Indigenism and SocialRealismSrqunrnos' Peasant Mother (1929), Diego Rivera's Flower Day (1925)andJos6 Sabogal's The lndian Mayor of Chincheros: Varayoc (1925)

[P\s9.2,3,4], all belong to the broad current of indigenismo, whichgained momentum during the Twenties and Thirties, in the wakeofthe Mexican Revolution, and which was manifested in the'redis-covery' and revaluation of native cultures and traditions, as well asin the use oflndian themes in literature and the visual arts, which areoften articulated in terms of social protest.

These three paintings, however, present three distinct attitudesto their Indian subjects, attitudes which are partly, but not fully,conditioned by the official and unofficial 'indigenist'policies oper-ative in Mexico and Peru respectively.

Siqueiros' Peasant Mother, while depicting an Indian woman andher child, does not emphasize the ethnic, but rather the woman'ssocial condition as poor and exploited. Rivera's Flower Day, on theother hand, is more of a solemn celebration of contemporarynative/mestizo life, while Sabogal's painting, depicting an Andeanvillage leader, emphasizes connections with the pre-Spanish rulersofPeru, the Inca, through the traditional silver-bound staffof officehe holds, and his proud and independent stance.

Diego Rivera's Flower Day - a theme which he repeated in laterversions - is a reprise of part of the fresco in the Ministry of Educa-tton (1923-4), Cood Friday at Santa Anita Canal, with the lily sellernow seen from the front, and the Indian women kneeling beforehim in the posture of stone representations of the Aztec deity Chal-chihuitlicue.'It is one of the most spectacular of the images in whichRivera expressed his fascination with Indian/mestizo way of life - afascination which dates back to his first visit to the Maya region ofYucatdn in792l, and was strengthened by a visit the following yearto Tehuantepec.

Flower Day is dark in tone, compared with the chalkier and moredelicate colours of the mural, and it is massive rather than pictur-esque, its'interlocked, precisely structured and almost geometricalforms recalling the architectural cubism of 7975-76. This empha-sizes its static and hieratic, as opposed to decorative, character. Theflower-seller bends under his flowers towards the women, tree-like, but also cross-like, evoking both shaman and Christ. Thewomen's faces are generalized and simplified, with flat profiles,though the curving arm of the woman on the left recalls Picasso'ssubstantial neo-classical figures. In Flower Seller with Lilies [Pl. 9.5]

9.1 Deta i l o f P l . 9 .10 .

9.2 Jos6 Sabogal, The Indian Mayor oJChincheros:Varayoc, 1925, oil on canvas, Museo de Arte de Lima.

195

9.3 l)avid Alfaro Siquciros, Pcasant Motlrcr,1929, oi l on can\,; ls, 220x177cn., Museo de Artc Moderpo, Mexico Citv (rNse)

( ) .1 D iego I { i vc ra , F lo r ts Da) , ,19r5 , e rncaus t ic on c : r r l \ , : rs 1 -17 . .1x120. ( rcnr . . Los Anqc lcs Counn 'Mnseum o f Ar t ; L .A . Cor .u rn 'F u rds

9.5 Diego Rivera, Flower Seller with Lilies, 1943, oil onmasonite, 150x119cm., Collection Jacques and NatashaGelman.

INDIGENISM AND SOCIAL REALISM

the great mass of lilies almost hides the male figure behind. Riverapossibly knew Aztec poems, like the following love song, whereflowers are also a metaphor for poetry itself:

I've come to offer you songs,flowers to make your head spin.Oh, another kind of flowerand you know it in your heart.

I came to bring them to youI carry them to your houseon my back,

uprooted flowersI'm bent double with the weisht of themfor you.2

Certainly Rivera must have had a sense ofthe deep antiquity withinthe Mexican tradition of the image of the flower bearer.

Indigenismo, in Mexico, as 'the official attitude of praising andfostering native values', has taken several forms: notably the teach-ing in school and universities of pre-Columbian history and litera-ture, and the excavation and restoration of major pre-Columbiancities like Teotihuacdn, or Chich6n-ltz6, culminating in the found-ing of the great Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City inI964.It has become a major bulwark in the maintenance of a sense ofpride in the national heritage and the idea of common roots for thenation in the Indian past. It has also been recognized that themestizo majority as well as the Indian groups preserve much ofnative origin in their daily life: food, medicine, ritual, history andIanguage.

