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In addition to the "ofrendas", "catrinas", skulls, and other decorations along Francisco Santiago Borraz in Tlahuac, the facades of many of the houses are painted with murals, most of them with a Day of the Dead theme. We have been going there for several years, and while I recognized some of the street art from previous visits, other murals appeared to be new.
In my last post, I wrote about street murals that had been defaced by graffiti vandals. I continued walking down Chapultepec Avenue, and I came to a junior high school called "Héroes de Chapultepec". Along the sidewalk, on the wall surrounding the school, there were mural paintings. Two of them, side by side, caught my attention. They appeared to be very new, and thankfully had not been touched by vandals. They honored two men, one a scientist, the other an artist, who shared the same last names... González Camarena. (In the Spanish-speaking world people carry two last names. The first one is the father's family name, and the second is the mother's family name.) I wondered if these two men, who become famous in two very different professions, were related. I did a bit of research later on Wikipedia, and, yes indeed, they were brothers.
I have expressed a number of time how much I despise graffiti, and it seems as if is getting worse and worse. What especially infuriates me is that these vandals are defacing so much of the lovely street art that graces the city.
One case in point are the murals at Juárez Market on Avenida Chapultepec. The building was covered with murals... portraits of people that I assume are vendors at the market. I walked by there a few days ago, and I was disappointed to see that the low-life vandals have been at work here.
They even somehow climbed to the upper level of the paintings to leave their mark.
The other exhibit at the San Carlos Museum was a display of still lifes ("Naturaleza muerta" in Spanish, or "Dead Nature"). However, while this exhibit included many traditional still lifes, it also pointed that many paintings contain objects, such as bouquets of flowers or table settings, that could stand alone as a still life.
For example this painting, "The Supper at Emmaus" by 17th century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán, the artist portrays the meal on the table.
This past week I went to the San Carlos Museum to see a couple of special exhibits on display there. The first was called "The Heroic Body". It deals with the ancient Greek concept of the ideal human form... a mixture of athleticism, proportion and symmetry which was employed in their depiction of gods and heroes in their art. It also shows how neo-classical artists centuries later followed those classical ideals.
The core of the exhibit consists of a number of plaster copies of ancient sculptures. These copies were shipped from Europe to Mexico's foremost art school, the Academy of San Carlos, in the 18th century to be used as models for the students.
Here is one last look at the artwork of Diego Rivera at the Dolores Olmedo Museum...
