malinche quickly learned Spanish and became Cortés’s exclusive interpreter. The two formed a close relationship.

Desiderio Hernandez Xochitiotzin
Discussions between Taxcaltecans and Hernan Cortes
Mural
Tlaxcala city. Palacio de Gobierno

La Malinche interprets in the discussions between Taxcaltecans and Hernan Cortés (excerpt from the fresco "Tlaxcala a través de los tiempos y su aportación a lo mexicano" by Desiderio Hernández Xochitiotzin, produced between 1957 and 1995).

It was impossible for a woman to speak in public. This is to tell the surprise that the Emperor Moctezuma and his retinue must have felt when, on November 8, 1519, coming to meet Cortés, they saw Malinche, an Indian woman, between Cortés and him. It must have been a culture shock! And it wouldn't be the only one.

Desiderio Hernández Xochitiotzin (born San Bernardino Contla, February 11, 1922 – died Tlaxcala, September 14, 2007) was a Mexican artist best known for his large-scale mural work inside the State Government Palace in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, the last large scale mural of the Mexican muralism movement.

Desiderio Hernández Xochitiotzin was born in Santa María Tlacatecpac de San Bernardino Contla, Tlaxcala in 1922. His artistic training began in his family's handcraft shop and then at the Academia de Bellas Artes de Puebla. After traveling in various parts of Mexico and Europe to live and work, he returned permanently in Tlaxcala in 1957. The rest of his career was dedicated to painting the history and culture of his home state.

Before his death, he planned along with his daughter Citlalli to form a foundation named after him, with the aim of preserving his work and authenticate his artistic production. His daughter currently heads the organization whose activities include social and cultural events and research about the painter. The foundation sponsored an exhibit of his work in the United States in 2011. More on Desiderio Hernández Xochitiotzin

María Cristina Tavera
La Malinche Conquistada, c.  2015
Serigaph
30 × 30 in. (76.2 × 76.2cm)
Denver Art Museum

Maria Cristina Tavera ("Tina") is a contemporary Latino artist, curator, and cultural organizer who lives and works in Minneapolis, MN. Influenced by her dual citizenship, as well as her transnational movement between her residing Minnesota and Mexico families, she combines historical and contemporary texts and images from recognizable Latin American myths, legends, and present news. Tavera uses her prints, paintings, installations, and Dia de los Muertos ofrendas, or altars, to explore the way that national and cultural icons symbolize complex identities and can construct shared communities at home and abroad. Her artwork is both humorous and confrontational as she invites her viewers to question constructs of race, gender, ethnicity and national and cultural identities. She has exhibited her artwork and curated shows all around the world, and has artworks permanently installed in several art exhibits throughout Minnesota. More on Maria Cristina Tavera

Aztec codices from the period nearly always picture the two together. Records also indicate that Malinche informed Cortes of an Aztec plot to destroy his army and their conquest. Cortés himself stated in a letter that “After God, we owe this conquest of New Spain to Doña Marina.” Interestingly, Nahua wives in elite classes were traditionally active in helping their husbands in fulfilling their diplomatic and military objectives. In 1523, just a year after the Spanish army overtook Tenochtitlan, Malinche gave birth to Cortés’s son.

Alfredo Arreguín
La Malinche (con Tlaloc)/ Malinche with Tlaloc, c. 1993
Oil on canvas
48x36"
I have no further description, at this time

Tlaloc is a member of the pantheon of gods in Aztec religion. As supreme god of the rain, Tlaloc is also a god of earthly fertility and of water. He was widely worshipped as a beneficent giver of life and sustenance. However, he was also feared for his ability to send hail, thunder, and lightning, and for being the lord of the powerful element of water. Tlaloc is also associated with caves, springs, and mountains, most specifically the sacred mountain in which he was believed to reside. His animal forms include herons and water-dwelling creatures such as amphibians, snails, and possibly sea creatures, particularly shellfish.The Mexican marigold, Tagetes lucida, known to the Aztecs as yauhtli, was another important symbol of the god, and was burned as a ritual incense in native religious ceremonies. More on Tlaloc

Alfredo Arreguin was born in 1935 in Morelia, Michoacán. The distinctive painting style he later developed traces back to the vibrant folk arts and dense jungle landscapes of Mexico. He moved to the U.S. in 1956, served in the U.S. Army from 1958-1960, and then studied art at the University of Washington, where he earned a BA in 1967 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1969. Arreguin's paintings hang in major Northwest collections as well as national and international venues, including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and El Museo Michoacano in Morelia. In 1995 Arreguin received the Ohtli Award, the highest recognition given by the Mexican government to distinguished individuals promoting Mexican culture abroad. In 2013, his hometown of Morelia organized a tribute to him, including an exhibition at the Centro Cultural Clavijero, and then, in 2017, presented him with the keys to the city. His portraits of three Washington State Supreme Court justices hang at the Temple of Justice in Olympia. More on Alfredo Arreguin

Shortly afterward, Cortés’s Spanish wife arrived in Mexico and he arranged for Malinche to marry the conquistador Juan Jaramillo. Malinche would accompany Cortés one more time, this time on a military mission to Honduras. When she returned to Mexico, she gave birth to a daughter fathered by Jaramillo. Not much is known of her life beyond this time, it is not clear when or how she died.

Jorge González Camarena
The Couple, c. 1964
Denver Art Museum

Jorge González Camarena (24 March 1908 – 24 May 1980) was a Mexican prominent painter, muralist and sculptor. He is best known for his mural work, as part of the Mexican muralism movement, although his work is distinct from the main names associated with it. His major works include the mural on the main administration building of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Studies and a mural created for the Universidad de Concepción in Chile. He also created easel works, one of which, La Patria, was well known in Mexico as it was used on the cover of free textbooks from the 1960s into the 1970s. Recognitions for his work include the Premio Nacional de Arte, membership in the Academia de Artes and the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, grade Commendatore from the Italian government. More on Jorge González Camarena

Some observers question the fairness of calling Malinche a traitor and passing judgment on her relationship with Cortés and the Spanish conquest of Mexico, pointing out that being sold as a slave into that relationship was clearly not a personal decision. No matter how one chooses to interpret her role, the historic encounter of two separate worlds and the subsequent birth of a new nation seem to revolve around the figure of Malintzin, Malinche, or Doña Marina. More on La Malinche

Cecilia Alvarez
La Malinche Tenía Sus Razones, c.  1995
Acrylic paint on Amate (bark) paper
34-1/2 x 27 in
Denver Art Museum

"Traitor, Survivor, Icon will provide insights into the persona of Malinche, including her centrality to Mexican history and the ways in which her story resonates against our current cultural backdrop,” said Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer. More on this painting

Cecilia Alvarez (born April 15, 1950) is an American Chicana artist known for her oil paintings and murals depicting themes of feminism, poverty, and environmental degradation in the United States and Latin America. Alvarez's painting Las Cuatas Diego has been featured in books and exhibitions around the world. Alvarez has also illustrated the bilingual children's book Antonio's Card authored by Rigoberto González. Her work is collected by the Mexican Fine Arts Museum, the Seattle Art Museum and by the Kaiser Foundation. More on Cecilia Alvarez




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