La Malinche

Date

c. 1940

Description

Creator of the image: Alfredo Ramos Martinez
Date of the image creation: c. 1940
Medium of the image: Oil on canvas
Person depicted: La Malinche

La Malinche was a Nahua woman, given as a slave to the invading Spanish conquistadors in 1519. She went on to become the interpreter, advisor and lover of Hernán Cortés, and thus played a key role in the conquest of the Aztec Empire. She later gave birth to their first son, Martín Cortés, one of the first Mestizos, people of mixed European and Native American decent. Given this extraordinary history, La Malinche occupies an ambivalent, almost mythological place in the Mexican imaginary. Sometimes she is depicted as evil incarnate, a scheming temptress, the ultimate betrayer; and she is sometimes seen as the symbolic mother of the new Mexico.

In this painting, created towards the end of Ramos Martinez’s life, he depicts La Malinche staring strait ahead at the viewer. Her hair is woven atop her head in an intricate braids, and her dark eyes look coolly forwards. Deep shadows accentuate her cheekbones and jaw, and her lips are slightly parted. The stylization of her features leaves her sitting at an intersection between being human and a goddess, capturing the mythological ambivalence of her place in history.

The Mexican artist and educator Alfredo Ramos Martinez (1871–1946) is considered one of the ‘fathers of Mexican Modernism’. He is best known for his highly empathetic paintings, drawing and murals of traditional Mexican people and settings. Ramost Martinez was drawn to portray the iconic figure of La Malinche.

Quotes

No quotes found.