What’s Up with All of Skeletons in Mexican Art?
Years ago I did a show featuring the “poster” paintings of Andres Garcia-Peña, and included in this show were a few paintings that had images of “Calaveras,” or skeletons. People would come into the gallery, look at them for a moment and ask me, “What’s up with all the skeletons?” I know these newcomers to Mexico just made it up the hill from window shopping and browsing down on Boulevard Mijares where they were inundated with images of skeletons and skulls on everything from beach bags and refrigerator magnets to fine art ceramic sculpture. These skeleton figures are usually dressed in very elaborate costumes, with lively smiles and hollow eyes. These images are everywhere and most people attribute them solely to Day of the Dead, but in fact the image of the Calavera was first introduced into an art form by an illustrator, before and during the first few years of the Mexican Revolution, by the name of Jose Guadalupe Posada.
Death in Mexico is treated very differently than in other parts of the world. It is a daily part of life that is celebrated instead of mourned and shunned. Day of the Dead in Mexico is a celebration of the life of deceased loved ones, where altars are built and offerings of the deceased ones favorite things in life are placed, including candies and confectionary in the shapes of skulls and skeletons. But after the publication of Posada’s illustrations of the Calaveras, the image of the skeleton took on a whole different meaning, it became a social and political icon that represented the feelings of the people leading up to the Mexican Revolution.