Indigenismand Social

Realism
Srqunrnos'PeasantMother (1929),Diego Rivera's Flower Day (1925) 9 . 1 D e t a i lo f P l . 9 . 1 0 .
andJos6Sabogal'sThe lndian Mayor of Chincheros:Varayoc(1925)
[P\s9.2,3,4],all belong to the broad current of indigenismo, which
gainedmomentum during the Twenties and Thirties, in the wake
ofthe Mexican Revolution, and which was manifestedin the'redis-
covery' and revaluation of native cultures and traditions, as well as
in the useoflndian themesin literature and the visual arts, which are
often articulated in terms of social protest.
These three paintings, however, present three distinct attitudes
to their Indian subjects, attitudes which are partly, but not fully, 9.2 Jos6Sabogal, The Indian Mayor oJChincheros:
'indigenist'policies
conditioned by the official and unofficial oper- Varayoc,1925, oil on canvas,Museo de Arte de Lima.
ative in Mexico and Peru respectively.
Siqueiros' PeasantMother, while depicting an Indian woman and
her child, does not emphasizethe ethnic, but rather the woman's
socialcondition as poor and exploited. Rivera's Flower Day, on the
other hand, is more of a solemn celebration of contemporary
native/mestizo life, while Sabogal'spainting, depicting an Andean
village leader, emphasizesconnections with the pre-Spanish rulers
ofPeru, the Inca, through the traditional silver-bound staffof office
he holds, and his proud and independent stance.
Diego Rivera's Flower Day - a theme which he repeatedin later
versions- is a repriseof part of the fresco in the Ministry of Educa-
tton (1923-4),Cood Friday at SantaAnita Canal, with the lily seller
now seenfrom the front, and the Indian women kneeling before
him in the posture of stone representationsof the Aztec deity Chal-
chihuitlicue.'Itis one of the most spectacularof the imagesin which
Rivera expressedhis fascinationwith Indian/mestizo way of life - a
fascinationwhich datesback to his first visit to the Maya region of
Yucatdn in792l, and was strengthenedby a visit the following year
to Tehuantepec.
FlowerDay is dark in tone, compared with the chalkier and more
delicatecolours of the mural, and it is massive rather than pictur-
esque,its'interlocked,preciselystructuredand almost geometrical
forms recalling the architectural cubism of 7975-76.This empha-
sizesits static and hieratic, as opposed to decorative, character.The
flower-seller bends under his flowers towards the women, tree-
like, but also cross-like, evoking both shaman and Christ. The
women's faces are generalized and simplified, with flat profiles,
though the curving arm of the woman on the left recallsPicasso's
substantialneo-classical figures. In FlowerSellerwith Lilies [Pl. 9.5]

195
9.3 l)avid Alfaro Siquciros,PcasantMotlrcr,1929,oil on can\,;ls,220x177cn., Museo de Artc Moderpo, Mexico Citv (rNse)
( ) . 1 D i e g o I { i v c r a ,F l o r t s D a ) , , 1 9 r 5 ,e r n c a u s toi cn c : r r l \ , : r1s- 1 7 . . 1 x 1 2 0 . ( r cLnor s. .A n q c l c sC o u n n ' M n s e u m o f A r t ; L . A . C o r . u r n ' Fu r d s

