VOLCANES & LAGO

A painting I commissioned, José Eduardo Barajas aka Maseco, for my office. It’s a typical view of the Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl volcanoes that you often find in city museums and public offices… These mountains are usually the backdrop for stories involving “tiemperos” or “graniceros”, local brujos that control the weather and lead the rituals asking for rain in agricultural cosmogony. The magic realm where Tláloc and other water deities dwelled is called Tlalocán and his helpers Tlaloques.

Maseco is well known for his atmospheric paintings in the tradition of paisajismo mexicano. (For an analysis of his work in a historical context of landscape painting check out the linked essay by Natalia de la Rosa). The volcanos are based on José María Velasco, the lake on Luis Covarruivas mural from the Mexica Gallery at MNAH and the ‘angel’ floating above the water is based on a glyph from Codex Dresdensis.