9/29: Quito: Homage to Ecuador's Greatest Artist, Guayasamin

Before leaving Quito in the afternoon, we wanted to visit one last place, La Capilla del Hombre or the Chapel of Man, one of the most important works of art in South America and devoted to the Ecuadorean painter, Oswaldo Guayasamín. We took an Uber for the 30 minute ride to the far northern suburb of Bellavista where the Chapel and the painter's home and museum were located for less than $4 compared to $5 for a 10 minute taxi ride yesterday. I was sold on Uber as long as we didn’t have to wait a long time for the driver to come and also there wasn’t a huge range in the fare which happened other times!

We arrived shortly before the complex opened so I just walked over to a nearby hill and saw these horses. We were really in the sticks outside of downtown Quito!

The security guard kindly agreed to watch over our duffel bags as we were taking the bus later to another town two hours away directly after visiting La Capilla del Hombre and his home. This great Ecuadorean master paid homage to human beings in all their facets and emotions through his art. 

Born in Quito of Quechua and Mestizo descent, Guayasamin grew up in a relatively poor family, but managed to attend the School of Fine Arts in Quito, where he studied painting and sculpture. He was one of few artists to enjoy fame during his career; after graduating top in his class, Guayasamín hosted a major display of his works, which was by chance viewed by Nelson Rockefeller, who purchased five of the paintings and arranged for Guayasamín to show his works in the United States. 

The secular ‘chapel’ was not devoted not to religion but to humanity itself and featured many of his later works in addition to an archaeological outdoor area. The Capilla was the brainchild of Guayasamin who created many of the exhibits specifically for the building. Sadly, he died three years before the museum was completed in 2002.

Upon entering the massive monument-cum museum, we were met by Monica, the museum guide, who took us and an Australian couple around. She explained that Guayasamin divided his artistic career into three distinct stages: The Path of Tears, The Age of Wrath and The Age of Tenderness. The tour began with a video of Guayasamin on the subject of grandeur and suffering of human beings, on history and ancestry and on how to live in the present and hope for the future. 

Monica stated millions of indigenous people were killed in the past 150 years in Ecuador and that 50 million ‘negroes’ were torn away from Africa. Guayasamin believed that negro and indigenous enslavement and mestizo cruelty still existed at the time of his death and were as bad as Spanish cruelty had been to the indigenous people of South America.

Our eyes were immediately drawn to the copper-domed ceiling and the compelling murals there. Monica informed us they were called In Search of Light and Liberty and represented the major silver mining area of Potosi, Bolivia, a future stop on our itinerary. The paintings represented the conditions of the past but Monica explained they haven’t changed as many miners start working at only eight years of age.

The outstretched arms indicated people wanting to get out and get freedom. Guayasamin drew hundreds of sketches and finally painted them in twelve panels, with historical scenes starting at the Spanish conquest, on to the colonial period and finally modern times. 

Guayasamin painted the panels in his studio toward the end of his life as he was going blind. It was evident the painting was unfinished when he died because of a number of empty faces. Though unfinished, there was no doubt as to the message. It portrayed the life of the miners, their wives and children, some of whom allegedly never saw the light of day as they were kept in captivity from birth to death, inside the sprawling mines.

These nine paintings represented blacks, whites, men and women and mestizos, i.e. all human groups on the continent. The red symbolized solidarity and love in the family. There were no shoes in Guayasamin’s paintings as people were all the same when stripped bare.

In yet another very moving painting, Guayasamin depicted the complete destruction of the village of Lidice by the Germans in the former Czechoslovakia during WWII. In it, the eyes and teeth represented the devastation of victims through the fragmented faces. What a talent he had to express so eloquently the emotions and feelings of victims.

Monica described this painting as a combination of awakening of the woman through her hands and face.

‘The Devastation’ painting captured the bombing of Hanoi through the use of only grays, blacks and whites. The first panel showed a woman covering her face from the bombs. The second  represented the protests against the war and the catching of ashes. The third panel symbolized hope for a better future. Guayasamin used black paint to show the emptiness and death; gray paint represented the ashes.