9.5 Diego Rivera, Flower Sellerwith Lilies, 1943, oil on
masonite, 150x119cm.,Collection Jacquesand Natasha
Gelman.
INDIGENISM
A N D S O C I A LR E A L I S M
the great mass of lilies almost hides the male figure behind. Rivera
possibly knew Aztec poems, like the following love song, where
flowers are also a metaphor for poetry itself:
I've come to offer you songs,
flowers to make your head spin.
Oh, another kind of flower
and you know it in your heart.
I came to bring them to you
I carry them to your house
on my back,
uprooted flowers
I'm bent double with the weisht of them
for you.2
Certainly Rivera must have had a senseofthe deep antiquity within
the Mexican tradition of the image of the flower bearer.
Indigenismo,in Mexico, as 'the official attitude of praising and
fostering native values', has taken severalforms: notably the teach-
ing in school and universities of pre-Columbian history and litera-
ture, and the excavation and restoration of major pre-Columbian
cities 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 senseof
pride in the national heritage and the idea of common roots for the
nation in the Indian past. It has also been recognized that the
mestizo majority as well as the Indian groups preserve much of
native origin in their daily life: food, medicine, ritual, history and
Ianguage.
But, as Le6n-Portilla wrote in1975,'(Jnfortunately, the official
praise of the Indian heritage has not always translated itself into
coherent forms of action which would really make possiblethe de-
velopment of the native communities. It is perplexing indeed that
only a few effective stepshave been taken to put an end to the abuses
of which, for centuries, the Indians have remained the principal
victims.'3
A major influence on the new interest in the Indians, their past
and the long history of that past before the Conquest had been
Manuel Gamio, whose Forjando Patria (1916)was mentioned in
chapter 7 in connection with ideas of national identity within the
mural movement. Gamio, like Franz Boas, rejected the theory of
inferior and superior races that had dominated American social
science to account for the persistenceof 'these two great social
groupings', Spanish and Indians, living side by side in rhe same
territory; '. . . the one, numerically inferior, presentsan advanced
and efficient civilization, the other, numerically the larger, displays
a backward civilization.'a
Gamio undertook two major projects: an ethnographic survey of
the population ofthe Valley ofTeotihuacin, and the excavationand
198
 I N D I G E N I SA
MN D S O C I A LR E A L I S M

manifestoto socialand political issues,however, but extendsit to

'.
cultureas an organic part of these: . . victory for the working
classeswill bring with it a unanimous flowering ofethnic art, cosnl-
ologicallyand historicallytranscendantin the life of our race,conl-
parableto that of our wonderful autochthonouscivilizations'.But
'criollo
AMAUTA
he distinguishesthis from the and bourgeois approval
(whichis all-corrupting)of popular music, painting and literature;
'.
thereignof the "picturesque"
V/hatthe relationshipmight be betweenthe'flowering of ethnic
art', and the muraliststhemselvesis not clear. Certainly Siquerros
sawhisrole asthat of creatinga propagandaart for the people.Un-
like Rivera, Goitia or Francisco Leal, Siqueiros himself rarely
paintedIndians, but when he did, it was clearly in the context of
socialprotest.
In Peru, where Sabogal painted hts Indidn Mayor, the situation
was different, for although the condition of many of the Indians
wasno lessdesperatethan in Mexico, there had been no socialand
politicalupheavallike the Mexican Revolution, and movements of
'Ten
reformor protestwere much more circumscribed. yearsafter
the popularMexican uprising, the fullest and most intensesocial
strugglein Peru was limited, geographically,to the capital,and in
termsof objec.tive,to achieve state recognition of the eight-hour
working dry."' PresidentLeguia'sstrong dictatorshiplastedfrom
1919until 1930,but during this period new political parties were
founded:APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana) and I)ocunreDl()s Irraugurales

Maridtegui's Peruvian Socialist Party. Although Maridtegui

foundedhis party on Marxist lines, it took as its model not Euro- 9.8 Amauta,Septcmber1926,cover
peansocialismbut the PeruvianIndian commune, or ayllu, which
wasbasedon pre-ConquestInca socialstructures.Both writers and
artistsin Peruwere closelyinvolved with Mari6tegui and sharedhis 9.7 David Alfaro Siqueiros,Proletarian Mothcr,1930,
Museo de Arte Modeino, Mexico Citv (rNna).
ideas,contributing to his vanguard review Amauta [Pl. 9.8] (see
Chapter6).
9.9 FranciscoLaso, Rcstin theMountains,1859,oil orr
Sabogaldominated indigenist painting in Peru during the canvas,138x147cm.,Banco Central de Reservadel Peru,
'in-
Twentiesand Thirties, and his painting more than any other L1Ina.

