HARRY THOMAS DANVERS did not begin his artistic career until he arrived in Guatemala in the early 70s. There he began to study drawing in the Escuela Nacionalde Artes Plasticas in Guatemala City. His teacher was Juan Antonio Franco, who in addition to have studied in Europe also worked on a lot of murals of Diego Rivera in Mexico.

Harry speaks five languages, including Maya’ K’iche, and is a professor of English and Anthropology at the University of San Carlos in Quetzaltenago. He is the author of 11 novels, and 6 bilingual books. In the year 2000 he won the Arturo Martinez national art contest in landscape.

Casa N’oj (tel: 7768-3139) is located at 7a. calle 12-12 zona 1, Quetzaltenango

See also http://guatemalan-art.com/

“My name is Thompson because da Vinci was already taken,” Al quips in his typical, quick humor. In fact, there are similarities between the 15th century artist and Al Thompson, born in 1928. Both justly claim a diversity of talents: painting, sculpting, inventing, writing, to name a few. An exhibition of Al’s most recent creations opens December 3 at el attico, 4a. Av. 15-45, zona 14, Guatemala City. He calls his art form ‘sculpting the print’.

It all began about 20 years ago when archaeologist and La Antigua Guatemala resident Ed Shook recognized the artist in teacher/educator Al Thompson and offered to sell him six ‘books’ of 24Kt gold leaf on tissue paper pages. That sounded interesting, so “Sure, why not?” thought Al. He bought the little books, about five inches square, stamped Made in Germany, then forgot about them for years while he painted with oils, cultivated coffee, devised equipment with which to process it and wrote books. Eventually, there they were again.

“What will I do with the gold?” he asked Antigua friend Barbara Leaver. Barbara remembered seeing the work of Gustav Klimt in Austria and brought Al a book of prints. Early in the 20th century Klimt, recognized as Vienna’s greatest painter, used gold to bring life and energy into his Byzantine-inspired mosaic style paintings. “The problem with prints is that they’re inert compared to originals,” Al and his friends agreed. He played with ideas of how to re-energize the prints with gold. “Living in Guatemala is marvelous. If I get a yen to do something, there’s not a pile of peers to question it. No one said, ‘Don’t do that! Why are you wasting that gold!’ ”

The first challenge was how to lift the fragile gold leaf from the tissue page without disintegrating or destroying it. “Gold leaf is 3/100,000 of an inch thick!” He figured out that he could slide the gold leaf onto waxed paper, then ve-e-e-r-y carefully, but also very quickly, pat onto it a layer of tissue paper brushed with white glue. To his delight he discovered that this not only stabilized the gold leaf, but it shriveled and shrunk into attractive texture. A second layer of tissue glued to the first secured the sheet.

Next, how to use the sheets of gold leaf. Paint with enamel? Use as background or mats? Enhance prints? Yes, yes and yes. He experimented with these and “all by accident” came up with the idea of “sculpting the print. Then I fiddled with the glass idea to float the print over gold background.”

In addition to Klimt works, “I googled icon,” he states proudly, and searched the web for non-copyrighted masterpieces and manuscripts from all over the world—Italy, Greece, Turkey—to print out and make copies. Then, with a razor knife, sensitive to the line and form intrinsic to the subject, he meticulously cut out the details to gild. “I laid the print on the glass first, because my wife doesn’t like me to cut through the table.”

Carolyn, Al’s wife and clearly valuable consultant, comments that Al is engrossed in his work before dawn. “He spends a lot of time just staring at the print, coming to the right interface between gold and picture.” Al agrees. “About three in the morning I see these pictures in my head and get ideas about how to make them come out, to actualize them.” Added adornments of flamboyant swirls and zigzag loops achieve just the right balance to enhance the subject.

The three-dimensional finished work of four-layers—gold leaf, glass, print, glass—breaches the barrier between illusion and reality. The gold background catches the light through the sculpting, and the print comes alive. “It’s a reincarnation! Then it gets even more exciting with a frame.” The final touch, the signature: A. Gray Thompson. Gray captained the ship on which Al’s great-grandparents sailed back and forth between Britain and Australia with supplies during gold rush days, perhaps planting Al’s history with gold.

