I am ashamed to say I did I did not recognize the name “Guayasamín” before coming to Ecuador. However, I think it's the same for many other foreigners, and I want to educate everyone back home a little bit because if you don't know who he is you're missing out!
Oswaldo Guayasamín was an Ecuadorian artist who lived through the violence of the 20th century, and consequently his best works are highly political. Some of his paintings grieve for the lost lives in Ecuador, including the life of his longest childhood friend caught a stray bullet on the street during La Guerra de los Cuatro Días, the Four Day War. But his anger was for injustices faced in other countries as well: elsewhere in Latin America like for los desaparecidos, the disappeared, during Videl’s dictatorship in Argentina; and overseas, for the bombing victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the poverty in India, and the civil war in Spain to name a few. He was friends with Fidel Castro and you could label Guayasamín as a communist, but you must also keep in mind the context of this time period in Latin America. If your continent seemed consumed by violent dictatorships, wouldn't you be inclined towards communism's ideal of equality for all?
Art has a way of bringing us together, and I would have to say that is the goal of Guayasamín. His earliest period of work, Huaycañán, embraced his indigenous roots and gave voice to the discrimination of indigenous people in Ecuador. He showed us how much we can make each other hurt in his Edad de la Ira (age of anger), and then how much we can love in his la ternura (tenderness) period. And in his legacy, these messages are still preserved.
I found a short video on YouTube with English subtitles that talks more about Guayasamín and shows some of his great paintings. Check out my little guide below to learn more about some of the quotations and paintings shown.
Oswaldo Guayasamín was an Ecuadorian artist who lived through the violence of the 20th century, and consequently his best works are highly political. Some of his paintings grieve for the lost lives in Ecuador, including the life of his longest childhood friend caught a stray bullet on the street during La Guerra de los Cuatro Días, the Four Day War. But his anger was for injustices faced in other countries as well: elsewhere in Latin America like for los desaparecidos, the disappeared, during Videl’s dictatorship in Argentina; and overseas, for the bombing victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the poverty in India, and the civil war in Spain to name a few. He was friends with Fidel Castro and you could label Guayasamín as a communist, but you must also keep in mind the context of this time period in Latin America. If your continent seemed consumed by violent dictatorships, wouldn't you be inclined towards communism's ideal of equality for all?
Art has a way of bringing us together, and I would have to say that is the goal of Guayasamín. His earliest period of work, Huaycañán, embraced his indigenous roots and gave voice to the discrimination of indigenous people in Ecuador. He showed us how much we can make each other hurt in his Edad de la Ira (age of anger), and then how much we can love in his la ternura (tenderness) period. And in his legacy, these messages are still preserved.
I found a short video on YouTube with English subtitles that talks more about Guayasamín and shows some of his great paintings. Check out my little guide below to learn more about some of the quotations and paintings shown.
1:46 “Yo lloré porque no tenía zapatos hasta que vi un niño que no tenía pies” translates to "I cried because I didn't have shoes until I saw a boy who didn't have feet." This originally came from a Chinese proverb.
2:12 El Mestizaje, referring to someone of European and South American Indian descent: note how the Spanish roots are represented by blue and the indigenous by yellow.
2:21 Los Mutilados, or “The Mutilated”: about the Spanish Civil War. It's made of 6 panels, which when rearranged make over a million different combinations. It took Guayasamín 8 years to complete because he drew out so many different sketches to make sure they could be moved around like this!
3:07 Ríos de Sangre, or "Rivers of Blood": about Videl’s dictatorship in Argentina. There is also a painting he did called Lágrimas de Sangre, or "Tears of Blood", about the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile.
4:02 and 4:27 “Mantengan encendida una luz que siempre voy a volver” roughly translates to "Keep a light burning, for I will always return."