carnates the contradictionsinherent in this movenrent'.12 A further

comparison would be usefulat this point, betweenSabogaland the
nineteenth-century Peruvian artist FranciscoLaso. Laso was the
first academicartist in republicanPeru to turn his attention to the
localinhabitants.He travelled,between1850and 1853,through the
Andes,wherehe madenumerous sketchesfrom life of local scenes
andevents,and of figures [Pl. 9.9]. The final paintings, however,
weredonein the studio,with the aid, too, of photographs.In paint-
ingslike Restin theMountafurs and The Indian Potter[Pl. 2.16], the
figuresare presentedas highly dignified and static. There is little
connection betweenLaso'spainting and the picturesquecostumhrista
scenesof traveller-artists,and his treatment of his subjectsruns
counterto the attitude of the middle- and upper-classurban 6lite
(creolesand some mestizos)which assumedthe inferiority of the
Indian.His emphasison the individual characterof the faces,as
opposedto the undifferentiatedmass,is quite singular, even if the
effectof the smoothlv academicstvle is to idealizeand romanticize.
203
INDIGENISM
A N D S O C I A LR E A L I S M
The potter must surely be a portrait (though unnamed), but at the
same time the shadedface shifts attention away from the man and
on to the costume and the pre-Columbian pot, his occupational
attribute.
The potter holds a Moche pot, though precisely what this sig-
nifies is unclear. In the mind of the viewer, though, a connection
must be made between the Indian and the ancient Moche civil-
ization (r. 500 ao). He seems,in other words, independent, owing
nothing to the Spanish colonial settlers. In Laso's Rest in the
Mountains,too, a Moche pot rests besidea magnificently cloaked
figure, with his strange hat - perhaps this, and the potter's equally
strangecostume, were intended as authentic dress.A contradictory
senseof timelessnessand great antiquity emerges,not unlike that of
European orientalist painters (it is interesring that in Paris Laso
worked in the studio of the academicorientalistDelaroche).
Although there are no obvious social connotations in Laso's
scenes,he doesat the sametime seemto resisttoo greata romantici-
zation of the Andean Indian world, and his own activities as politi-
cal reformer confirm that his interest was not just that of an
observerof the picturesque.
Even if Laso's dignified, noble and hieratic Indians obscured the
conditions of exploitation in many Andean communities, they still
challenged the bourgeois stereotype of the Indian as inferior. A
strong tradition was subsequentlyto grow presenting the Indians as
Inca - in other words presenting a past grandeur in the context of a
nation that neededto assertits unity. Mirko Lauer suggeststhat one
should speakof a 'Tahuantinsuyuism'aswell as of indigenism'in
painting and literature. He is strongly critical of this tendency: 'It
was art of academic formalism which exploited the gold and the
feathers,and which reproduced the hierarchicalstructure ofits own
society in an historical setting; its final achievementwas to make the
undernourished muscular, the poor rich, the ragged luxurious, and
to createin the public mind a divide between the past and the pre-
sentof the Andeanpeople.'lJ
Sabogal'sIndian is caught between these worlds - he is both of
the present and of the past; perhaps an ideal figure, and yet one
which is in many ways closeto the Indians in the novels of Sabogal's
contemporaries among Peruvian writers, such as Arguedas and
Cirio Alegria. Rosendo Maqui, the village leaderin Cirio Alegria's
Broadand Alien is the World (1927),is a wise leader who guides his
people and settlestheir disputes,and who lives in harmony with the
natural world. But, unversed in the unscrupulous practicesof the
invaders (now the creole landowners), he fails to defend his village,
is cheatedby the law, and the novel ends with the landowner sup-
ported by an army moving to force the Indians off their land. In this
novel, which admittedly readsrather like a tract, Alegria fictional-
izes the then current practice of landowners, who annexed the
Indians'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 causewas this feudal system of land

