Cintli, Corn, Maíz

This acrylic on canvas painting has a large image of a corn cob, with multicolored grains of corn still on the cob, whose leaves transform into the long tail feathers of a quetzal bird. This work expresses the centrality of corn to many Indigenous and mestizo Latin American cultures today. It also shows a metaphorical connection between plants and animals of the Americas, in the form of the quetzal bird, native to the forests of Central America (the national bird of Guatemala, for example). The corn cob is placed high on the canvas, looming over the viewer like the body of Christ. Its bright colors may seem surrealistic, but many native species of corn in the Americas include multicolored kernels on an ear, including purple, blue, red, and other colors. While corn was a crucial food for peoples of the Americas, the continent on which it was domesticated as a foodstuff, the feathers of quetzal birds were important metaphorically and for their use in ornament and important objects in the ancient and colonial Latin American worlds (Walters’ acc. nos. 61.104 and 61.120 both use hummingbird feathers as a backdrop to small gilded boxwood frames with Catholic themes).

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Jessy DeSantis, 2020, by creation; Walters Art Museum, 2023, by purchase.