Las antorchas
Date: 1948
Medium: Linocut
Dimensions (cm.): 30.5 x 41.6
Published edition:
Portfolio Río Escondido: edition of 150 signed impressions, 50 in deluxe edition on Corsican Forros paper, 100 in regular edition on Parsons Diploma Parchment paper.Impressions from the edition are signed in graphite, lower right, and annotated 9 in graphite, lower left.
Unknown number of impressions outside the edition.
Contemporary publication: Titles in film, Río Escondido
References: Academia de Artes 1849; Exposición de Homenaje 649 (illus.), Méndez INBA 121, Prignitz 721
Commentary: Las Antorchas (The Torches), from Río Escondido, comes from near the end of the film, when the campesinos finally take up arms against the brutal cacique and his men. The print is based on a night scene In the film, with a long shot of the campesinos, who carry torches as they meet at the intersection of two dirt streets,. Méndez’s print is a close-up view from a side angle, with a dramatic view of one of the townspeople in the foreground. As in Méndez’s La venganza de los pueblos, the image recalls the 1903 Peasant Revolt by Käthe Kollwitz, which also depicts an armed uprising. Méndez used the same sweeping diagonal movement of bodies and upraised arms to indicate the determination of the campesinos in resistance to their powerful oppressors. Méndez borrowed the form of a religious procession, a ubiquitous sight in Mexico even today, here converted to the drama of political awakening. (Deborah Caplow)
Catalogue record number: 114