The Museum was located in one of the highest places in the city so it had stupendous views overlooking the city until the new buildings were constructed five years ago and blocked much of the view. Two hundred paintings were done to show the relationship between the city and his paintings. His core belief was that ‘art encompasses life; it’s a way to love and painting is a sort of cry.' He hoped to express through his paintings the hope ‘may there be peace in this world.’

One of his paintings of Quito depicted one of the volcanoes surrounding the city in flames. 

As we walked to a lower level, we learned that initially Guayasamin was a jewelry designer. The earring sculpture demonstrated another facet of his talent as a designer, painter and sculptor.

One of the most unusual paintings we have been lucky enough to see anywhere was one related to the Spanish Civil War. The massive mural was composed of six movable pieces which could be interchanged in any combination and allowed for more than one million  combinations! This amazing work took Guayasamin eight years to create. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take a photo of it.

In his painting of The Crucifixion, viewers couldn’t ignore the castration that took place as we 'walked through the painting.'

In the middle of the lower level of the Chapel was the Eternal Flame for Human Rights and Peace, lit during the inaugural ceremonies on November 29, 2002. The flame was an initiative of UNESCO but it also referred to  a well-known statement from Guayasamin “Keep this light on, because I shall certainly come back.” 

Monica stated the Condor and Bull painting symbolized the pre-Hispanic cultures and fertility in the Inca and Mayan cultures. 

The magnificent Inca chair was the largest I think we’ve ever seen. The woman was surrounded by mythological elements as demonstrated by the snakes and other animals. A rainbow symbolized the diversity of cultures in the Andes.

I imagine some of you have also heard the following statement that made me appreciate anew all that we have: 'I cry because I have no shoes but then I find a child who has no feet.’ I don't know if it was attributed to Guayasamin or someone else.

Next were his works from his age of wrath phase. Monica indicated that twenty years of his life were spent in his paintings on anger against enslavement of people. However, we learned later this period lasted from 1961 through 1990.

These paintings demonstrated the vulnerability of three girls, each in tears, from three continents: from the US, Asia and Africa.

In his Rivers of Love painting, Guayasamin told about the victims of dictatorships in the 70s and 80s in South America through the use of skeletons, broken bones and bullets which expressed the only life people knew during those repressive regimes. The red paint he used was symbolic of those people who disappeared, i.e. who were murdered.

Monica described the next painting as being about the 40-year dictatorship of Nicaragua by Anastasio Somosa. In it, Guayasamin paid homage to the people and their suffering. Hands were always important images in his art because hands have their own life; hands can love, fight, eat, etc. 

Monica had helped immensely with the interpretation of Guayasamin's very emotional paintings. If it hadn't been for her knowledge of his art and philosophy, we would have had so little understanding of the artist and his profoundly moving works.

After the tour ended, we walked up the ramp to Guayasamin’s home where there was another tour! There a guide explained that Guayasamin collected 800 colonial paintings and upwards of 300 paintings of pre-Columbian art as well as lots of furniture and sculptures. The artist wanted to give his entire collection to the people of Ecuador and his family agreed to honor his wishes after he died because there were none of his paintings exhibited anywhere in the country.

He lived in the home he had designed for 20 years. The guide explained that Guayasamin received many guests in the formal living room as he used it to organize cultural events. In it was a large piano that everyone on the tour was encouraged to play but there were no takers! The guide pointed out the difference between two sculptures: one had wooden eyes which indicated it had been made in the 17th century while the other, with glass eyes from the 18th century. The shiny, realistic-looking painted skin on the second one had come from a lamb’s bladder of all things!

Guayasamin wasn’t a religious person but he collected religious art made by indigenous people.

Guayasamin’s early years as a painter showed cubist influences from Picasso.

This room contained his favorite belongings including a guitar as he had studied music at the Conservatory of Music in Quito for many years.

Guayasamin’s art collection included an extensive display of erotic art from Peru and Mexico visible on the left wall below.