But, as Le6n-Portilla wrote in1975,'(Jnfortunately, the officialpraise of the Indian heritage has not always translated itself intocoherent forms of action which would really make possible the de-velopment of the native communities. It is perplexing indeed thatonly a few effective steps have been taken to put an end to the abusesof which, for centuries, the Indians have remained the principalvict ims. '3

A major influence on the new interest in the Indians, their pastand the long history of that past before the Conquest had beenManuel Gamio, whose Forjando Patria (1916) was mentioned inchapter 7 in connection with ideas of national identity within themural movement. Gamio, like Franz Boas, rejected the theory ofinferior and superior races that had dominated American socialscience to account for the persistence of 'these two great socialgroupings', Spanish and Indians, living side by side in rhe sameterritory; '. . . the one, numerically inferior, presents an advancedand efficient civilization, the other, numerically the larger, displaysa backward civilization.'a

Gamio undertook two major projects: an ethnographic survey ofthe population ofthe Valley ofTeotihuacin, and the excavation and

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I N D I G E N I S M A N D S O C I A L R E A L I S M

manifesto to social and political issues, however, but extends it toculture as an organic part of these: '. . . victory for the workingclasses will bring with it a unanimous flowering ofethnic art, cosnl-ologically and historically transcendant in the life of our race, conl-parable to that of our wonderful autochthonous civilizations'. Buthe distinguishes this from the 'criollo and bourgeois approval(which is all-corrupting) of popular music, painting and literature;the reign of the "picturesque" '.

V/hat the relationship might be between the'flowering of ethnicart', and the muralists themselves is not clear. Certainly Siquerrossaw his role as that of creating a propaganda art for the people. Un-like Rivera, Goitia or Francisco Leal, Siqueiros himself rarelypainted Indians, but when he did, it was clearly in the context ofsocial protest.

In Peru, where Sabogal painted hts Indidn Mayor, the situationwas different, for although the condition of many of the Indianswas no less desperate than in Mexico, there had been no social andpolitical upheaval like the Mexican Revolution, and movements ofreform or protest were much more circumscribed. 'Ten years afterthe popular Mexican uprising, the fullest and most intense socialstruggle in Peru was limited, geographically, to the capital, and interms of objec.tive, to achieve state recognition of the eight-hourworking dry."' President Leguia's strong dictatorship lasted from1919 until 1930, but during this period new political parties werefounded: APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana) andMaridtegui's Peruvian Socialist Party. Although Maridteguifounded his party on Marxist lines, it took as its model not Euro-pean socialism but the Peruvian Indian commune, or ayllu, whichwas based on pre-Conquest Inca social structures. Both writers andartists in Peru were closely involved with Mari6tegui and shared hisideas, contributing to his vanguard review Amauta [Pl. 9.8] (seeChapter 6).

Sabogal dominated indigenist painting in Peru during theTwenties and Thirties, and his painting more than any other 'in-

carnates the contradictions inherent in this movenrent'.12 A furthercomparison would be useful at this point, between Sabogal and thenineteenth-century Peruvian artist Francisco Laso. Laso was thefirst academic artist in republican Peru to turn his attention to thelocal inhabitants. He travelled, between 1850 and 1853, through theAndes, where he made numerous sketches from life of local scenesand events, and of figures [Pl. 9.9]. The final paintings, however,were done in the studio, with the aid, too, of photographs. In paint-ings like Rest in the Mountafurs and The Indian Potter [Pl. 2.16], thefigures are presented as highly dignified and static. There is littleconnection between Laso's painting and the picturesque costumhristascenes of traveller-artists, and his treatment of his subjects runscounter to the attitude of the middle- and upper-class urban 6lite(creoles and some mestizos) which assumed the inferiority of theIndian. His emphasis on the individual character of the faces, asopposed to the undifferentiated mass, is quite singular, even if theeffect of the smoothlv academic stvle is to idealize and romanticize.

AMAUTA

I ) o c u n r e D l ( ) s I r r a u g u r a l e s

9.8 Amauta, Septcmber 1926, cover

9.7 David Alfaro Siqueiros, Proletarian Mothcr,1930,Museo de Arte Modeino, Mexico Citv (rNna).

9.9 Francisco Laso, Rcst in the Mountains, 1859, oi l orrcanvas, 138x147cm., Banco Central de Reserva del Peru,L1Ina .

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INDIGENISM AND SOCIAL REALISM

The potter must surely be a portrait (though unnamed), but at thesame time the shaded face shifts attention away from the man andon to the costume and the pre-Columbian pot, his occupationalattribute.

