Exhibition "Diego Rivera and the Construction of Modern Art in Mexico in the 20th Century" - (Accessible Route)

Museum: Mostra "Diego Rivera e la costruzione dell’arte moderna in Messico nel XX secolo" - Musei Capitolini

Welcome to the Exhibition

Welcome to the Capitoline Museums. The exhibition you are about to visit features Diego Rivera as its protagonist but tells a broader story: how modern art was born in Mexico, through what exchanges and tensions it took shape, and in how many different ways a country sought to understand itself through images. That search begins earlier than one might think. Not with the Revolution of 1910, but with Independence in 1821, when Mexico becomes a nation and finds itself faced with a difficult question: what does it mean to be Mexican? Art was one of the tools with which an answer was attempted, and that question runs throughout the entire exhibition. The itinerary unfolds across four major sections. The first will take you to the origins: the academy, artistic training, the dialogue between Mexico and Italy that defined the artistic culture of the nineteenth century. The second follows Rivera and his contemporaries in Europe — in Spain, in France, in Italy — where they engaged with the avant-gardes without ceasing to be Mexican. The third enters the heart of the so-called "Mexican Renaissance": muralism, national identity, the Revolution. The fourth, finally, tells of what muralism did not exhaust — those artists who, in the same years, were exploring the fantastic, the metaphysical, the oneiric. The audio guide will accompany you through the four sections of the exhibition: Academy and Tradition, Rivera's and Mexico's Contribution to the European Avant-Gardes, The Mexican Cultural Renaissance, Beyond Social Realism. Enjoy your visit.

In Depth — The Artist

Before beginning the journey, let us get to know the protagonist of this narrative. Diego Rivera was born on December 13, 1886, in Guanajuato. At eleven years old he enrolled at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City, where he studied under the guidance of Santiago Rebull and then Velasco, the two great masters of Mexican academic painting. In 1907 he left for Europe thanks to a scholarship from the governor of Veracruz, Teodoro A. Dehesa. The stay lasted fourteen years and profoundly shaped his formation. In Spain he studied El Greco, Velázquez, Goya; in Paris he entered the heart of the avant-gardes: between 1913 and 1917 he produced over a hundred Cubist works, and frequented Picasso, Modigliani, Apollinaire. In 1920 he undertook a study trip to Italy, where he analyzed the frescoes of Giotto, Masaccio, and Michelangelo, seeking a key for a painting destined for an entire people. In 1921 he returned to Mexico. The country had just passed through a revolution and the Minister of Public Education, José Vasconcelos, wanted to use art to build a new national identity. In this context Rivera would be the central figure of this endeavor. Between 1922 and 1928 he decorated the Secretaría de Educación Pública with one of the most imposing pictorial cycles of the twentieth century, then worked at Chapingo, at the Palacio Nacional, and brought muralism to the United States. Rivera was also a political figure: a committed communist, he hosted Trotsky and Breton in his home. He married Frida Kahlo twice. He died in 1957 in Mexico City. His legacy lies in the idea that art has a public and pedagogical function, that the walls of buildings belong to the people. That beauty must not be a privilege.

Section I - Academy and Tradition

The Academia de San Carlos, founded in Mexico City in 1783 and reorganized in 1843, defined artistic education in the country for over a century according to a model based on classical tradition, life drawing, and rigorous observation of reality. The Academia opened a direct channel with Rome through the hiring of European masters and scholarships for the most promising talents. Among these, the Piedmontese Eugenio Landesio introduced landscape as an autonomous genre and trained José María Velasco, who transformed Mexican geography into a visual symbol of national identity. Rivera explicitly acknowledged this debt: "First I learned to paint landscapes; without this I could not have made the murals. I owe it to Velasco." The Italian presence in Mexico also manifested through figures such as Pietro Gualdi, who arrived in Mexico City as a set designer for an Italian opera company and subsequently settled in the country. Alongside his theatrical work, he produced urban and architectural views that celebrated the monumentality of religious and civic buildings. Although the avant-gardes of the twentieth century later called this tradition into question, many of the themes destined to define Mexican modernity were already present in this visual culture. The representation of landscape, scenes of everyday life, and the construction of a national iconography anticipated questions that would find new expressions in modern art.