Al developed useful skills in his previous hobbies of crafting jewelry, icons, nativity scenes and chess sets with silver. That ended, also by accident, when a priest friend slammed Al’s finger in a car door and, “I couldn’t hammer anymore.” Ever the optimist, Al only saw that as opportunity to move on. After retirement in Antigua in 1989, he started to paint with oils. “These were stepping stones,” he says, toward this latest achievement.

Like da Vinci and Klimt, Al Thompson comes from a simple background. Da Vinci’s mother was a peasant; Klimt’s father was a goldsmith, Al’s a welder. Also like Klimt, Al is good-natured and sociable but enjoys the solace of his studio. He’s a Fulbright scholar with a Ed.D. from Berkeley. Friends would argue his description as a ‘self-perceived failure’, but maybe that comes with the territory of genius. In Barbara Leaver’s words, ”Al has out-Klimted Klimt.”
The gold is almost all gone, now in the 26 framed works of the exhibit. There will not be more. Why? “Because I’ve finished this,” says Al. “I feel a sense of accomplishment.”

by Jack and Joy Houston

Exhibition at el attico runs until Dec 23. Call for schedule: 2368-0853.

At the inauguration on November 13, the Secretary of State for Culture, Cora Amalia Castilla Madrid, welcomed government officials, the general public and 570 participating artists from Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Aruba, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Belize and Mexico. Ms. Castilla said of Díaz’s photography, “He magic lens brings a poetic vision to the majestic city of Quetzaltenango.”

Este creador nació en un momento estratégico para el desarrollo de las artes visuales de Guatemala. Tanto en lo político como en lo práctico se estaban gestando las condiciones para una estética que terminaría abriendo las puertas al modernismo nacional. Durante la gestión de José María Reyna Barrios (1892-1898), un presidente atípico por su sensibilidad, se fortaleció la cultura creativa como nunca en el pasado y como no se ha vuelto a hacer hasta el presente. Actitud que redundaría, iniciándose el siglo XX, en una nueva y potente generación artística que aportaría tanto en lo escénico como en lo plástico con nombres y obras perdurables.

La primera exposición de Carlos Mérida se efectuó en 1910. Hasta donde se tiene conocimiento aquel catálogo se constituyó con piezas de carácter académico. Hacia 1912 es que ya se nota un cambio en su empaste. El retrato que realizara a Carlos Valenti es un buen ejemplo de ello. En aquel año partiría con el citado artista a París para continuar su formación, viaje que vería interrumpido por la Primera Guerra mundial.

A su regreso propondría, junto con Rafael Yela Günther, una plástica basada en elementos relacionados con el folklore cuya estructura se sostendría desde la síntesis de la imagen y su composición plana tanto en lo figurativo como en el color. A partir de ese momento abandonaba definitivamente la visión de sus correligionarios del arte, que quedaría dando vueltas alrededor del impresionismo para dar así el paso definitivo a una plástica de carácter más universalista.

Por razones personales, los terremotos de 1917 y 18, la peste de Gripe Española, la epidemia de tifoidea y los trastornos económicos del país, se vio obligado a trasladarse a la ciudad de México en 1919. Desde allí empezaría, casi inmediatamente y debido a las relaciones alcanzadas en Paris, a exponer en Nueva York y Europa. También desde México mantuvo una relación constante y efectiva con Guatemala.

Durante la década del veinte se adentró en lo que venía explorando respecto a lo folclórico. En la primera gran crisis que enfrentócomo creador rompió de golpe con ello para desembocar en una serie abstracta que, de a poco, le abrió las puertas al surrealismo y para adoptar a partir de allí, en los años cincuenta, lo geométrico. Sin duda ésta forma de expresión le brindó un camino de fertilidad que descolló en los murales del Centro Cívico y varias casas particulares.