The guide explained the artist’s wealth came from selling his paintings and painting private works and murals throughout the world. He often exchanged his works with other artists’ works of art. Two of these pieces were done by Picasso and Chagall.

I think this Trip Advisor’s reviewer’s comments were spot on and thus worth repeating here: “Viewed in his beautiful luxury mansion filled with rare and expensive art works he collected as well as in the humongous chapel of man that he built to glorify his own work, however, one has to question what kind of socialist artist he was! On one of the walls in his home hung pictures of him with world leaders. He was clearly a man who worshiped power and fame and who profited from the poor he depicted. The museum admission of $8 could feed a family for a week! The people whom he painted would never be able to afford to see his work in his fancy residence.”

This was the gallery of photos of the rich and powerful people Guayasamin met on his travels or who visited him here. The photos included the artist with Mao, Mia Farrow, King Juan Carlos of Spain, Castro, Salvador Allende from Chile, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and so many others. 

In his studio, Guayasamin painted his last works for the Chapel of Man. He worked in the studio in the morning and early afternoon as otherwise the studio had very little natural light. 

Seeing his studio space, just as he left it prior to his death, conveyed even more about the man, his inspirations and his work. 

We watched an interesting video where we watched Guayasamin paint the Spanish flamenco guitarist, Paco de Lucia. The guide indicated it took the artist anywhere from just twenty minutes to three hours to paint portraits. 

His paintings have been sold to private collections and cultural institutions, the guide said, and not to museums. All the funding for the upkeep of his home and the Chapel of Man comes from entrance fees, items purchased at the gift shop and from a private foundation. I was surprised to learn that no money was provided by the Ecuadorian or Quito governments to support their native son.

The museum and home only receive about 100 visitors a day during the low season – i. e. when we were there – compared to double that in the high season. We were lucky that we almost had a private tour of both the Chapel and his home as there was only a couple from Australia with us for the 2.5 hours.

Guayasamin’s paintings in his ‘Age of Tenderness’ phase were dedicated to his mother and to women throughout the world as his mother was one of his best supporters. She was responsible for sending him to school to study art as she believed in his gifts as an artist. 

The phase, which lasted from 1986 until 1999, was the period when he used so much more color in his paintings. I wondered whether his ongoing vision problems were a factor in his also using more colors during that time of his life. He particularly used blue, red, yellow and orange during that period.

During the Path of Tears period from about 1946-1952, Guayasamin generally used shades of brown and yellow in his paintings compared to mostly black, grey and white during the Anger phase.

Toward the end of his life, Guayasamin used marble dust and acrylic as that was when had more money to buy the expensive supplies.

The tour concluded with our walking through the back yard and the lovely gardens. Note the view of the Chapel of Man in the middle below.

Guayasamin chose to be buried under the tree beside a close male friend. He had married and divorced three times, our guide informed us.

The house was a fabulous piece of contemporary architecture and the ancient geometric designs in so many of its furnishings highlighted the artist's South American roots.  

The tour of the Guayasamin complex was unquestionably the highlight of our visit to Quito. It was a marvel for anyone like us interested in history, architecture and art. I could see how Guayasamin is now generally regarded as one of the greatest Latin American artists and is recognized globally as a top artist of the 20th century. We are not normally ‘into’ this type of modern and abstract art but Guayasamin's  conviction and motivation behind the subjects of his work were interesting, admirable and amazing.

After 2.5 hours, even we had had enough of being ‘culture vultures’ so we took a waiting taxi to the bus station located in the far north of the city. That price was $8 compared to just $5.40 for both of us on a two-hour bus ride to our next stop, the town of Otavalo, which also included a Disney movie on board! The taxi driver said he’d be glad to drive us directly to Otavalo for $50 and we could stop at certain viewpoints along the way but we said no thanks!

Next post: An introduction to the market town of Otavalo, Ecuador.

Posted at long last on October 17th from Lima, Peru, because of very poor internet in The Galapagos, Ecuador!