Mystère de la nuit

Rufino Tamayo studied at the public Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City 1917–21. He spent many years in New York and Paris.Tamayo rejected the politically motivated monumental art of the fresco painters who dominated the art scene in his home countrysince the Mexican Revolution. Easel painting became Tamayo’s medium of choice. He mixed European styles such as cubism and surrealism with themes that often involved Mexican culture and folk art. He is celebrated for his intense, vibrating colours. His compositions are figurative, and geometry plays an important role.

The palette in Mysteries of the Night is sparing, but a closer look reveals that the artist has used several shades of blue, grey, black, red, brown, and ochre. Tamayo has refashioned the surface by scraping it, virtually digging down to underlying colours.

The picture is dominated by two humanoid figures, one light and one dark. Between the pair we see the slender, white crescent of the moon. A few lines suggest that the figures are placed in a room. Perhaps they are standing next to a window and gazing at the moon. The lines form geometric shapes – triangles. The two figures are so abstract that it is hard to determine their gender, though the dark figure to the right wears a circle on its torso.

The moon serves as a motif in Tamayo’s work, which is often inspired by his Zapotec roots. Forthe Zapotecs and other Mexican Indians, the sun and the moon were essential both as gods and as mystical elements. In modern psychology, the moon is often a symbol of pregnancy and birth.