La década del setenta lo atrapó revisando y proponiendo desde lo abstracto geométrico. Es en ese momento que regresa de lleno a la gráfica y tanto en la litografía artística como desde la serigrafía propone todo un imaginario en el que la esencia del color maya se funde con intrincadas composiciones planas. Es en este largo lapso que inicia desde los años treinta que comprende y plantea ideas tomadas desde la esencia de la cosmovisión de su pueblo la cual expresó de modo singular. La muerte lo encontró activo y produciendo en México… su corazón se quedó en Guatemala.

Guests mingled and listened a series of speakers at the hotel’s Galería Quiroa, where a retrospective of works by Guatemalan artist Carlos Mérida (1891-1984) was introduced.

The Paiz International Festival of Art and Culture, a nearly yearlong series of music, dance and art, opens Friday night, Feb. 11, with a reunion concert by the Guatemalan rock group Alux Nahual and Éditus, the Grammy-winning jazz group from Costa Rica. The concert is at 8 p.m. at Ermita de Santa Cruz in La Antigua.

Festival events continue at 3 p.m. Saturday Feb. 12, with the public opening of the Mérida exhibit at the Casa Santo Domingo. 

At 8 p.m. Saturday Feb. 12, Ermita de Santa Cruz will be rocked by power pianist Jorge Gomez and his Grammy-nominated Cuban timba group Tiempo Libre, accompanied by La Orquesta Sinfonica Juvenil.

The following weekend, Feb. 19-20, the hilarious international sensation Les Ballet Trockaderos de Montecarlo will perform at 8 p.m. at Ermita de la Santa Cruz. The festival’s opening month wraps up Feb. 26-27 with Ballet Hispánico, also at Ermita de la Santa Cruz.

Tickets to all performances are on sale at TodoTicket.com. For more information about Fundación Paiz, visit www.fundacionpaiz.org.gt.

Painting with bars of locally-made chocolate by Michael Sherer

The recent Primer Festival Gastronómico in La Antigua Guatemala centered on the uses of chocolate, primarily cooking with cacao.

The highlight of the event however was created by Alex Farrar, owner of a local bistro/art gallery and an excellent artist in his own right (he won first prize at the Venetian Masked Ball in February). Farrar appeared with his easel, rolled up his shirt sleeves and after unwrapping a few bars of locally-made chocolate, he began to sketch the figure of a Maya lady wearing her traditional clothing.

Creating light and shadows? Easy enough … a few passes of darker variety of chocolate and then fill in the background with white cacao. Voila! as the French might say … or sacre bleu! A chocolate work of art!

Fernando, a local chocolatier of renown in La Antigua, happened to come to taste the food. He was amazed as were the other guests with yet another use for chocolate. Who would have guessed?
There were no snickers.

Rae Frese Leeth; Una norteamericana con corazón chapín

por Guillermo Monsanto photos by Ange Bourda

Al escribir una nota sobre Rae Leeth se hace difícil separar lo emotivo de lo profesional. Por un lado cuenta el desfile de amigos que conforman el rico universo que la rodea y por el otro el enjambre de artistas que tiene o ha tenido que ver con su producción creativa.

Cuando llegó a Guatemala la escultura era una disciplina que pocos autores seguían como posibilidad de expresión profesional. Salvo nombres muy consolidados como Dagoberto Vásquez –que también era pintor y dibujante–, Luis Carlos –perteneciente a la generación del ochenta– y otros nombres como Carlos Chaclán o Rudy Yan Peña– relacionados a certámenes y becas en el extranjero pero sin mercado visible– la disciplina estaba prácticamente de baja. No sería hasta que una serie de inquietudes y coincidencias, entrarían a fortalecer a la creación en bulto.

Es precisamente en ese momento en el que Rae comienza a proponer piezas por demás alejadas del patrón y logra asentarse como escultora. De paso, algo difícil al inicio de los noventa, consigue el respeto de sus compañeros escultores y adentrarse, de a poco, en todos los escenarios disponibles para las artes de Guatemala.

