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Lot Essay
More energetic and forceful than in other of his works, Tamayo's rough peasant figure who is seen cutting down a tree, recalls Rivera's early work--to a time when both artists were addressing the same subject--the peasant's toil.
Tamayo takes up the theme by critically addressing the toil of manual labor endured by the peasant class. The artist quietly denounces the exploitation and hard life of los campesinos and the poor, but also shows concern for the devastation of the landscape. Tamayo's composition is invested with a certain poetic air, which is often associated with the surreal. His work is therefore removed from any socialist and revolutionary content that could imply a personal political ideology.
In his composition, Tamayo has eliminated the figure's physiognomy but has accentuated his skin coloration, the simple clothing, and hat, all of which reaffirm the generic identity--that of an anonymous but universal character--the exploited peasant, who in turn exploits nature, orchestrating an alternate history to the one officially proclaimed by the triumph of the Revolution.
As in other works by Tamayo from the same period, we find the enigmatic presence of fallen trunks, may allude to the artist's own life or circumstances at the time.
Juan Carlos Pereda, Mexico City.
Tamayo takes up the theme by critically addressing the toil of manual labor endured by the peasant class. The artist quietly denounces the exploitation and hard life of los campesinos and the poor, but also shows concern for the devastation of the landscape. Tamayo's composition is invested with a certain poetic air, which is often associated with the surreal. His work is therefore removed from any socialist and revolutionary content that could imply a personal political ideology.
In his composition, Tamayo has eliminated the figure's physiognomy but has accentuated his skin coloration, the simple clothing, and hat, all of which reaffirm the generic identity--that of an anonymous but universal character--the exploited peasant, who in turn exploits nature, orchestrating an alternate history to the one officially proclaimed by the triumph of the Revolution.
As in other works by Tamayo from the same period, we find the enigmatic presence of fallen trunks, may allude to the artist's own life or circumstances at the time.
Juan Carlos Pereda, Mexico City.