El triunfo de la muerte
Germán Venegas
The Triumph of Death
Venegas’s early work combines his knowledge of woodcarving with his training as a painter. El triunfo de la muerte is the most ambitious and renowned relief painting of his early period. Here, Venegas made use of an enormous dead ahuehuete trunk to carve figures representing divine and earthly battles, suffering, and diaspora, as well as the barbaric celebration of skeletons and the dead.
The backdrop to these compositions consists of sections assailed by fire and an authentically apocalyptic landscape of hazy, colorful masses. The expressive imaginativeness of his scenes, not to mention his technical audacity, makes this piece a remarkable example of 1980s neo-expressionism.
GERMÁN VENEGAS (1959)
El triunfo de la muerte, 1988
The Triumph of Death
Four-piece polyptych. Oil, wood carving, and mixed media on canvas
Acquisition, 2005
