Rufino Tamayo - Carnival

Rufino Tamayo - Carnival

(Phillips Collection)

I met with this painting one year ago. I was thinking at the color significance in Almodovar's movies, and at his empathy for the theatrical universe, for masks, for buffoons, for travesties of all sort.

Here, at Tamayo, it is other kind of red, and other kind of mood. The characters belong to the world where Tamayo came fron, folks from Oaxaca, carrying their Zapotec descent like a spell.

For the movies of Almodovar other characters would fit: the majestic and enigmatic heroes attributed to the brush of Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain. That painting is also in Washington, at the National Gallery of Art.

(Phillips Collection)