La Calavera Catrina: Who She Is: An Opinion

This opinion was inspired by travel writer Hannah Cooper, who asked some great questions about La Calavera Catrina hannah@matadornetwork.com matadornetwork.com La Catrina is often presented to visitors as an ancient Mexican symbol. How should we distinguish between Posada’s early-20th-century creation and the older Mesoamerican traditions and imagery of calaveras that are sometimes associated with her? La Calavera Catrina is a modern satirical image and symbol reminding us that no matter how much money we might have or our station in life, that it is vanity to believe that with all these worldly things, that we are somehow immune to death. The phrase memento mori comes to mind, which to some offers a call reminding us to live fully and perhaps that we should live with respect and kindness for each other, after all, we all die. Given the moralizing tendency of Posada’s main publisher, Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, that may have been the main message of the calavera images that he published. Simply, La Calavera Catrina poked fun at the folly of the human condition tendency to put on airs. Today a calavera Elon Musk might be depicted as a calavera driving a Tesla into a recycling center or maybe a calavera Jeff Besos might be making deliveries from an Amazon delivery truck. Regarding the traditions of Mexico’s Aztecs, some try to make the connection or comparison of Catrina with Mictēcacihuātl who was the consort or wife of Mictlantecuhtli who ruled over Mictlan which is where the dead go once they leave the living. It has nine levels and I could go on about Mesoamerican traditions but the connection for me is limited in the sense that both the Aztecs and Posada use calavera images. The modern use carries mor of a satirical message Posada’s images whereas the Aztec use involves more religious traditions of the Aztec belief system. Maybe there is some help in this article: https://www.posada-art-foundation.com/posada-s-day-of-the-dead La Catrina appeared in broadsides alongside other calaveras. How would contemporary readers have understood Posada's original use of the image? I think contemporary understanding would have seen Posada’s images as funny and/or with a biting satire. When Posada’s contemporaries saw this image, what would they have understood La Catrina to represent? Is that meaning substantially different from what La Catrina represents to Mexicans and visitors today? The appearance of La Calavera Catrina originally could be looked at as just another calavera among dozens of others. She was a satirical look the middle class, upper class or anyone putting on airs. As the Vanegas Arroyo descendants continued to use the images Posada created, the calavera images were employed to illustrate a variety of stories. Posada’s work debuted in a publication in 1930. That is the first use of the term catrina (the female equivalent of a catrin or a dandy). Some say Diego Rivera used the term and he was involved in the 1930 publication so maybe it is true. As I mention in the online article Catrina went by other names (for example, La Cucaracha and Garbancera). Posada had his first exhibition in Mexico City at the Bellas Artes in 1943, it moved to Chicago in 1944. Since then Posada’s work has been shown in countless places but it wasn’t until Diego Rivera added a full body to La Calavera Catrina and put her next to Posada in his 1947 mural “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Central Park” that things began to change for La Calavera Catrina. Rivera added Aztec elements to his version of La Calavera Catrina. Around her shoulders is a feather boa but it has a rattleon one end and the head of a snake on the other, it is clearly meant to represent the Mesoamerican deity of Quetzalcoatl (the feathered serpent). It’s a rattlesnake which is known to cause death from its bite. Next look at fangs and blood in the mouth of La Calavera Catrina. This depiction, more than anything connected her to the realm of the dead. https://inba.gob.mx/recinto/46/museo-mural-diego-rivera So where does this leave us? Well, times change and people in Mexico found that things with La Catrina sold to tourists. Halloween influences, movies like Coco, the Book of Life, Frida and James Bond in Spectre all play roles. Then there are the dress up like Catrina, parties, contests and parades. How do people see her now versus then? It was more simple then.