Prolija y diversa, la obra de esta norteamericana de corazón chapín fue dejando cánones que artistas más jóvenes siguieron con igual éxito. Ahora, desde su refugio de paisajes volcánicos, sumergida en su taller en la ciudad de Antigua, Leeth se ha adentrado en un tema por demás espiritual: el angelical. Y desde él en una multiplicidad de posibilidades que exploran desde los cristales, maderas, bronces y mármoles ya en solitario o en fusiones muy a la Rae. Desde allí no sólo se puede entender la figuración que la artista explora. También se puede percibir las inquietudes que mueven su desvelo creativo.

La muestra, por lo tanto, conmemora su arribo hace veinte años a estas tierras y el veintidós aniversario de la galería El Attico.

EXPOSITION
Galería El Attico
4ª avenida 15-45, zona 14
Guatemala City
Inauguration Wednesday 7, 7pm

For information in English about this exposition, please see DateBook, April 7.

Budding artists Geovany Flores and José Luis López Godoy honored their former elementary school, Escuela Mariano Navarrete, with the gift of a vast, colorful mural.

What does the mural depict?
José Luis López Godoy: The central idea behind the mural is that it was created for primary children. It is focused upon Maya icons and iconography, mixing a lot of trends—from a little cubism, naive art and pop art—so that the children have a little art history.

Geovany Flores: The making of the mural was inspired by the Popol Vuh. The Popol Vuh is a sacred book of the K’iche’ Maya and narrates the creation of vegetation, animals, the first man made from corn, and, afterwards, the origin of the K’iche’ Maya. The Popol Vuh is like the Bible for the Maya … the perfect, human-divine creation for the gods are the men of corn. You can see in the central part of the mural a tree with corncobs. This narrates the creation of the first men. The tree also signifies the central axis of the universe and narrates the three planes that make up the terrestrial world.

What inspired you to make the mural?
Flores: José took the initiative and contributed the first ideas … he went to the school and spoke with the director. The director said, yes, we could make the mural.

Godoy: The kids gave us the inspiration. We did a quiz where we summoned all the kids to make a drawing of what worried or bothered them the most. In the drawings we found, with much surprise, that they were most affected by the violence in their lives. So we wanted to relate in the mural something more, showing different alternatives.

What do you hope the work accomplished?
Godoy: That the children see a little light through all these drawings, that they see a little hope through these stories related through the mural. That, yes, one can: one can accomplish things through little means.

Flores: The mural also has other messages, including the importance of voluntary work as part of developing a community. We began without money, we began without anything, only with the idea… The work was purely voluntary. I believe that this is the message as well: the importance of voluntary work and that it is possible to do things if one really wants to.

How long have you been creating art?
Flores: Fifteen years researching art and making art; studying the techniques of art.

Godoy: Honestly, I have devoted 10 years to art. But, you bring something from when you are a kid. You have this restlessness. Yet, I became 100 percent devoted to expressing myself through a canvas 10 years ago.

Will you create more murals?
Flores: We have already started another mural in a school in Jocotenango (Rafael Rosales). We are on a break for many reasons, including economic reasons. But we are going to continue with this project… We have intentions to continue making projects in public spaces in our city.

Godoy: First and foremost, the idea was to make a mural in order to reach out to the people with our work. Not to maintain this idea of elitism that one only keeps their art inside a gallery when art can be created in public spaces so that it reaches the entire population. It is a way to make people aware through art. And this is wonderful.

photos by Geovany Flores

Photography by Hans Namuth, conservatorship and assembly by Cristina Orive at Proyecto Cultural El Sitio, Saturday, February 20, 7pm

Hans Namuth was born in Essen, Germany in 1915. In 1933, shortly after Hitler came to power, he was arrested for distributing anti-Nazi literature. To assure his safety, his father was able to obtain a tourist visa permitting his son to enter France. In 1936 Namuth traveled from Paris to Barcelona, Spain, on a work assignment with his friend, Georg Reisner, to photograph the Workers Olympics for Vu Magazine. The day before the inauguration the Spanish Civil War broke out. Namuth stayed on in Spain to document the conflict. His photographs were published in many magazines as well as the book Spanisches Tagebuch 1936 (Nishen, Berlin, 1986).

