Carlos Mérida
Carlos Mérida (Guatemalan artist, 1891-1984)
Mérida was half Indian which gave him a closer relationship with the indigenous people of Latin America. He had great interest in music but he suffered from hearing problem; hence, he switched to study art. In Mérida’s early works most objects presented were related to the indigenous people. There were several pieces such as “Structural Study for Mural, 1921” which he used the concept of cubism and worked very detailed with their clothing to present the indigenous culture. It was the time of the rise of exploring the identity of Latin America. However, Mérida made a controversial about Saturnino Herrán right after the death of this famous Mexican artist. Mérida commented that Herrán was not creating Latin American art and was still considered western art. This criticism later backfired on him. Yet, this also led to the development of his fallowing works to reveal a very different style.
Mérida began to study Maya glyphs. He was attracted by their geometry in a confined space and with a message in its figure. Because of the criticism he received, he went back to the Maya empire to search for elements. That was the time that contained the purest Latin American culture. His work “Estampas de Popol Vuh, 1943” was one of the representative work inspired by Maya script (emblem glyphs). It was not academic nor western. In addition, there was no cubism compare with his early works. Instead, it was more toward surrealism. There was no background and no defined shapes. Then Mérida went into creating arts that were composed of universal geometry. He added the grids but shifted them in his paintings. Grid lines is considered as a part of the pre-Columbian culture. In addition, the colors were mostly earth tone and no space in the background. In Mérida’s art, he was recreating the ancient time into modern art as a symbol of the uniqueness of Latin America.
Mayan Glyphs was a writing system in Maya empire. There are hundreds unique signs in this system and each of them stands as a word which has specific meaning. The link below is a explanation of how Mayan Glyphs work:
"Writing Maya Glyphs"
http://www.jaguarstones.com/maya/glyphs.html