Sunday, July 13, 2008

Week 4, Project 4b















A Mythical Latin American Portrait Gallery: Rosario Marquardt 1 2 3 4 5
La Malinche, 1992 Oil pastel on paper, 17" x "23" Collection of the artist
Daughter of Aztec lords, she was first given away in order to facilitate her stepbrother's accession to the lordship, and then given away once again when she was fifteen years old, as a present to the Spainards. She mastered the Mayan and Aztec languages, and in only a few months she learned to speak perfect Castillian. She became the figure in whom all communication between the opposed cultures was concentrated. LaMalinche was a crucial fiture in the conquest of New Spain. Historian Stephen Greenblatt interprets her role, writing that "Cortes understood next to nothing about the comples culture which he had violently penetrated, and everything he could hope to learn, beyond the enigmatic and opaque visual evidence, had to be conveyed through Dona Marina (La Malinche)."
Not only did she play a critical historical role, but author Octavio Paz explains that she persists in the collective Mexican memory: "... the strange permanence of Cortes and La Malinche in the Mexican's imagination and sensibility reveals that they are more than historical higures: they are symbols of a sectret conflict that we have still not resolved." appendx inc.©1997


I am choosing La Malinche who played a hugh role in the conquest of New Spain and who is seen in different ways by the Mexician peoples. It is a 1992 painting of the indigenous woman.

http://projects.gsd.harvard.edu/appendx/dev/issue2/marquardt/index5.htm

Observation:
The painting is an oil pastel on paper created in 1992 by Rosario Marquardt. The artist is showing La Malinche in two different views as in cubism. The artist uses bold colors of red black and white to convey her meanings.

Interpretation:
Marquardt is displaying the opposing opinions of the Mexician people about her role in the Spanish conquest of Mexico. I chose the subject of La Malinche and this piece because it really shows the significance she played in the Spanish conquest.

The two views of her face show her role as the founding figure of the Mexican race and the opposite side as the traitor to her race. The two views with white smoke leaving her mouth show her multible roles as interpreter, advisor and intermediary for Cortes. The lizard that she cradles in her arms represents both the fate of her Mexican people; i.e. the power she has in her role with cortes and the safe guarding of her people's heritage.

Questioning:

When did this subject live in history?

La Malinche is seen as the symbolic "mother of the Mexican people. What other aspects is she seen in by the Mexican people?

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