Diego Rivera - Self-Portrait

The exhibition opens with a self-portrait painted by the young Diego Rivera in 1906, when he was still in his academic training phase. Rivera appears in his studio depicted in a half-bust, in three-quarter profile. His face is slightly turned to his left, while his gaze is directed forward. His mouth is slightly open, with thin eyebrows, a moustache and short beard, as if he had not shaved for a few days. His hair is loose and slightly dishevelled. He wears a wide dark work smock, typical of the painter's trade. On the front of it, two large buttons stand out and a foulard is knotted around his neck. Behind the artist, an easel leaning against the wall appears, supporting a large canvas, of which only the back is visible. In the background there are also other paintings leaning against the wall, also facing backwards and rendered with a loose and blended brushstroke. The composition conveys a certain intimacy and reserve. The gesture of hiding the paintings suggests an artist still shy about showing his own work. However, this young painter would go on to become one of the most important figures in Mexican art of the 20th century. The work represents the beginning of Rivera's artistic journey, before he approached the modern avant-gardes. Here we still see an artist marked by academic teaching, even though the background already reveals freer and more atmospheric brushstrokes that anticipate the changes that would come later.

Section II.1 — Diego Rivera's and Mexico's Contribution to the European Avant-Gardes

The Grand Tour tradition — once reserved for European elites — became for many Latin American artists a privileged pathway into the international circuits of modern art. Travelling to cities such as Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin meant coming into direct contact with the avant-garde currents that were transforming the artistic landscape of the era. Unlike in the nineteenth century, the journey no longer had as its sole objective the study of classical models, but also participation in the salons, exhibitions, and debates of artistic modernity. Rivera's generation — which included Ángel Zàrraga, Roberto Montenegro, and David Alfaro Siqueiros — actively participated in these circuits, with a presence that was not without tensions: Latin American artists frequently found themselves confronting prejudices and racist attitudes widespread in European avant-garde circles. The rooms of this section take you through Rivera's three great European stages: Spain, France, Italy.

Section II.2 - Rivera in Spain

The young Diego Rivera arrived in Spain in 1907. Having settled in Madrid with a letter of introduction from Gerardo Murillo, he entered the studio of Eduardo Chicharro, a central figure of Spanish academicism. Contact with the local artistic tradition — in particular with the works of Francisco Goya, Diego Velázquez and El Greco housed at the Museo del Prado — allowed him to deepen his understanding of pictorial space construction, the atmospheric rendering of light, and formal expressiveness. Rivera travelled through various regions of the Iberian Peninsula together with Chicharro and the other members of his atelier, crossing Extremadura, Castile, Galicia, the Valencia region, Murcia, and the Basque Country. The elevated views and the complex urban layout of cities such as Toledo aroused in him an interest in the fragmentation of space and the multiplicity of viewpoints — elements that would later resurface both in his Cubist experiments and in his Muralist conception. In 1910 he temporarily returned to Mexico to present part of his European output. The stay coincided with the beginning of the Mexican Revolution — a circumstance that prompted him to return to Europe soon after.

Diego Rivera - Peter's Share

This oil painting, measuring 100 x 100 cm, was created by Diego Rivera during his stay in Spain, shortly after his arrival in 1907 at the studio of the painter Eduardo Chicharro. The work depicts a couple of fishermen in the Basque port of Lekeitio (in the Basque Country, Spain), as they walk along the so-called "priests' pier", near the fishermen's brotherhood dedicated to Saint Peter, a reference that probably gives rise to the title of the work. The composition shows a man and a woman who occupy almost the entire surface of the painting and appear to be positioned at the edge of the pier, with the port and some boats in the background. In the foreground is the man, positioned slightly to the left of the composition. His face is in profile, turned towards a distant point outside the painting. He wears a dark cap covering his head and a wide coat with large buttons on the front. From under the coat peeks a shirt open at the neck. With both hands he holds a large circular basket resting against his body. Inside it, rolled fishing nets and other objects related to his work can be distinguished. His hands are large and sturdy, reinforcing the idea of the physical effort associated with the trade. Behind him appears the woman, who looks forward. Her expression is intense and determined. Above her head she holds a wide container that probably contains the day's catch. Her raised arms form a triangular structure that frames her face. In the background of the painting, the port buildings, the water of the pier and small boats can be distinguished. The sky is covered with dense, swirling clouds. Rivera uses undulating and luminous brushstrokes to model the faces and clothing, making the figures emerge from the shadow. The painting was sent to Mexico and formed part of the solo exhibition that Rivera presented at the Old Academy of San Carlos in 1910, inaugurated on the same day as the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Paradoxically, the work was purchased by Carmen Romero Rubio, wife of President Porfirio Díaz, just as the regime was beginning to collapse. [the tactile reproduction of the described work is available during the guided tour.]

