DAY OF THE DEAD SKELETONS WITH FLOWERS
This little item is just a little esoteric, but let me explain the elements. A skeleton dressed up to the nines in his tailcoat and top hat is giving a vase full of flowers to a skeleton women who is also dressed up to the nines. But those in the know will know that these are no ordinary skeletons! The man is none other than the Baron of the Cemetery, and the woman is La Catrina! We used green glitter for the lawn of the cemetery. I think that is kind of a nice touch. Don't you?
The Day of the Dead has its roots in both Catholic Spain and Mesoamerican culture. The Spanish All Souls Day coincided with
an Indian festival wherein the Indians believed that the souls of their deceased relatives came back to visit them. So the Indian
feast was incorporated into Catholic ritual, and it has been a big part of Mexican culture ever since. 
The Day of the Dead art as
we know it today is embodied more than anything in the work of Guadalupe Posada. His “calaveras” as they are called (literally
“skeletons”) , are part of a rich tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, specifically to the work of
Hans Holbein the Younger, and to the work of the Danse Macabre artists. These artists used the figure of the skeleton to
burlesque and lampoon the powers that be - and so did Posada, whose works were actually political cartoons that reflected a
social viewpoint that was traditionally expressed in this type of art. Other artists before Posada in Mexico were also doing the
same thing, and he had contemporaries who did also, and some of these persons have had their work confused with that of
Posada.
Posada might have been forgotten if it were not for the attention given to him by Diego Rivera, who undertook a revival of his art
and called world attention to his work and to his person. Rivera was seeking to both elevate Posada to a position of historical
and attach his own shining star to Posada’s, which was a move typical of Rivera’s self promotion.
By the way, for people who are not familiar with the use of skeletons and such in Mexican curanderismo and brujeria (their
version of Voodoo, as it were), I will tell you some of the basics, which I learned from a curandera I know. The basic "saint" for
this cult is the Santisima Muerte, a sort of skeleton Virgin Mary, and they use three colors: red, white, and black. White is to
have a happy future, black is to have strength against your enemies, and red is for money and prosperity.
From Fausto's Art Gallery in Ojinaga, Chihuahua.
(Shipped from Presidio, Texas)
Only $14.99
shipping and handling $5.00 dollars
