PICO DE ORIZABA / CITLALTÉPETL PEINT PAR DIEGO RIVERA

 

DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957)
Pico de Orizaba / Citlaltépetl (5,636 m -18,491 ft)
Mexique

In Mountain peaks, aquarelle  26.6 x 37.4 cm

La montagne

Pico de Orizaba  (5,636 m -18,491 ft) ou Citlaltépetl est un volcan du Mexique, à la limite entre les États de Veracruz et Puebla. Il est  situé dans la cordillère Néovolcanique, il constitue le point culminant du pays et de cette chaîne de montagnes, mais également le plus haut volcan d'Amérique du Nord ce qui en fait un des sept sommets volcaniques. Sa dernière éruption remonte à 1846. Sa première ascension officielle a lieu deux ans plus tard, à la fin de la Guerre américano-mexicaine, par les lieutenants américains F. Maynard et G. Reynolds.
Le parc national Pico de Orizaba a été créé le 16 décembre 1936 sur une superficie de 19 750 ha afin de protéger la richesse naturelle du volcan, ses environs et les localités de Tlachichuca, Ciudad Serdán, La Perla, Mariano Escobedo et Calcahualco. Le décret fédéral a été traduit en loi fédérale le 4 janvier 1937.
Le pic d'Orizaba est une figure majeure dans les cultures pré-hispaniques, comme chez les Aztèques et les Totonaques. Le volcan est l'objet de nombreuses mythologies autochtones. Chez les Olmèques, Orizaba est l'esprit d'un aigle réincarné en volcan ; le fait de le gravir et de prier au sommet prévient de ses colères et l'empêche d'entrer en éruption.

Le peintre
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, plus connu sous le nom de Diego Rivera  est un peintre mexicain. Bien qu'il ait tout au long de sa vie pratiqué la peinture de chevalet, Rivera est mondialement connu pour ses peintures murales, réalisées au Mexique, principalement à Mexico, et aux États-Unis. Ses peintures murales sont indissociables de ses convictions communistes et de sa fascination pour le passé préhispanique du Mexique. Il fut l'époux de l'artiste Frida Kahlo. De 1913 à 1918, ses peintures sont d'inspiration cubiste (dont Paysage zapatiste - Le Guérillero, 1915). À la suite d'un conflit avec le critique d'art Pierre Reverdy, il rompt avec le cubisme et revient à la figuration. Son voyage en Italie en 1920 lui fait découvrir les fresques murales qui vont l'inspirer pour son œuvre ultérieure la plus connue, ses immenses peintures murales. Il utilise pour cela les pigments traditionnels utilisés à l'époque pré-hispanique. Les thèmes traités sur commande du gouvernement sont sociaux et historiques, concernant l'histoire officielle récente du Mexique. L'inspiration est également politique avec la représentation du travail ouvrier (L'industrie de Detroit, 1932-1933).
Rivera a fait l'objet de nombreuses critiques de son vivant, notamment de la part de David Alfaro Siqueiros, qui l'accusa, dans un article publié le 29 mai 1934 par le magazine New Masses d'être un opportuniste, d'avoir une vision idéalisée et fausse des indigènes, d'être un touriste mental (parce qu'il s'était « planqué » à l'étranger durant la révolution), un snob, un saboteur du travail collectif, le peintre de la nouvelle bourgeoisie et des millionnaires, techniquement dépassé, de dépendre financièrement des subsides du gouvernement et d'être un de ses agents, un esthète de l'impérialisme.

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2024 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau   

PICO DE ORIZABA / CILALTÉPETL PAINTED BY DIEGO RIVERA

 

DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957)
Pico de Orizaba / Citlaltépetl (5,636 m -18,491 ft) 
Mexico (Vera Cruz)

The mountain
Pico de Orizaba (5,636 m -18,491 ft) also known as Citlaltépetl is a stratovolcano, the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in North America, after Denali of Alaska in the United States and Mount Logan of Canada. It rises in the eastern end of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, on the border between the states of Veracruz and Puebla. The volcano is currently dormant but not extinct, with the last eruption taking place during the 19th century. It is the second most prominent volcanic peak in the world after Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro. Pico de Orizaba was important in pre-Hispanic cultures, such as those of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs and the Totonacs. The volcano is part of many native mythologies. Pico de Orizaba is located 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Mexico City and approximately 480 kilometres (300 mi) south of the Tropic of Cancer. A companion peak lying about six km to the southwest of Pico de Orizaba is the Sierra Negra, at 4,640 metres (15,223 ft). Pico de Orizaba is one of only three volcanoes in México that continue to support glaciers and is home to the largest glacier in Mexico, Gran Glaciar Norte. Orizaba has nine known glaciers: Gran Glaciar Norte, Lengua del Chichimeco, Jamapa, Toro, Glaciar de la Barba, Noroccidental, Occidental, Suroccidental, and Oriental. Pico de Orizaba, like the Sierra Madre Oriental, forms a barrier between the coastal plains of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mexican Plateau. The volcano blocks the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico from saturating central Mexico and influences the climates of both areas. Both the state of Veracruz and Puebla depend on Pico de Orizaba for supplying fresh water. The largest river originating on the volcano is the Jamapa River.

