Audio by Russel Altamirano
Maker: Diego Rivera
Culture: Mexican
Title: Indian Warrior
Date Made: 1931
Type: Painting
Materials: Water-based paint on plaster fresco mounted on cement (Fresco is when an artist paints on wet plaster. More durable than paint on a canvas, so it’s usually used for indoor or outdoor murals)
Place Made: Mexico
Measurements: 41 x 52.5 x 3 in (The thick plaster and cement make it come out from the wall more than a painting would)
Transcript:
When I first look at this artwork, I get an immediate sense of type of something violent, a type of conflict that’s happening in here. What I see is two bodies on the ground and one of them is stabbing the other. And my initial question is, “Who is fighting here?” And when I look deeper into this image, I notice that the figure on the top is wearing this orange mask that kind of looks like an animal, a jaguar mask. It almost looks like a costume because I notice his feet and his hands are kind of protruding outward from the sleeves. And the figure at the bottom and his white hands are kind of pushing him away. And so, initially, it makes me think about, perhaps, a conflict between indigenous and Spanish conquistadors, especially because Diego Rivera titled this Indian Warrior.
And what’s interesting about this artwork, also, is that it’s a portable fresco, so it’s actually based off of a real fresco that was painted inside the palace of Hernan Cortes in Cuernavaca, Mexico. And that mural program that Diego Rivera painted in Cuernavaca describes through painting the history of the Spanish conquest and the history of the state of Morelos in Mexico. However, this piece that’s inside the Smith College Museum of Art is a portable fresco that was created for the purpose of being displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for an American audience, which is very interesting because it almost goes against the purpose of what murals were. So murals are very site specific works of art, so to be to kind of transferring this especially for an American audience makes me question how this might have been received then.