Diego Rivera - Bridge of San Martín

This work was created during Diego Rivera's European period. Although the artist had been living in Paris since 1909, he constantly travelled to various cities in Spain. Here he depicts the Bridge of San Martín, in the city of Toledo. The painting shows a complex and fragmented urban landscape. Rivera depicts the famous medieval bridge from an elevated point in the city, but abandons traditional perspective by dividing the landscape into multiple geometric planes. The entire composition is constructed through angular forms. The houses, walls, rooftops, towers, and arches appear broken down into squares, triangles, cylinders, and diagonals that constantly intersect. The short, geometric brushstrokes reinforce the sense of fragmentation of space. In the central section, the towers and arches of the bridge can be identified; beneath them lies the bed of the Tagus River, represented through triangular and broken forms that suggest a turbulent watercourse. Throughout the painting, numerous inclined lines and staircases appear, evoking the steep and labyrinthine streets of Toledo. Some arches are rounded, while others end in a point, recalling the blend of Christian and Arab architectural traditions present in the city. In a central position, slightly to the right, a steep staircase is inserted, helping to construct the sense of ascent and depth of the landscape, connecting the different heights of the picture. In the lower left corner, a construction with a triangular roof stands out alongside poles and electric cables, modern elements that contrast with the architecture of the bridge and the ancient walls. This work reflects the influence of Cubism on Rivera during his stay in Europe. The artist transforms the landscape into an almost abstract structure. Within the exhibition, the painting illustrates the moment in which Rivera experimented with the European avant-gardes before developing the artistic language that would make him a central figure of modern Mexican art. [the tactile reproduction of the described work is available during the guided tour.]

Section II.3 Rivera in France

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Paris had become the main centre of artistic avant-gardes. The city brought together academies, galleries, independent salons, and intellectual circles in which some of the most innovative proposals of modern art coexisted. Diego Rivera's arrival in Paris, first in 1909 and then on a permanent basis from 1911, marked his definitive immersion in this environment. Having settled in Montparnasse together with the Russian painter Angelina Beloff, Rivera became part of a cosmopolitan community that included Amedeo Modigliani, Tsuguharu Foujita, Guillaume Apollinaire, Juan Gris, and Pablo Picasso. Between 1913 and 1917 he produced over a hundred Cubist works, establishing himself as an active protagonist of the Parisian avant-garde scene. Around 1918 he began to distance himself from Cubism, turning his attention to the work of Paul Cézanne and the so-called "return to order." Years later he would recall: "I was one of the members of the Cubist movement… but I did not remain in it. Cubism was a kind of laboratory: from there I emerged to create the murals."

Diego Rivera - Back Nude

This painting belongs to the period in which Diego Rivera moved away from Cubism and resumed the study of the human body from a perspective closer to Classicism. This change coincided with the so-called "return to order," an artistic tendency that emerged in Europe after the First World War, in which many artists sought to recover serenity, balance, and classical forms after the years of avant-garde experimentation. This small-format work depicts a naked woman lying with her back turned, occupying almost the entire composition. The body is arranged diagonally, the head is turned toward the left side of the composition while the legs on the opposite side extend toward the background of the painting, creating a sense of depth and distance. The woman rests on her left side and leans part of her body weight on the arm of the same side. The head is tilted downward and the face is barely distinguishable. Rivera blurs her features and keeps the model anonymous. The body appears completely free from elements that might distract attention. The hair is gathered up, leaving the back and shoulders uncovered. At the center of the composition, the volume of the lower back and hips stands out. Beneath the body, several fabrics and soft surfaces appear. A white fabric is found near the legs and feet, while other greenish fabrics support the body from below. The surrounding environment is not described with precision and is built from diffuse patches and soft brushstrokes that cause some parts of the body, especially the hands and some fingers, to partially blend into the background.

Section II.4 - Rivera in Italy

The European experience of Mexican artists represented not only a space of avant-garde rupture and experimentation, but also a moment of engagement with the classical tradition. In Rivera's case, before making his definitive return to Mexico, he undertook a study trip to Italy at the end of 1920, during which he analyzed the works of Giotto, Masaccio, and Michelangelo. His notes document studies on light, monumental scale, and compositional solutions that would become fundamental to his conception of the mural as painting integrated into architectural space. During this journey he also produced numerous drawings of sculptures and archaeological collections, reinterpreting the classical world through a modern and personal gaze. Among these, a sketch of the bust of Epicurus held at the Musei Capitolini stands out, in which the solemn model is reworked through free and expressive lines.

