Matthew Medlin
Freshmen
Seminar
Dr.
Eric Smith
Jose Guadalupe Posada
Jose Guadalupe Posada was born on
February 2nd, 1852 in Aguascalientes Mexico. He didn’t receive a
high level of education, but he did get an elementary education from his
brother Jose Cirilo who was a teacher for an elementary school. His main
inspiration was Latin American Artist, he also focused on satirist as most of
his artwork had a political root. Jose did a lot of artwork that consisting of
skeletons and skulls, by doing that he is showing the symbolism that everyone
is the same on the inside.
His first job as a teenager was
political cartoonist for his local newspaper El Jicote “The
Bumblebee”. The paper later
closed after 11 different problems arose the major one that put the nail in the
coffin being when Posada mocked the large political figure in the town. After
the business was shutdown Posada moved for obvious reasons to Leon, Guanajuato.
There he started another business with one of the worker from his last job as a
cartoonist, the co-worker taught him how to screen print and eventually turn it
into a commercial illustration shop. After Posada moved to Leon he got married
on September 20, 1875 to Maria de Jesús Vela. The shop where he worked with his
former associate did very well until a massive flood hit in 1888 when it was
lost and Posada moved to Mexico City where he worked with La Patria Ilustrada. Later he then Joined a publishing firm that
was owned by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo. While working there he made several well
know book covers and other printings. Posada was basically forgotten in the
later years of his life and wasn’t given credit for his work until after his
death in 1913. He gained most of his fame when the French artist Jean Charlot
brought his printings into the light in the 1920’s. After that Posada’s
printings became very popular and still is to this day for his political
cartoons and printings to this day.
Most of
his artworks consisted of using skeletons in his cartoons to symbolize that we
are all human and when it comes down to it that we are all made of the same
things. But that the way we are brought up and the culture that we are submerge
in changes us and what we become and how we act. With his uses of skeletons and
skulls in almost all of his artworks they became used a lot in the Mexican Day of the Dead. His works are used all
throughout the celebrations and festivals. One of his most used artworks being La Calavera Catrina which depicts the
skeleton of an upper-class woman. It is a piece of satire which says to me that
no matter how much money you have or how rich you are we are all going to die. And
after death we are all on the same level as we all turn into bones and dust in
the ground, death levels the field for all people no matter where you came from
or what power you held. I think that Posada gain this inspiration from being
raised in a poorer family and growing up to be surrounded by people with
political power and money to depict the way others live their lives. His
artwork is still very much relevant to today’s time and age as people still
suffer from people with political power dictating who they must live their
lives and controlling their means of income. In my point of view I see that
Posada bases his work on a never-ending problem that has always been there ever
since the history of man and government. One person or one group of people in
the world somewhere gain too much power and can’t handle it and let it take
over. But once death grabs them they are just they are just the same as the
people they controlled and death doesn’t care who it takes.
Caistor, N. (2016, November, 1). Jose Guadalupe Posada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Guadalupe_Posada
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