“Because of the end of the world everyone will certainly now become calaveras; farewell to all the living, this is for real” - detail from a broadside showing skeletons in pandemonium because of cataclysmic natural events around them. The text, a calavera in verse (epitaph), predicts an apocalypse as the year 1899 ends (1899)
Featured on PDR in the collection The Calaveras of José Guadalupe Posada
José Guadalupe Posada (1851–1913) was a Mexican illustrator known for his satirical and politically acute calaveras. Deriving from the Spanish word for 'skulls', these calaveras were illustrations featuring skeletons which would, after Posada's death, become closely associated with the mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. Most of these calaveras were published by the press of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo which produced inexpensive literature for the lower classes, including thousands of satirical broadsides which Posada illustrated. Through this focus on mortality Vanegas Arroyo and Posada satirised many poignant issues of the day, in particular the details of bourgeois life and the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. On January 20th 1913, 3 years after the start of the Mexican Revolution, José Guadalupe Posada died…
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“Because of the End of the World Everyone Will Certainly Now Become Calaveras; Farewell to All the Living, This is for Real”
Artist
Date
1899
Digital Rights
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