La Malinche Art Exhibit - Denver Art Museum
La Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, became known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521), by acting as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. She was one of 20 enslaved women given to the Spaniards in 1519 by the natives of Tabasco. Cortés chose her as a consort, and she later gave birth to his first son, Martín – one of the first Mestizos (people of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry) in New Spain.
La Malinche's reputation has shifted over the centuries, as various peoples evaluate her role against their own societies' changing social and political perspectives. Especially after the Mexican War of Independence, which led to Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, dramas, novels and paintings portrayed her as an evil or scheming temptress. In Mexico today, La Malinche remains a powerful icon - understood in various and often conflicting aspects as the embodiment of treachery, the quintessential victim, or the symbolic mother of the new Mexican people. (Wikipedia)
________________________________________________
La Malinche - 1941 - Oil Paint on Canvas
by Jesus Helguera (Mexican, 1910-1971)
Calendars popularized romantic images of Mexico's history and people. Jesus Helguera, the most well-know calendar artist, created numerous paintings celebrating Indigenous subjects. Helguera's fair-skinned Malinche resembles representations of Indigenous women in Mexican films of the period, portrayed by mestizo actresses such as Dolores del Rio and Maria Felix. Like this painted Malinche, their clothing - huipul (tunic) and sandals - and their braided hair symbolized the character's indigeneity.
La Malinche Art Exhibit - Denver Art Museum
La Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, became known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521), by acting as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. She was one of 20 enslaved women given to the Spaniards in 1519 by the natives of Tabasco. Cortés chose her as a consort, and she later gave birth to his first son, Martín – one of the first Mestizos (people of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry) in New Spain.
La Malinche's reputation has shifted over the centuries, as various peoples evaluate her role against their own societies' changing social and political perspectives. Especially after the Mexican War of Independence, which led to Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, dramas, novels and paintings portrayed her as an evil or scheming temptress. In Mexico today, La Malinche remains a powerful icon - understood in various and often conflicting aspects as the embodiment of treachery, the quintessential victim, or the symbolic mother of the new Mexican people. (Wikipedia)
________________________________________________
La Malinche - 1941 - Oil Paint on Canvas
by Jesus Helguera (Mexican, 1910-1971)
Calendars popularized romantic images of Mexico's history and people. Jesus Helguera, the most well-know calendar artist, created numerous paintings celebrating Indigenous subjects. Helguera's fair-skinned Malinche resembles representations of Indigenous women in Mexican films of the period, portrayed by mestizo actresses such as Dolores del Rio and Maria Felix. Like this painted Malinche, their clothing - huipul (tunic) and sandals - and their braided hair symbolized the character's indigeneity.