The painter
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican mural movement in Mexican art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in, among other places, Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Rivera had a volatile marriage with fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. In 1926, Rivera became a member of AMORC, the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, an occult organization founded by American occultist Harvey Spencer Lewis. In 1926, Rivera was among the founders of AMORC's Mexico City lodge, called Quetzalcoatl, and painted an image of Quetzalcoatl for the local temple. In 1954, when he tried to be readmitted into the Mexican Communist Party from which he had previously been excluded because of his support of Trotsky, Rivera had to justify his AMORC activities. The Mexican Communist Party at that time excluded from its ranks members of Freemasonry, and regarded AMORC as suspiciously similar to Freemasonry. Rivera answered that, by joining AMORC, he wanted to infiltrate a typical “Yankee” organization on behalf of Communism. However, he also claimed that AMORC was “essentially materialist, insofar as it only admits different states of energy and matter, and is based on ancient Egyptian occult knowledge from Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti.”
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

PICO DE ORIZABA / CITLALTÉPETL PAINTED BY EUGENIO LANDESIO

EUGENIO LANDESIO  (1810-1879) 

Pico de Orizaba / Citlaltépetl (5,636 m -18,491 ft) 

Mexico (Vera Cruz) 

In Monte-Blanco-Farm-Mexico, Vera Cruz, 1879, oil on canvas, 

Museo de Arte del Estado de Veracruz 

About the painting

In 1873 Eugenio Landesio began working on the project that was to become Hacienda de Monte Blanco (above) and upon his return to Rome, Landesio commissioned José María Velasco to finish it. Hacienda de Monte Blanco is a view of Monte Blanco, a hacienda of the state of Veracruz and describes the biological, geological and regional characteristics that Landesio considered essential for landscaping. From the natural vegetation of the region to the rugged ascent to the mountain that can be seen in the distance, each aspect of the painting reflects its specific location, a hallmark of Landesio's style. At last, on the background of the composition one can see the Pico de Orizaba, a dormant volcano which is the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in North America.

The mountain 

Pico de Orizaba  (5,636 m -18,491 ft) also known as Citlaltépetl is a stratovolcano, the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in North America, after Denali of Alaska in the United States and Mount Logan of Canada. It rises  in the eastern end of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, on the border between the states of Veracruz and Puebla. The volcano is currently dormant but not extinct, with the last eruption taking place during the 19th century. It is the second most prominent volcanic peak in the world after Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro.
Pico de Orizaba was important in pre-Hispanic cultures, such as those of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs and the Totonacs. The volcano is part of many native mythologies.
Pico de Orizaba  is located 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Mexico City  and approximately 480 kilometres (300 mi) south of the Tropic of Cancer. A companion peak lying about six km to the southwest of Pico de Orizaba is the Sierra Negra, at 4,640 metres (15,223 ft). 

Pico de Orizaba is one of only three volcanoes in México that continue to support glaciers and is home to the largest glacier in Mexico, Gran Glaciar Norte. Orizaba has nine known glaciers: Gran Glaciar Norte, Lengua del Chichimeco, Jamapa, Toro, Glaciar de la Barba, Noroccidental, Occidental, Suroccidental, and Oriental.
Pico de Orizaba, like the Sierra Madre Oriental, forms a barrier between the coastal plains of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mexican Plateau. The volcano blocks the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico from saturating central Mexico and influences the climates of both areas. Both the state of Veracruz and Puebla depend on Pico de Orizaba for supplying fresh water. The largest river originating on the volcano is the Jamapa River.

The painter
Eugenio Landesio was an Italian painter and a pupil of the Hungarian landscape painter Károly Markó the Elder. Landesio’s career in Mexico was marked by his years at the Academy of San Carlos, where he exercised an influence on later exponents of Mexican landscape painting such as José María Velasco.  In January 1855, at the invitation of the Catalan painter Pelegrín Clavé, who was director of the figure painting section of the Academy, he went to Mexico to give classes in landscape, perspective, and the principles of ornamentation.
Like his teacher, Landesio was a Romantic landscape painter, with a tendency to emphasize the sweetness and mellowness of his scenes. His work became known in Mexico when several of his paintings were acquired by the Academy of San Carlos. Landesio wrote three books on landscape painting that served as textbooks for the students of the Academy of San Carlos.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau