"About Oaxaca": Art & Music

Rufino Tamayo was a Oaxacan painter born in Oaxaca de Juárez on August 25, 1899. He was of Zapotec heritage, which was of considerable influence for him in his earlier work. He initially began his artistic undertaking as a student in Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas at San Carlos, however, he soon went on to study art independently. His primary association was with the Modernist movement, which sprung up as a result of the development of modern industrial societies, though he experimented a lot with Cubism, Impressionism, and Fauvism, each with a noticeably Mexican undertone of style.

Tamayo is one of the most interesting examples in Oaxacan art because of his distinctly controversial and uncommon anti-revolutionary views. After the Maxican Revolution he devoted his art to what was his conception of a traditional Mexico. Much of this dealt with the notion that revolution in Mexico was not necessary for the progression toward a brighter Mexican future, but rather it would harm and hinder Mexico. This is best exemplified in one of his most famous pieces Niños Jugando con Fuego (1947) which can be seen as somewhat of an allegory in which the Mexican people are represented by the children and their revolution by the fire that, in the painting, burns them.

One of the major influences in Tamayo’s work can be traced to his cultural heritage and his time in Oaxaca. Tamayo was, in his time, one of the few artists who really celebrated the diversity of Mexico’s ethnic and cultural differences. This can be seen in many of his works including Lion and Horse (1942) in which he fuses Spanish and native styles. His love of Mexican diversity can be attributed to his home, Oaxaca, which is one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse regions of Mexico.

Tamayo’s style can be characterized by his use of color and his distinct version of rendering figures. He was a firm believer in the minimization of diverse color schemes. In his mind, the fewer colors, the better. He believed the use of fewer colors gave more importance and power to the meaning of the painting. His figures, especially animals, are rendered in what one might call a distinctly pre-Hispanic Mexican style integrated with Cubist undertones. This is evident in their alluring simplicity and clear geometry.

Among being a well-acclaimed painter and social critic, Tamayo was also the pioneer of a new form of art altogether. It is called Mixografia. It is a form of graphic art that uses a process that allows one to product three-dimensional prints with texture and fine surface detail.

http://www.mixografia.com/print.php

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Rufino-Tamayo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufino_Tamayo