The potter holds a Moche pot, though precisely what this sig-nifies is unclear. In the mind of the viewer, though, a connectionmust be made between the Indian and the ancient Moche civil-ization (r. 500 ao). He seems, in other words, independent, owingnothing to the Spanish colonial settlers. In Laso's Rest in theMountains, too, a Moche pot rests beside a magnificently cloakedfigure, with his strange hat - perhaps this, and the potter's equallystrange costume, were intended as authentic dress. A contradictorysense of timelessness and great antiquity emerges, not unlike that ofEuropean orientalist painters (it is interesring that in Paris Lasoworked in the studio of the academic orientalist Delaroche).

Although there are no obvious social connotations in Laso'sscenes, he does at the same time seem to resist too great a romantici-zation of the Andean Indian world, and his own activities as politi-cal reformer confirm that his interest was not just that of anobserver of the picturesque.

Even if Laso's dignified, noble and hieratic Indians obscured theconditions of exploitation in many Andean communities, they stillchallenged the bourgeois stereotype of the Indian as inferior. Astrong tradition was subsequently to grow presenting the Indians asInca - in other words presenting a past grandeur in the context of anation that needed to assert its unity. Mirko Lauer suggests that oneshould speak of a 'Tahuantinsuyuism'as well as of indigenism'inpainting and literature. He is strongly critical of this tendency: 'It

was art of academic formalism which exploited the gold and thefeathers, and which reproduced the hierarchical structure ofits ownsociety in an historical setting; its final achievement was to make theundernourished muscular, the poor rich, the ragged luxurious, andto create in the public mind a divide between the past and the pre-sent of the Andean people. ' lJ

Sabogal's Indian is caught between these worlds - he is both ofthe present and of the past; perhaps an ideal figure, and yet onewhich is in many ways close to the Indians in the novels of Sabogal'scontemporaries among Peruvian writers, such as Arguedas andCirio Alegria. Rosendo Maqui, the village leader in Cirio Alegria'sBroad and Alien is the World (1927), is a wise leader who guides hispeople and settles their disputes, and who lives in harmony with thenatural world. But, unversed in the unscrupulous practices of theinvaders (now the creole landowners), he fails to defend his village,is cheated by the law, and the novel ends with the landowner sup-ported by an army moving to force the Indians off their land. In thisnovel, which admittedly reads rather like a tract, Alegria fictional-izes the then current practice of landowners, who annexed theIndians'land and forced them to work it in the condition of serfs(gamonalismo). MariStegui argued, in 'The Indian Question'(Appendix, 9.1), that its root cause was this feudal system of land

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I N D I G E N I S M A N D S O C I A L R E A L I S M

tenure: 'A socialist crit ique exanrincs and clarif ies the problcm

because it looks for its roots in thc Pcruvian economy rathcr than ir.r

its administrative, legal or relisious institutions, or in the plurality

of its raciai conrposition, or in cultural or nroral ternrs. Tlie Indian

problen-r stcnrs fronl our t:corlomy. It is rootcd ir1 the systenr of land

ownership. "* The Indians and the laws fornrulated for their protcc-tion were in fact powcrless against the qrcat landowners. 'Larrd in-

dividually or collectively owncd by Indians has by now beenlargely expropriatcd', and, Mariitegui {roes on, 'The assunrption

that the Indian question is an ethnic one is fostered by thc most anti-

quated collection of iniperialist idcas. The concept of racial in-

feriority served the rvhite 'West's

pro{rranurre of conqucst and ex-pansion. To expect the emancipation of our indigenous pcoplesthrough the active hybridization of aboriqinals and r,vhite inrnri-

grants is a piecc of anti-socioloeical naivet6, conceivablc only in thesimple mind of an importer of nrerino sheep . . . ' It is ovcr the

question ofland that the lndian's strusgle has continued, not only in

Peru but throu{rhout Latin Anrerica.

Sabogal's lndian fisure appeals to ' lnca-ism', but at the sanre tinre

the fact that he stands before a real Andes landscape, with a vil lase,

rather than in the blank portrait space of Laso's potter, l inks this In-

caism to the land problenr, if obliquely. Sabogal contributed toMaridtegui's nragazine Amautd, but hc was nlore concenred with

cultural than social issues. His version of indigenisnr souqht to

shape cultural unity in Peru through thc encouragement of popular

art; he wrote articles about popular ccramics, carvings, and the

carved wooden bcakers (Kero) which remained unchanqed in

material and shape since Inca times [ntroduction Pl. 4]. At thc sanre

time he eschewcd thc academicisnr then in favour for thc height-

ened colour, enrphatic outl ir-re and broad brush-strokes of Fauvisnr.

