Over the past two centuries, Mexican culture has kept up a unique
dialogue with the fact of death, rather than defying it as most
contemporary cultures are wont to do. Today, Mexico even boasts a Museum
of Death (in Aguascalientes), filled with pre-Columbian sculpture and
pottery, reproductions of ancient Indian codices depicting human
sacrifices, colonial-era artworks, skeletons, artisan's toys and works
by the countless Modern artists who have treated the theme. It is, of
course, in Mexico's arts that the blend of respect and irreverence for
death and the afterlife is made most clear. Here, Mercurio Lopez
Casillas, expert on nineteenth-century Mexican graphic art and the
author of studies of Jose Guadalupe Posada and Manuel Manilla, surveys
the subject from pre-Hispanic times to the comic pages of contemporary
Mexican newspapers. Lopez Casillas examines the long tradition of
representing death and skeleton figures that leads up to Posada, and
traces the influence of this great popular engraver in the work of many
other twentieth-century artists, including those of the Taller de
Grafica Popular workshop, like Leopoldo Mendez. Readers of this richly
illustrated book will also be fascinated by early colonial examples of
calaveras, or skeleton caricatures. "Images of Death" is a colorful and
lively deterrent against our habitual inclination to take the Grim
Reaper too seriously. For enthusiasts of Mexican folk art, underground
comics, tattoo art, the occult and more.