He returned to France where he joined the French Foreign Legion. After his discharge in 1940, with the assistance and financial support from friends and the Emergency Rescue Committee, Namuth made his way to the U.S., arriving in New York City in 1941.

He lived there until his untimely death in an automobile accident in 1990. He was 85 years old. During his 40-year career, Namuth photographed almost all of the artists involved in the Abstract Expressionism movement. Though he was well known in his field, his portraits and video on Jackson Pollock made them both famous.

In 1947 Hans Namuth made his first visit to Todos Santos Cuchumatán with his French-born Guatemalan wife Carmen Herrera. He returned to Todos Santos after the great earthquake of 1976 that took the lives of many Guatemalans. The changes he saw in Todos Santos persuaded him to photograph the entire population of the town. The project began in 1978 and concluded in 1987, with Namuth making several trips a year to complete this work.

“The indigenous seem to understand instinctively what I want from them; we communicate with looks and gestures. The most important thing is empathy and mutual trust. This is a formula that has never failed me.”
—Los Todos Santeros, Hans Namuth, (Nishen, London, 1989).

The artist with some of his recent creations

What is your favorite art medium?
Clay. Then once I fire it, it becomes ceramic.

When did you learn how to work with clay and ceramic?
I was going to take a class in English literature, but the class was canceled. Then I saw a classroom where students were working with clay. The teacher asked me, “Do you want to join this class?” And that’s how I started (laughs). It was an accident.

What was your first piece of artwork?
It was a 28-by-30 slab cut into irregular pieces in the design of a bird. I finished that piece with a form of firing called raku, and it came out spectacularly because of the different sizes and the different colors. It was exhibited in the Miami Art Center, and immediately I had a buyer. But I didn’t sell it. Later on, I sold it to a woman that was so in love with this piece—finally, I thought, I’ve found the right person for it.

When did you first realize you were an artist?
I don’t feel as if I’m an artist. I feel like I do what I like to do, and I enjoy doing it.

Who mentored you as you developed your artistic style?
Juanita May. She was an authority on clay in the United States, a teacher and the director of the art school at the University of Miami. I took a class with her, and she asked me to enroll in the second one. But money was sort of scarce at that time. She said: “Don’t worry, I’ll make you my assistant.

What gives you the inspiration to create something?
That’s a very common question I get, and it’s hard to answer. I get the feeling that when I am creating my work, the inspiration isn’t coming from my mind. I feel like there is something else that is directing my everything. You feel more like a vehicle. It’s some inspiration that is not really in your control.

interview and photos by Laura McNamara

Orestes recent work

Woodcarvers Oscar Geovani and Eduardo Reyes create an intricate headboard

text and photos by Ira Lewis

Woodcarving in Guatemala

Guatemala is fortunate to have a long, rich history of artisan/artists working in many media going back to pre-Colonial times. Most of the ancient sculpted art is seen as carved stone. However, some of the less-durable carvings in wood from this era still survive.

We are fortunate that in this plastic, machine-made age, artists in Guatemala still can take a chunk of wood and a few, frequently simple, hand tools and produce items that have to be called art. True, much of the work seen is in the Naïve or Folk Art genre, and some of the offerings are crude souvenirs, but look around and you will find an unusual amount of well carved, beautifully designed pieces that are truly art.

Much of the carved wood items are reproductions from colonial times, ranging from the beautifully executed saints and cherubs with china-doll faces and glass eyes to primitive renderings of these same saints. Furniture, shutters, doors, lintels, kitchen utensils, bowls and other useful articles were frequently decorated with carving. Slingshots (hondas) were not just a forked stick with rubber bands to launch a smooth stone but were carved into fanciful images to suit the owner’s imagination or to bring luck and sure shots.

