Arcadópolis
At the Fair
Saturnino Herrán, 1916
What you see
The young woman leans on one arm, head tilted and smiling slightly, her eyes on the viewer. Her dark hair is decked with a large pink flower, and she wears a coral blouse trimmed with black lace, wrapped in a rebozo striped brown and white. Her other hand drops to the right, the flower between her fingers. Behind her, a town climbs a hill.
The corals and reds of the blouse and flowers stand out against greens and ochres. The edges seem unfinished, with loose reddish strokes that leave the ground showing. Look for the rings on both hands, the orange bangles at her wrist and her gold earring.
About Saturnino Herrán
Saturnino Herrán was born in Aguascalientes in 1887 and trained at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City, studying drawing with the Catalan painter Antonio Fabrés and colour with Germán Gedovius. He turned scenes of everyday Mexican life into symbolic images of identity, and his painting “The Offering” (1913) is a classic example of Mexican modernism. He died in 1918, aged only 31, while working on “Our Gods”, a triptych commissioned for the Palace of Fine Arts, and his work became a model for the muralists of the following decades.
More by Saturnino Herrán
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