Section III.1 — The Mexican Cultural Renaissance

With Diego Rivera among its central figures, the so-called Escuela Mexicana de Pintura defined one of the most significant moments of modern art in Latin America. The phenomenon, which authors such as Anita Brenner and Jean Charlot defined as the "Mexican Renaissance," involved a profound reappraisal of the country's historical and cultural roots: the Mesoamerican past, popular traditions, and the representation of indigenous peoples, peasants, and workers assumed a central role in a new national imaginary. In 1921, José Vasconcelos called numerous artists — among them Rivera, still in Europe — to work on the walls of schools and public buildings, conceiving images as an educational tool in a country marked by high rates of illiteracy. In parallel, the Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre, the Misiones Culturales, and exhibitions of popular art broadened access to artistic creation, contributing to a cultural project oriented toward the construction of national identity. While Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros led the great monumental projects, figures such as Rufino Tamayo, María Izquierdo, Agustín Lazo, and Frida Kahlo developed more introspective and experimental approaches.

Section III.2 — Reverberations of the Revolution

The outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910 and the violence of the following decade profoundly marked subsequent artistic production. Some artists, such as Gerardo Murillo, Orozco, and Siqueiros, experienced the conflict directly; others, like Rivera, followed its developments from Europe. In both cases, the widespread conviction was that social renewal had to be accompanied by an equally profound renewal of expressive forms. Orozco's work offers the most critical perspective on the post-revolutionary phase: urban slums, working-class precariousness, the contradictions of a society engaged in redefining itself after the conflict. In his memoirs he declared that he had frequented the most marginal neighborhoods of Mexico City as part of his own visual research. The works of Rivera, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, and Fanny Rabel broaden this perspective, highlighting the social fractures that continued to mark the country even after the end of the conflict.

Section III.3 — National Identity

In 1921, with the creation of the Secretaría de Educación Pública led by Vasconcelos, a broad state cultural project took shape. Popular art was valorized as an essential component of a national identity founded on indigenous heritage and local traditions: not marginal folklore, but an authentic source of aesthetic and cultural meaning. Artists such as Saturnino Herrán, Frida Kahlo, Roberto Montenegro, Rufino Tamayo, María Izquierdo, and Jean Charlot developed languages capable of integrating craft production, rural settings, and popular religiosity. The representation of indigenous figures, trades, costumes, and dances marked a shift in perspective that ran through mural painting as well as graphic art and easel works. Rivera and other artists integrated this local reality with the experiences of the international avant-gardes, constructing a modern conception of mexicanidad in which ethnic diversity and everyday life acquired a central role.

Section III.4 — Muralism

In the context of Vasconcelos's cultural program, artists were called upon to decorate the walls of public buildings by reviving the pre-Hispanic and colonial mural tradition with a clear educational purpose. The first commissions — El árbol de la vida by Roberto Montenegro and La Creación (1922) by Rivera — inaugurated a new phase in which muralism established itself as a movement. Rivera, drawing on his experience of the Italian fresco cycles studied in 1920, integrated Renaissance and Byzantine influences with figures and colors from popular Mexico. Between 1923 and 1928 he led the decoration of the Secretaría de Educación Pública, constructing a visual epic of the post-revolutionary state. Alongside him were Orozco and Siqueiros — Los Tres Grandes — each with his own vision: Rivera celebrated local traditions; Orozco offered a critical reading of history; Siqueiros denounced social injustices through technical innovation.

Section III.5 — Other Horizons of Mexican Modernity

Electrification, industrialization, and metropolitan growth profoundly transformed everyday experience, giving rise to a social landscape marked by dynamism and contradictions. While some artists focused on denouncing inequalities, others turned their attention to more introspective, fantastical, or experimental pursuits. Artists such as Rufino Tamayo, Miguel Covarrubias, Agustín Lazo, Gabriel Fernández Ledesma, and Nahui Olin developed figurative and chromatic languages capable of conveying both the vitality of the city and its tensions. In this panorama, Rivera occupied a peculiar position: a driving force of national art and, at the same time, a reference perceived in an antagonistic light by those seeking alternative paths. A tension that reveals how the process of constructing mexicanidad was anything but unified.