All these beautifully carved traditional pieces are still being produced because the craft/artistry of fine carving in Guatemala has never stopped. Now, some pieces aimed at the low-end market are carved in series, but they are still carved by hand, one at a time. Unfortunately, there are also pieces made on duplicating machines, seen in some shops or market stalls. Some are not worth the few Quetzales they cost to carry them home, but many others, carved by Guatemalan artisans, are extremely well done, with the same skill and pride of workmanship as they were centuries ago.

In the shops, street stalls and markets catering to tourists one mostly sees renditions of folk art: saints, angels, cherubs, decorative scrollwork, masks and slingshots. Frequently, there are also smaller pieces of carved furniture. When these carvings are well done they can be, and often are, used as decoration in beautiful homes, sitting beside valuable antiques or as a contrast to superb modern furniture and paintings.

To see the finer carving, it is usually necessary to go to an antique store, to the shop of a carver, furniture maker or an art gallery.
In the shops of the carvers, it is possible to request a special carving—some only work on order. For example, a carved name board for your house; yacht; nativity, chandelier, modern or colonial—anything. If it is carved of wood and you can sketch it, these highly skilled carvers can probably carve it better than you can draw.

Cabinetmakers offer beautifully executed wooden furniture carved in designs popular in Europe in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Most will also build cabinets, sofas, chairs, tables—anything you wish—made to order.

If you are a visitor and want something special, order early and be very specific about the date needed. Many can deliver in a surprisingly short time. Obviously, only order from a workshop that produces work of the quality you want, then specify that you will not accept anything that you consider inferior. It is best to order with two or three days’ safety margin unless the piece is very small. Give no more than 15% down payment and the balance on delivery. Check as frequently as possible on progress, and visit the shop a day or so before promised delivery.

Visitors who wish to take any carved wood antiques back to their home country are advised to search for some of the well-done reproductions being produced and get a certificate from the seller that the piece is new and not an antique. It is unlawful to remove authentic colonial antiques and pre-Columbian artifacts from the country.

There are other artists who produce sculptures, both realistic and free form using the beauty, grain and color of wood as their medium. Some truly outstanding pieces are seen in galleries or in the workshops of the artists. Also, there is modern wooden furniture being done with such skill, with such innovative design that it serves both form and function. Other artists collect wood and using the found shape, refine it into a highly decorative piece or a true sculpture. Frequently, this “found wood” is formed into fantastic furniture—decorative, beautiful, and useful.

Very few countries in the world still have this history of fine craftsmanship in wood. Advanced technology, yes. Using a computer to design and a duplicating machine to turn out several copies rapidly, yes. But, the generations-learned skill of using a knife and a chisel with a piece of wood —this skill is disappearing. There are not too many places left in the world where this pride of workmanship still exists. Guatemala is one.

Oscar Perén with some of his paintings in his gallery

written by Dianne Carafino

“The Florence of Guatemala” was once posted on a sign at the entrance of San Juan Comalapa. Regardless of such a welcome, Comalapa —an easy hour or so drive from La Antigua Guatemala—could hardly look less like Florence, Italy. Nestled among pine trees and cornfields in the scenic mountainous Western Highlands of the Department of Chimaltenango, Comalapa presents a sleepy appearance on a non-market day. As one comes into the town, however, the first hint of a unique heritage presents itself. Along both sides of the road, murals depicting the town’s history are painted on walls fronting the street. The murals begin with representations of the Maya ancestors of the Kaqchikel community, through various phases of the area’s history, to the present day.

Along the way to the center of town are the homes of a number of well-known artistic families. Usually the front rooms of the homes double as galleries, and, with any luck, a visitor will be greeted by the artist himself or a close relative. Conversations with the artists are equally as engaging as viewing their work. The art of Comalapa is known for its naïve paintings, which feature native dress, focusing on the long, colorfully striped shawls with tasseled ends worn by the women, and the indigenous customs of the area.

