The Triumph of Death

The Triumph of Death is a monumental tour de force of the woodcut technique, executed with impressive attention to detail. Rodriguez’s dynamic composition is based on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting of the same name (ca. 1562, Museo del Prado), which depicts an army of skeletons descending on a besieged landscape and torturing its human inhabitants; kings and peasants alike fall at Death’s hands. Rodriguez includes such contemporary elements as bellowing industrial smokestacks and an atomic mushroom cloud; figures clothed in cowboy boots, sports jerseys, a sombrero, and a KISS t-shirt; and various other objects of modern life, including a pickup truck, barrel of oil, soccer ball, milk cartons, and an ATM. While images of skeletons and death pervade Mexican visual art, as exemplified by the satirical calaveras of José Guadalupe Posada, Rodriguez’s citation of Bruegel is a reminder that images of death are prevalent in Western art as well.