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Why Is Guillermo Meza Called 'Arrieros Somos'?

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2. INTRODUCTION In this painting, Guillermo Meza is illustrating the hardships that peasants had to go through during the Mexican Revolution. He was a surrealist painter who strictly used oils. Most of his artwork revealed symbolism and the imputation of society and government. The Mexican Civil War started as a middle-class protest against the dictator Porfirio Diaz. During the Mexican Revolution, it was difficult for farmers to make money because the government would not stipend them. Unless the peasants wanted to starve, they would have to grow their own food.

3. RESPONSE At first, I only gave this painting a glance because I thought the colors looked very boring to me. It was not pleasing to the eye because it was your average …show more content…

It is a portrait used with oil on canvas. It looks as thought it was outlined or etched in charcoal or very thin paint first, to get an outline of what the artist wanted to depict. Then, he painted over it with oil, mixing different colors and creating bright and dark colors. In the painting, there are four white-hooded figures all in a line. It looks as though they are walking to work during the middle of the day. It appears to be very sunny. Under the hoods, there are skeletal faces. The skeletons are not smiling, they look very sad and eerie. The two skeletons in the middle are depicted as women because they are wearing blue skirts. The other two skeletons on the outside of the women are depicted as men. Although they are skeletons, they have hair on their heads and the man that is the closest has a mustache. They are each holding a sack that appears to be heavy. In the very front is a donkey skeleton. The animal is holding two heaps of hay on the sides of his back. It looks as though it is walking down a path. Below their bodies or feet, you can see their shadow, including a shadow of the hay. The heaps of hay are colored pink. In the background, there is a large field and a mountain. Right behind the skeletons, there is a tall, scraggly tree with green, thorn-like leaves. This artist put a lot detail into the color of the bones on the skeleton. They are small brushstrokes of gray, black and …show more content…

Most likely used with linseed oil. It has multiple layers of thin, transparent glazes in the background. While the heaps of hay and skeletons clothes were done with a thicker paint. It is very hard to even see brushstrokes in the painting. A specific design principle that I see is pictorial space. It looks as though the skeletons are walking down a long road and the skeletons in the back are further away than the ones in the front. You can tell because of the diagonal lines coming towards you from the back of the painting. Another example of pictorial space is because of the mountain in the back. It is a lot smaller than the skeletons, which means that the mountain is further away. Guillermo modulates the light from the “assumed sun” onto the ground, depicting shadows from the figures which gives them height. A specific design principle I noticed is color and along with another design principle, focal point. I know I was only supposed to talk about one principle, but these two coincide together. In the background, the artist uses complementary colors of orange, yellow and brown depicting the color of fields. The sky is an eerie color of gray and blue. The color that really pops out is the light pink hay that the donkey is holding. The focal point is the pink hay which leads your eyes to the skeletal figures in white

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