Perhaps best known of the artists from Comalapa is Andrés Curruchiche, the first Kaqchikel Maya oil painter and, many feel, the most important naïve painter of Comalapa. The Ixchel Textile Museum in Guatemala City displays a permanent exhibit of his work, which demonstrates the dress of Comalapa residents beginning in the 1920s. Curruchiche’s home, at 0 Avenida 3-76, is open to visitors, and his granddaughter, María Elena Curruchiche, herself an accomplished artist, is a delightful historian of the careers of her grandfather and father, Vicente Curruchiche, also an acclaimed artist.

María Curruchiche has one of her own paintings, Navidad, delightfully demonstrating the Christmas customs and dress of Comalapa, featured as the December painting of the Arte Maya 2009 calendar. The calendar may be purchased at the family home and in many shops featuring Guatemalan artisans. A visit to the Curruchiche home should definitely include a visit to the upstairs gallery, which includes textiles woven by Doña Isabel Vda. de Curruchiche, María Elena’s mother, which are for sale. Textiles include huipiles, or traditional blouses, woven with the naturally brown cotton of Guatemala.

Down the street and around the corner is the home and gallery of Oscar Perén, perhaps best known for his humorous painting of the interior of a “chicken bus,” which has become a well-known poster. Even a casual conversation with Oscar demonstrates his abilities as a story teller, verbally as well as in his artistic work. Pulling out a photo album of previous paintings, he points to one. “This is me when I was 12 years old,” he says of a painting of a barefoot boy peeking in a doorway of a room where Andres Curruchiche is painting. “I saw Sr. Curruchiche painting when I was 12 years old, and I knew I could do that, too. I’m barefoot in the painting because I didn’t have a pair of shoes until I was 15, and I didn’t sell my first painting until I was 20, but on this day I knew I could do it. I was so excited when I realized that, I didn’t hear a thing the teacher said that day.”

“This is Comalapa the day before the (1976) earthquake,” Sr. Perén comments, as he continues to show his visitors around his gallery. “Everything is in order. This is Comalapa the next day,” he says of the following painting. On around the gallery goes the explanation, illuminating even further the story that each painting tells.
Back along the main street of town, the visitor has only to ask to be directed to the gallery of Feliciano Bal and his family. Sr. Bal himself answers the door and graciously shows the visitor around the gallery, the two front rooms of his home. The elder Sr. Bal has for many years painted the changing landscape of Comalapa and its inhabitants, from the time when the main street coming into town was a dirt road.

Also in the Bal family gallery are works by Walter Bal, following very much in the family landscape tradition and Omar Bal.

Omar Bal’s paintings are easily recognized as focusing on the traditional dress and market activities of Comalapa’s residents, but in a more stylized, modern approach. His paintings are perhaps well known to the visitor of artisan markets as the “no- face” paintings, groupings of market vendors in stylized renditions of traditional costumes, with their faces painted out.

On the way back out of town, a serendipitous stop almost on the edge of town leads to the gallery of two of Oscar Perén’s sons. The brothers Perén, Edgar and Orlando, each have slightly different approaches to the depiction of the customs of the people of Comalapa. Edgar’s paintings are of the traditional naïve style, and he demonstrates his father’s gift for storytelling as he explains the stories depicted in his “Maximoto Ceremony” painting. Orlando’s paintings sometimes have a more modern appearance. If you stop, don’t miss the small painted boxes here or the standing churches, which open into scenes of village life.

Although the visit to Comalapa’s artists was over for the day, other galleries wait to be explored at a later time.

photos: George Carafino

Interested in Guatemala’s primitive art and artists but unable to search out the artists themselves? Try a one-block walk up 4a calle from La Antigua’s central park, to the Museo de Arte Guatemalteco Primitivo – Contemporáneo. With May 18 designated as the Day of Museums by the International Council of Museums, there can be no better time to discover this easily accessible collection of Guatemala’s primitive art.   

