David Alfaro Siqueiros

(Camargo, Chihuahua, 1896 – Cuernavaca, Morelos, 1974)

Paisaje I (Landscape I)

n.d.

pyroxylin on Masonite

85 x 120 cm

Inv. no. CCB063

BBVA Collection Mexico



In “Three Appeals...”, his manifesto published in 1921 in Vida-Americana, Siqueiros defended a constructive “vitality” and proposed the need to conceive “large primary shapes—cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders, pyramids—which would be the skeleton of all architectural plasticity.” Those are the—not static but moving—volumes we see behind each mark, each intent of colour, as if it were the true backdrop of the brushwork of his “skeleton.”

This piece depicts a landscape that impresses us with the quasi-monumental force of its execution. An attentive look suffices to realize that it contains elements that transcend the very limits of landscape painting. Alfaro Siqueiros perceives himself as a “visionary” of painting rather than a mere painter per se: as someone who sees beyond the surface and the present moment. This landscape is not just indebted to the vision that modern aviation provides of nature, it also communicates a certain futuristic air, somewhat fantastic or unreal, perhaps even ominous. This mountain does not exist in any part of the world; it is entirely a figment of the artist’s imagination, inspired by his socialist ideas, which are also those of a humankind still to come, that would eventually conquer the kingdom of reason. Here we are facing a “humanised” mountain, broken down into layers boldly reminiscent of levels of social organisation and productive excellence that are still unknown to us today. The utopian nature of the painting is beyond doubt.

We know that Siqueiros admired the “cosmogonical, panoramic sense” he found in some of the landscapes of the painter Dr. Atl (1875-1964). Besides this reference, illustrative of the temperature of his own landscapes, one could also add the visual notions he gleaned from his arduous research. For Siqueiros a mountain is, in short, a conical shape. What impresses us in this unique painting is the combination of the whole geometric form with the artist’s utopian vision, focussed, on the other hand, on a dynamism that had already been practiced by Futurism.