204
 I N D I G E N I S MA N D S O C I A L R E A L I S M
'A
tenure: socialist critique exanrincs and clarifies the problcm
becauseit 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-rstcnrsfronl our t:corlomy. It is rootcd ir1the systenr of land
ownership."* The Indians and the laws fornrulated for their protcc-
'Larrd
tion were in fact powcrless against the qrcat landowners. in-
dividually or collectively owncd by Indians has by now been
'The
largely expropriatcd', and, Mariitegui {roes on, 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-
'West's
feriority served the rvhite pro{rranurre of conqucst and ex-
pansion. To expect the emancipation of our indigenous pcoples
through the active hybridization of aboriqinals and r,vhite inrnri-
grantsis a piecc of anti-socioloeical naivet6, conceivablc only in the
simple mind of an importer of nrerino sheep . . .' It is ovcr the
questionofland that the lndian's strusgle has continued, not only in
Peru but throu{rhout Latin Anrerica.
'lnca-ism',
Sabogal'slndian fisure appealsto but at the sanre tinre
the fact that he stands before a real Andes landscape, with a villase,
ratherthan in the blank portrait spaceof Laso's potter, links this In-
caism to the land problenr, if obliquely. Sabogal contributed to
Maridtegui's nragazine Amautd, but hc was nlore concenred with
cultural than social issues. His version of indigenisnr souqht to
shapecultural 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
materialand shapesince Inca times [ntroduction Pl. 4]. At thc sanre
time he eschewcd thc academicisnr then in favour for thc height-
enedcolour, enrphatic outlir-reand broad brush-strokes of Fauvisnr.
After teachine at the_Schoolof Fine Arts from 1920, he was in 1932
appointeddirector;'' under his guidance therc grew up what was
virtually a school of indigenist paintinr in Peru, including Julia
Codesido,Can.rino Brcnt, Camilo Blas, Cota Carvallo, Jorqe Seg-
ura, and the selFtaught Mario lJrtea[Ja IPl. 9.10]. Indigenismttwas,
however, a derogatory term, used, as Sabogal said, with nralice;
'The
term "indiqenism" applied to Peruvians like Sabogal is a racist
nickname and a reflection of cultural discomfort. It is a rcaction
againstthose 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
Sabogalwas 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.

'popular'
The relationship between indigenisnr and 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 literaturc was
'arts
accompaniedby a revival of irlterest in popular and traditional

205

9.10 Mario Urteaga, Burial of an IllustriousMan, 1936, oll
on canvas,5f1.4x82.5cm.,The Museum of Modcrn Art,
New York: Inter-American Fund.
9.11 FranciscoCoitia, Way to the 7-omb,1936,temperaon
carlvas,119x91
cm., Private Collcction.
INDIGENISM
A N D S O C I A LR E A L I S I V I
and crafts'- but in a selectiveway. In Mexico, popular art was offi-
cially welcomed as'mestizo',asguaran_teeing and strengthe'ing the
purposedunity of the Mexican nationlTand in a senseproposing an
interchangeat the level of the cultural assimilationof Indian groups
i' Mexico, which was activelypursuedfrom the Twenties. Similar
revivals of folk art took place all over Latin America (see In-
troduction).
Indigenism in Mexico covers a multiplicity of different and even
opposing attitudes.The syndicate,as we saw, placedgreat faith in
native art, but warned againstthe bourgeois tastefor popular art.
The notion of indigenous art itself as 'popular' was certainly
appealedto in terms of the muralists' rejectionof easelpainting and
the individualist aestheticof the bourgeoisie.Rivera surrounded
himself with pre-columbian and contemporaryIndian art and arte-
facts, ard objectsof nrestizopopular culture. His collectionin-
cluded Aztec,Maya, Zapotec a'd Mixtec sculptureand ceramics,
and for this he built the specialmuseum, the Anahuacalli;in his
studio he kept an extraordinarycollectionof objectsof ancientand
recentorigin. The walls and ceiling were hung with papier mdch6
206
 t).12
JcsirsGuer-rero(i:rl.,':in,I ortd illy Flttrrt, 1951.
o i l o n c : r n v : r s- ,5 5 . 5 x 7 0 .c-r5r r . .Collection Plscual
Gr-rti6rrcz Iloldin.

li

-lu,o
9.13 Xavier Cluerrero, f.Iotltcrs.l9.15, black
( ' 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.yorkl Jnter-Alncricall
Fund.

9.I1 Roberto Monfcnesro, l.ld)tt1Ll'ont(,n.1926. oil

on can\':ls,80r(r9.8 crn., "il-re Mlis.-.,,rr of Mc,.l..r.,r-
Art. Neu. York; Gifr of Nelson A. Rockcf-ellcr.l9-ll

9 . 1 5 S e cP l . 3 . 8 9 a .
 'Thc
9.16 l)icgo llrver.r. N l . t r r s i o r r so i - X r b . r l b . r ' . \ \ ' . r t c r . ( ) l ( ) u r .I ) l . X V t r o n r I ) o p o l 1 , , 1 , .\ 1 t r ' c o C - . t s .lt) i c q o l l . i v c r . r .
( i u r r n .jru . r t o ( t : lu . 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 tbl r ' b . r t r r r c s s c n q e rt so p l : r r t h t b , r l ]c . r r r r c\ \ i t h t h c

u n d c r \ \ ( ) r ' l ( l ' .\ \ ' : l t c r c o l o r l r . l ) l . l X f l - o r r r1 ) 1 r | 1 r[ i/ i / r . M t r s c o ( i . r s . rl ) r c q o l { i v c r ' : r .( i L r . r r r l j L r : r t(ot N n , r ) .

