Litografia de diego rivera biography
Work and Rest
Date Made: 1956
Graphic Artist: Charlot, JeanPrinter: Kistler, Lynton R.
Description (Spanish): La Colección de Artes Gráficas del Museo Nacional de Historia Americana alberga una extensa serie de grabados del arqueólogo y artista Jean Charlot (1898-1979), y del prominente grabador de Los Ángeles Lynton Kistler (1897-1993). Nacido en Francia, Chralot, autor original de esta ilustración, pasó los comienzos de su carrera durante la década de 1920, en la ciudad de México. Como asistente del pintor socialista Diego Rivera, estudió muralismo, un movimiento artístico mexicano que resurgió en las comunidades latinas de los Estados Unidos en las décadas de los '60 y '70. Esta litografía, titulada <i>Trabajo y Descanso</i> contrasta la labor de una mujer indígena moliendo maíz con un metate, con el letargo de su bebé. Impreso por Lynton Kistler en Los Ángeles en 1956, simboliza la imagen de una mujer mexicana con una vida al margen de la era industrial. Esta noción del "Viejo México" impoluto por la modernidad resultaba atractiva para los artistas de principios del siglo XX, preocupados por la mecanización y el materialismo de la cultura americana. También constituía una visión que se envasaba como un escape exótico para muchos turistas americanos. Vale la pena contrastar el pintoresco atractivo de una mujer indígena trabajando para hacer tortillas con la industrialización actual de la fabricación de tortillas. Ya hacia el año 1956 esta mujer probablemente hubiera comprado sus tortillas en pequeñas cantidades en la tortillería del barrio, ahorrándose las 6 horas de trabajo aproximadas que le hubiera llevado procesar, moler y cocinar la harina de maíz ella misma.Location: Currently not on view
Place Made: United States: California, Los Angeles
Subject: LatinoFood Culture
Subject:
See more items in: Work and Industry: Graphic Arts, Cultures & Communities, Work, Mexican America, Art
Exhibition:
The lithograph The Rural Schoolteacher, of 1932, is another of the images Diego Rivera took from his mural work. In the foreground of the scene we see a group of men, women, children, and old people under the guidance of a schoolteacher, who is indigenous like them. Having no other place to perform her teaching tasks, she has assembled her group in the countryside, where several men can be seen working the earth. There is also a horseman with a rifle in his hand, reminding us that the Revolution is still present and that “education for all” is yet another of its achievements.
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Mexico has the oldest printmaking tradition of any country in the Americas. The first press was established in 1539 near the Zócalo—the heart of ancient and modern Mexico City—with materials provided by the publishing firm of Juan Cromberger in Seville, Spain.[1] During the early years, woodcuts and engravings, mainly of religious subjects, were employed for book illustration. As printmaking became widespread, prints came to serve very different needs, as demonstrated by a thesis proclamation printed on silk from 1756. Works such as this one are exceptional and cannot be considered representative of quotidian practice, but they indicate the reach of printmaking and the range of its uses. Prints embody Mexico’s political, social, and artistic depth and engage with the country’s long history. By operating as active agents in the narratives they promote, prints themselves have instigated change, shaping the competing politics, identities, and collective memories of Mexico.
The founding of the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City in 1781 had significant consequences for printmaking. Following a European model, engraving was part of the curriculum, and in 1831 lithography was introduced to the program.[2] Lithographic workshops soon began producing high-quality prints of subjects that included Mexican topography, dress, and customs for both local and international markets.[3]
By the mid-nineteenth century, printmaking in Mexico increasingly had assumed a social purpose, attending to events of the day that were often viewed through a satirical lens. Early prints generally survive in low numbers and were not collected until the twentieth century. The impulse to preserve them developed alongside the inexorable growth of printmaking, especially after the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), when prints came to serve a broader democratic political agenda that sought to educate Mexicans through art. Prints perfectly suited ideology and ambition: they were cheap, created in mult .