The museo is housed in the Centro de Arte Popular in La Casa Antigua El Jaulón, a 16th century building which, with the adjacent building, is believed to have been owned by Leonor, the daughter of the conquistador Pedro Alvarado. Severe damage to the building occurred during the earthquake of 1976, and the subsequent restoration was completed in accordance with the guidelines for historical preservation of the Consejo Nacional para la Protección de Antigua Guatemala.  

Marilda García de Cruz, a career diplomat who founded the museum in 2007, has a 20-year history of working with primitive artists, and, in some cases, works with the sons or brothers of the artist she originally knew, relationships which she says are now personal as well as professional. Ms. García, the museum director, relates that descendants of two important ethnic Mayan groups are the primary primitive artists of Guatemala today: from the Comalapa area, Kaqchiquel descendents; and from the Atitlán area, particularly Sololá, descendents of the Tz’utujil.  

What are the characteristics of a primitive painting? As Ms. García explains, the painting is usually completed in oil on canvas. The work is that of a self-taught artist, often using primary colors, without the use of perspective or a sophisticated use of the combination of shadows and light. The human figure is often not accurately proportioned. Scenes most often portray the actual life of the artist, either everyday scenes or festivities and religious ceremonies. In addition, scenes from the past, as imagined by the artist, who has been told of these events by older members of his family, are often depicted.    

Ms. García has found that Comalapa artists most often paint traditional dances and religious ceremonies, as well as scenes depicting daily living and family life, including traditional medicine. In addition, Comalapa artists often depict scenic landscapes from the highlands. Sololá artists, she has found, often paint agricultural scenes, such as the picking of coffee or cotton, as well as scenes depicting their traditions. Andrés Curruchiche, most often referred to as Guatemala’s first primitive artist, began painting in Comalapa in the 1930s.
Now painting in Comalapa are members of the Curriche family, as well as members of the families Simón, Perén and Bal, Ms. García explains. In Sololá, Rafael Gonzales, who worked in the late 1940s and 1950s, is thought of as the first primitive painter of that area. Second and third generations of artists continue to work in that area.   
     
Exhibits in the museum’s one large room are divided into 12 areas reflecting themes in primitive art. Ms. García is a knowledgeable guide as she interprets the museum collections, both paintings and other artifacts, such as wood carvings, an 80-year-old dance costume from San Miguel Totonicapán, and several representations of Maximón, a pagan deity of the indigenous.  

Música is the first theme represented by the museum’s collection, and Ms. García points out three types of indigenous dances depicted in displayed paintings. First depicted are the pre-colonial dances, which could be interpreted as almost prayer-like, asking, for example, for a successful hunt or rain. A second type, colonial dances, relates to the Mayan assimilation of the Spanish beliefs, and the dances end as the Mayan dancers accept the Spanish beliefs. A third category reflects the dances brought by the Spaniards to the New World, which were, and are, simply imitated by the Mayas.

Family Life/ Trades and Art Crafts, another theme area, reflects a host of customs, some related to matrimony. Paintings reflect the expression of a young man’s professed interest in a young lady by his pulling on the end of her rebozo, the long shawl which she wears over her shoulder. Another painting reflects the gifts given by the young man to his intended’s family. Still other paintings reflect the actual wedding ceremony and fiesta afterward.

Indigenous Faces, another theme reflected by primitive artists, is most often represented by the faces of older people. These are frequently painted by the Tz’utujil, according to Ms. García, and reflect the great respect the indigenous groups feel for the elderly.  

Other theme areas in the museum include religious organizations, medicine and dentistry, and agriculture.  

The museum is organized in such a way that visitors can spend as much or as little time as they have available and delve as deeply or as superficially as their interests dictate. There is no entrance fee, and guided tours in Spanish, French or basic English are available for the asking. Self-guided walks through the museum are also possible, as written information is available in Spanish and English.  

The museum’s mission, according to Ms. García, is “to give to our national and international visitors an appreciation for the customs, traditions and way of living of the Mayan descendents in our indigenous communities.” As the tour of the museum exhibits ends, this visitor leaves feeling that the museum’s goal is well accomplished.