{"id":8,"date":"2008-12-15T11:17:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T15:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/?p=8"},"modified":"2010-02-06T18:49:38","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T23:49:38","slug":"art-mayans-death-and-mestizaje","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/15\/art-mayans-death-and-mestizaje\/","title":{"rendered":"Art, Mayans, death and mestizaje"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Written: Belize City, 15 December 2008<\/div>\n

The Mayan Museum, Chetumal, December 14, 2008<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Mayan museum opened at 9 a.m. so I went for a look. It was a modern building around an open courtyard filled with trees and birds. Other than a few items, and a map of the Mayan civilization, there was nothing very Mayan about the museum. It did have several galleries of work by Mexican artists.<\/p>\n

I love Mexican art. From the muralists to Frida Kahlo, and many lesser-known artists, Mexican art tells stories, conveys cultural themes, and is brilliant and surreal.<\/p>\n

Two common themes in Mexican art and culture are those of death and mestizaje<\/em> \u2013 the racial mixing of indigenous people and Spanish conquerors that led to the modern Mexican race.<\/p>\n

Death is celebrated November 1 on Day of the Dead, but it’s a theme that permeates Mexican culture right down to the little candy skulls that are often sold. Skulls and skeletons are common icons in Mexican paintings.<\/p>\n

Mestizaje<\/em> Is often glamorized, but the reality is it was a brutal conquest and rape of a civilization. The difficulty that Mexicans have in coming to terms with their cultural origins is not unlike a child accepting that his father was a rapist. Still, Mexican culture is so rich because it is a mixture of European and indigenous traditions \u2013 the Spanish-language, the indigenous food, and a European Catholicism infused with indigenous customs. At the same time, the mestizo culture, has always looked down on the indigenous as inferior. The reality of mestizaje<\/em> is complex.<\/p>\n

And so I particularly appreciated some of the works I saw that highlighted these common themes. I especially liked one artist, Angel Ortiz, who had traveled widely, including to Canada, and even had a painting of Vancouver harbor. His most striking work, shown here, was a montage of real human skulls inlaid among stones, the skulls displaying smiling and grimacing expressions.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/fineartamerica.com\/profiles\/angel-ortiz.html<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written: Belize City, 15 December 2008 The Mayan Museum, Chetumal, December 14, 2008 The Mayan museum opened at 9 a.m. so I went for a look. It was a modern building around an open courtyard filled with trees and birds. Other than a few items, and a map of the Mayan civilization, there was nothing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-mexico-central-america","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":550,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}