Alfredo Ramos Martínez - Tristezza

This pastel painting, titled "Tristeza", was created by Alfredo Ramon Martinez in 1930. The image shows the half-bust of a woman, turned slightly to her right, caught in a moment of intense inner pain. The face is almost completely hidden by both hands, the left one in its entirety partially covering the right, as if the person were crying or trying to hold back an emotion too intense to show. The figure is depicted very close up and occupies almost the entire space. The head is tilted forward and is covered by a thick mane of dark hair gathered at the back in a long braid that falls behind the woman's shoulders. The hands are the expressive center of the work: they are large, dark in outline, with fingers pressed against the face. The nails, knuckles, phalanges, and the back of the hands are rendered with decisive strokes. The colors are warm and earthy: browns, ochres, beiges, and blacks. The drawing is executed in pastel, with a rough, almost dusty effect. The shadows are deep and clearly define the outlines, while the illuminated surfaces remain lighter and softer. This contrast makes the scene intense and intimate. The background is simple but not empty: behind the figure, geometric shapes can be glimpsed, almost like panels or walls, with vertical and diagonal lines that frame the head. In the upper right, the author's signature "Ramos Martinez" appears. Overall, the work conveys a very strong sense of sadness, introspection, and emotional isolation.

Agustín Lazo - The Little Butcher

This 1926 painting depicts a young butcher portrayed from the front while holding the tools of his trade. He wears an apron that covers most of his clothes and holds in his hands a wooden cutting board and in his left hand a large knife pointing upward that reinforces the verticality of the figure. The butcher's face features exaggerated and stylized traits. The full lips, broad nose, and deep-set eyes stand out. The dark hair is carefully combed to the side and the thin eyebrows also appear perfectly defined. Although he is a manual worker, the figure appears clean, neat, and serene. The hands are the most striking element of the painting. They are disproportionately large and occupy approximately one third of the composition. The fingers appear solid and cylindrical, constructed through simple and rounded volumes that recall the formal explorations of the artistic avant-gardes in vogue at the time. Behind the figure, two large pieces of meat appear, rendered in a simplified and almost abstract manner. Their rounded shapes and reddish colors evoke mountains or blocks of color, closer to geometric constructions than to a realistic representation. The author drew influences from modern neoclassicism, from artists such as Picasso and Léger, but adapted them to everyday Mexican scenes without resorting to nationalistic stereotypes. Within the exhibition, this work illustrates a different way of constructing artistic modernity in Mexico through a project that integrated international avant-gardes with local figures and trades to create a modern language that was at once Mexican and universal.

Diego Rivera - Seated Woman with Flowers

Seated Woman with Flowers (1944), Diego Rivera portrays a barefoot woman with loose hair, elegantly seated on a cushion resting on the ground. This is not an indigenous woman with jet-black braids who populated his murals and canvases, but rather a young woman belonging to the urban middle class, whose jewels and clothes accentuate the freshness of her beauty; however, by placing beside her abundant terracotta vessels filled with dahlias – flowers endemic to Mexico –, Rivera establishes a connection with artisanal production and the Mexican landscape. The painting is characterized by an extremely rich and saturated color palette. At the center of the composition stands out the young woman seated on a blue pouf, with her legs elegantly stretched and crossed, and her gaze directed toward the observer. She wears a ruffled white blouse with wide flounces that leaves her shoulders bare and a bright emerald green skirt. Her thick brown hair is loose, and her face is framed by earrings that echo the colors in the background, while on her left wrist she wears a striking bracelet. To her left, on the right for the observer, a rich still life dominates, composed of a large round terracotta vase. From the vase explodes a voluminous bouquet of flowers in intense colors: brilliant orange and lilac tones stand out. Partially in shadow behind this vase, a dark terracotta jug can be glimpsed. The background contributes to making the foreground subjects stand out through its cold and material tones. Behind the woman, a wooden table painted green can also be seen, on which flowers in blue and lilac hues rest softly.

Section IV.1 – Beyond Social Realism

After the 1920s, the official support of the State for muralism and social realism defined the canons of Mexican art. However, in the first half of the twentieth century a plurality of tendencies coexisted, opening alternative paths and exploring introspective, symbolic, and experimental languages, reinterpreting the popular, the festive, and the everyday from individual perspectives. In the 1930s and 1940s the arrival of European artists in exile enriched the panorama with new Surrealist and metaphysical poetics, which entered into dialogue with local research already oriented toward the fantastic and the oneiric. Rivera himself took part in these debates: he supported Breton's visit in 1938 and participated in the Exposición Internacional del Surrealismo of 1940 in Mexico City, revealing an interest in the irrational and the grotesque that coexisted with his social commitment.