q\
\\t
\\z
ffr,
ulfri
 9.25 Jos6 Ant6nio da Silva, The Corton
Haryest,19.18,
oil on canvas,50x101cm., Museu
de Arte de Sao Paulo.
9.26 Jos6Ant6rrio da Silva, Repousa
(Fazenda),1955,oil on carlvas,70x99.8cm.,
Museu de Arte Contemporinea da
U r r i v e r s i d a ddee S a o P a i r l o .
9.27 Jos6Ant6nio da Silva, Enchanted
Yr!:rjrU, 1957, otl on canvas,25x,19.5crn.,
CollectionJoSoMarino, Sio paulo.
The widcspread successof self-taught naive
artistsall over Latin America, like Ios6 Ant6nio
da Silva,,runsparallelto the succejsof
popular art.
9 . 2 X J o r c A n r o n r od a S i l v a , S u g a rF a c t o r t , .
1948o . i l o n c a n v a s5
. 0yl00cm.,"Collecridrr
Joio Marino, Sao Paulo.
 MN D S O C I A LR E A L I S M
I N D I G E N I SA

,l935,
crammedinto the lo'nvcredge of the caltvas, expressed qrcat allqer at 9.29 CirnclidoPortinari, Crlii'c, oil on canvas,
131x195.3crrMr . ,u s e u N a c i o n a ld c t s e l a sA r t e s , R i o c i c
the condition of pcasatrt serfdont.
faneiro.
T h r o u g h o u t L a t i n A n r e r i c a d u r i n s t h c 1 9 3 0 st h e r e w a s a s i n r i l a r
movemerlt amorlagrollps of artists towards art with a social theme .
L a s a rS e g a l l ,h i n r s e l f a n i n r n r i q r a n t . c o n r i n q f r o m a b a c k g r o u n d o f
GermanExpressionisnr, 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 life of Rio de
Janeiro,its caf6s, prostitutes and sailors fl'}ls tt.23,24].
Cindido Portinari was involved in both nrural and easelpaintirrg.
He painted murals for the Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro,
andin 1941a Di5s1t1,gy1, o_l'thclrleu, World for the Library of Conqress
'30s,
in Washington,D.C. l)uring the he baseda nunrber of can-
vaseson coffee plantation rvorkers and nriners, which ranqc fronl
the depiction of whole scenes,as in C,rlfi'c IPl. 9.29], which worl a
prizeat the Carneeic Institute in the USA in 1935, to studies of in-
dividual figures, which arc corlccivcd as paintings of typcs rather
than oortraits. as in Thc Mcstizo.

'l-)
 I N D I G E N I SA
MN D S O C I A LR E A L I S M

inherent in indigenism were members of the Taller de Grdfica

Popular, who went to consult Le6n-Portilla in the late 1950snot
only about Mexican history, but about the Nihuatl conrnrunitiesin
Mexico.18Their prints and engravingsrepresentir1 many wJys a
closerand more infornred involvement with the issuesraisedby 'in-
digenism'.
Siqueiros'refusal to separateindigenism from social protest is
found elsewherein Latin America - in Ecuador, for instance,where
Egas,Guayasaminand Eduardo Kingman all producedworks criti-
cal of social conditions [PIs 9.2I,22]. They often portrayed trasic
figures,frequentlywonlen in mourning, which relatequite closely
to the expressionistwork of Kithe Kollwitz. Guayasamintendedto
concentrateon urban subjects,asin Thc Sn'ike,while Kingman, in
the large painting Los Cuando-swhose oppressed figures are

9.24 (belorv) Eug6nio de ProerrEaSigaud,Actidentat

Work, 1911,132x95cm. , Muscu Nacional de BclasArtes,
l{io de Janeiro.

9.21. Camilo Egas, Indians,1926, oll on canvas, 12x70 cnL.,Museo de Artc

Moderno, Casadc la Cultura Ecuatoriana,Quito.

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

2II