After teachine at the_School of Fine Arts from 1920, he was in 1932

appointed director; ' ' under his guidance therc grew up what was

virtually a school of indigenist paintinr in Peru, including JuliaCodesido, Can.rino Brcnt, Camilo Blas, Cota Carvallo, Jorqe Seg-ura, and the selFtaught Mario lJrtea[Ja IPl. 9.10]. Indigenismtt was,

however, a derogatory term, used, as Sabogal said, with nralice;'The term "indiqenism" applied to Peruvians l ike Sabogal is a racist

nickname and a reflection of cultural discomfort. It is a rcaction

against those artists and cultivated intellectuals, without quotation

marks, who do not distance thcnrsclves from the people and thc

land. It is a protest against thenr for not perceiving thc pcople alrd

the land as a spectacle or as a nlcrc thcmatic construct."" Itr 19,13

Sabogal was forced to resign the dircctorship, and, although con-

tinuing to paiut, devoted much tinre to the rescue alrd ctrcourase-

ment of popular arts, on the verge, in tnauy places, of cxtittctiott.

The relationship between indigenisnr and 'popular' arts should

briefly be raised, for there is no doubt that in the most gencral tcrnls

the treatment of Indian themes in paintinu and in l iteraturc was

accompanied by a revival of ir lterest in popular and traditional 'arts

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INDIGENISM AND SOCIAL REALISIVI

9.10 Mario Urteaga, Burial of an Illustrious Man, 1936, ollon canvas, 5f1.4x82.5cm., The Museum of Modcrn Art,New York: Inter-American Fund.

9.11 Francisco Coit ia, Way to the 7-omb,1936, tempera oncarlvas, 119x91 cm., Private Collcct ion.

and crafts'- but in a selective way. In Mexico, popular art was offi-cially welcomed as'mestizo', as guaran_teeing and strengthe'ing thepurposed unity of the Mexican nationlT and in a sense proposing aninterchange at the level of the cultural assimilation of Indian groupsi' Mexico, which was actively pursued from the Twenties. Similarrevivals of folk art took place all over Latin America (see In-troduction).

Indigenism in Mexico covers a multiplicity of different and evenopposing attitudes. The syndicate, as we saw, placed great faith innative art, but warned against the bourgeois taste for popular art.The notion of indigenous art itself as 'popular' was certainlyappealed to in terms of the muralists' rejection of easel painting andthe individualist aesthetic of the bourgeoisie. Rivera surroundedhimself with pre-columbian and contemporary Indian art and arte-facts, ard objects of nrest izo popular cul ture. His col lect ion in-cluded Aztec, Maya, Zapotec a'd Mixtec sculpture and ceramics,and for this he built the special museum, the Anahuacalli; in hisstudio he kept an extraordinary collection of objects of ancient andrecent origin. The walls and ceiling were hung with papier mdch6

206

t). 12 Jcsirs Guer-rero (i:rl.,':in,o i l on c : rnv : rs , -55 .5x70. -5 c r r r . .Gr-rt i6rrcz I loldin.

I ortd i l ly Flt trrt , 1951.Collect ion Plscual

\

9.13 Xavier Cluerrero, - lu,o

f . Iot l tcrs. l9.15, b lack( ' r . l \ ( ) l t ( ) n o r l r r g c - r c r l l . . l p r . f . i 5 . ( , . . 1 , r . 1 . n t . . I l r . .Muscurn of Mo.t .nr Alr . Nerr .york l Jnter-Alncr ical lFund .

9.I1 Roberto Monfcnesro, l . ld)tt1 Ll 'ont(,n.1926. oi lon can\':ls, 80r(r9.8 crn., "il-re Mlis.-.,,rr of Mc,.l..r.,r-Art. Neu. York; Gifr of Nelson A. Rockcf-el lcr. l9- l l

9 .15 Sec P l . 3 .89a.

I

l i

9 .16 l ) i cgo l l r ve r . r . ' Thc

N l . t r r s i o r r s o i -X rb . r l b . r ' . \ \ ' . r t c r . ( ) l ( ) u r . I ) l .XV t r on r I ) opo l 1 , , 1 , . \ 1 t r ' co C - . t s . t l ) i cqo l l . i v c r . r .( i u r r n . r j u . r t o ( t : l u . t ) .