Section IV.2 — Fantastic Art

Fantastic art, also known as fantasy painting, is one of the most original expressions of Mexican painting, present in the national imagination since antiquity. It explores the oneiric and the grotesque through unreal scenes and unsettling atmospheres inherited from both ancient Mexico and popular tradition. Although Breton associated it with Surrealism during his 1938 visit, historiography has emphasized how Mexican fantasy possesses its own autonomy, rooted in indigenous mythologies. Art historian Ida Rodríguez Prampolini highlighted its existence as a true national school, capable of articulating hybrid imaginaries that go beyond Bretonian influence. The works of María Izquierdo, Antonio Ruiz, and Juan Soriano bring together the intimate and the fantastic, the popular and the symbolic, giving form to a visual universe in which the everyday is transformed into a space of estrangement and revelation.

Section IV.3 — Echoes of Surrealism

The first Surrealist to come into contact with Mexico was Antonin Artaud, who in 1936 lived among the native Tarahumara people and dedicated several writings to the work of María Izquierdo. Two years later André Breton, a guest of Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Coyoacán, recognized in Mexico the existence of an "implicit" Surrealism present in pre-Hispanic, popular, and contemporary art. During his stay he co-authored with Trotsky the Manifesto ¡Por un arte revolucionario independiente! In those years the movement also spread through the arrival of European artists in exile — among them Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, and Benjamin Péret. The Exposición Internacional del Surrealismo of 1940 at the Galería de Arte Mexicano brought together Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and Roberto Montenegro alongside Wolfgang Paalen, César Moro, and Alice Rahon, consolidating Mexico's role not only as a place of refuge, but as a territory of intense cultural experimentation embedded in the debates of twentieth-century modernity.

Section IV.4 — Metaphysical Painting

The metaphysical movement, born in Italy in 1917 with Giorgio de Chirico, was distinguished by the construction of enigmatic and silent spaces, by the presence of figures and objects stripped of their context that take on a symbolic and unsettling value. Its reception in Mexico spread initially through the Stridentist manifesto Actual Nº1 (1921) and the pages of the journal Contemporáneos (1928). Figures such as Rufino Tamayo, María Izquierdo, Carlos Orozco Romero, Manuel González Serrano and Roberto Montenegro showed, at different moments in their output, a clear affinity with de Chirico's poetics. These artists integrated popular elements and theatrical-inflected stagings into their own research, transforming the metaphysical dimension into a tool for exploring the tensions between the local and the universal, between individual experience and the demands of modernity. Metaphysical painting in Mexico did not take shape as passive imitation, but as an engagement that, while in dialogue with European poetics, constructed an imaginary world distant from Mexican social realism.

Rufino Tamayo - Still Life with Foot

The painting depicts a table on which several objects lie, isolated from one another, arranged with great precision but without any apparent logical relationship. At the center is a mold of a right foot positioned vertically on a base, accompanied by a pair of closed scissors facing forward, several playing cards, and tobacco. Among the cards, an ace of hearts, a two of hearts, and a four of spades can be distinguished. Near the edge of the table lies a cigar positioned in an unstable manner: one half remains resting on the surface while the other remains suspended in mid-air. The arrangement of these elements produces a sensation of estrangement and silence. The foot cast extends from the toes to the ankle and occupies the center of the composition. Its presence appears strange because it seems separated from any anatomical or functional context. The objects are arranged with great precision, but they do not seem to relate to one another in a logical way. This arrangement creates an unsettling and silent atmosphere. In the background, an open door appears, functioning as a window onto another reality. Through it, a balcony can be glimpsed along with a Cantoya globe divided into three sections descending wrapped in smoke, as if it were falling or catching fire. The Cantoya globe is a small paper hot-air balloon that flies thanks to the warm air produced by a flame placed inside it. It is also known as a flying lantern. This image introduces a sense of uncertainty and is usually interpreted as a critical stance toward the ideas of progress and modernization promoted in post-revolutionary Mexico, in contrast with the nationalist optimism present in other works of the era. The scene produces a sensation of estrangement similar to the metaphysical painting of Giorgio de Chirico, an artist who profoundly influenced Tamayo.

Conclusion

You have reached the end of the exhibition. What you have seen in these rooms is the result of an uninterrupted dialogue between local and international, between tradition and rupture, between identity and avant-garde. A dialogue that never found a definitive answer — and that for this reason continues to be fruitful. Thank you for visiting the exhibition.