9 . 1 7 l ) i c g o l l i v c r a , ' T h c h c r o n v i n s , r r c s t r r r r r n o n c t l b r ' b . r t r r r c s s c n q e r s t o p l : r r t h t b , r l ] c . r r r r c \ \ i t h t h cundc r \ \ ( ) r ' l ( l ' . \ \ ' : l t c r co l o r l r . l ) l . l X f l - o r r r 1 )1 r | 1 r / [ i i / r . M t r sco ( i . r s . r l ) r cqo l { i v c r ' : r . ( i L r . r r r l j L r : r t o ( tNn , r ) .

q\\\t\\z

ffr,u lfri

9.25 Jos6 Ant6nio da Si lva, The CortonHaryest,19.18, oi l on canvas, 50x101 cm., Museude Arte de Sao Paulo.

9.26 Jos6 Ant6rr io da Si lva, Repousa(Fazenda), 1955, oi l on carlvas, 70x99.8cm.,Museu de Arte Contemporinea daUrr ivers idade de Sao Pa i r lo .

9.27 Jos6 Ant6nio da Si lva, EnchantedYr!:rjrU, 1957, otl on canvas, 25x,19.5 crn.,Collect ionJoSo Marino, Sio paulo.The widcspread success of self-taught naiveart ists al l over Latin America, l ike Ios6 Ant6nioda Silva,,runs paral lel to the succejs ofpopular art.

9 .2X Jorc Anronro da S i l va , Sugar Fac tor t , .1948. o i l on canvas . 50y l00cm. , "Co l lec r id r rJoio Marino, Sao Paulo.

I N D I G E N I S M A N D S O C I A L R E A L I S M

crammed into the lo'nvcr edge of the caltvas, expressed qrcat allqer at

the condition of pcasatrt serfdont.

Throughout Lat in Anrer ica dur ins thc 1930s there was a s inr i larmovemerlt amorl€a grollps of artists towards art with a social theme .Lasar Segal l , h inrsel f an inrnr iqrant . conr inq f rom a background ofGerman Expressionisnr, treated the thenrc of inrmigration in paint-ings and engravin{s; anrorlq his most strikins and oriqinal rvorks,though, are the eneravings he madc of the street l i fe of Rio de

Janeiro, its caf6s, prostitutes and sailors fl '} ls tt.23,24].Cindido Portinari was involved in both nrural and easel paintirrg.

He painted murals for the Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro,and in 1941 a Di5s1t1,gy1, o_l'thc lrle u, World for the Library of Conqressin Washington, D.C. l )ur ing the

'30s, he based a nunrber of can-

vases on coffee plantation rvorkers and nriners, which ranqc fronlthe depiction of whole scenes, as in C,rlf i 'c IPl. 9.29], which worl aprize at the Carneeic Institute in the USA in 1935, to studies of in-dividual f igures, which arc corlccivcd as paintings of typcs ratherthan oortraits. as in Thc Mcstizo.

9.29 Cirncl ido Port inari , Crl i i 'c, , l935,

oi l on canvas,131x195.3cr r r . , Museu Nac iona l dc tse las Ar tes , R io c icfaneiro.

' l - )

I N D I G E N I S M A N D S O C I A L R E A L I S M

inherent in indigenism were members of the Taller de GrdficaPopular, who went to consult Le6n-Portil la in the late 1950s notonly about Mexican history, but about the Nihuatl conrnrunities inMexico.18 Their prints and engravings represent ir1 many wJys acloser and more infornred involvement with the issues raised by 'in-

digenism'.Siqueiros' refusal to separate indigenism from social protest is

found elsewhere in Latin America - in Ecuador, for instance, whereEgas, Guayasamin and Eduardo Kingman all produced works criti-cal of social conditions [PIs 9.2I,22]. They often portrayed trasicfigures, frequently wonlen in mourning, which relate quite closelyto the expressionist work of Kithe Kollwitz. Guayasamin tended toconcentrate on urban subjects, as in Thc Sn'ike, while Kingman, inthe large painting Los Cuando-s whose oppressed figures are

9.21. Camilo Egas, Indians, 1926, oll on canvas, 12x70 cnL., Museo de ArtcModerno, Casa dc la Cultura Ecuatoriana, Quito.

9.22 Oswaldo Guayasarnin, Th( Strikc , 19,l0, oil on canvas, 1'11 xll6 c-rr.l. ,FundaciSn Guayasamin, Quito.

9.24 (belorv) Eug6nio de ProerrEa Sigaud, Actident atWork, 1911, 132x95 cm. , Muscu Nacional de Bclas Artes,l{ io de Janeiro.

2 I I