Rufino Tamayo - Style

Style

Tamayo developed a method which criticizes more the painting rather than just the subject itself. By doing so, he is looking at the painting as a whole and not just the subject. As Tamayo explained this method to Paul Westheim, “As the number of colours we use decreases, the wealth of possibilities increases”. Tamayo was more focused on using single colors rather than using many colors because he believed using fewer colors in a painting gave the art piece a lot more meaning. An example painting that shows Tamayo’s unique color choices is seen in the painting Tres personajes cantando (Three singers), 1981. In this painting, Tamayo uses a lot of pure colors such as, red, purple, etc. The usages of these colors are very strong which defended his belief that the less colors one uses in a painting the more meaning that that painting can have. With that being said, Octavio Paz, author of the book Rufino Tamayo, argues that, “Time and again we have been told that Tamayo is a great colourist; but it should be added that this richness of colour is the result of sobriety”. By being pure, or as Paz explained, sober with his color choice, it gave Tamayo the richness in his paintings.

"If I could express with a single word what it is that distinguishes Tamayo from other painters, I would say without a moment's hesitation: Sun. For the sun is in all his pictures, whether we see it or not." - Nobel Prize-winning poet Octavio Paz

Read more about this topic:  Rufino Tamayo

Famous quotes containing the word style:

    Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech.
    Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)

    A man is free to go up as high as he can reach up to; but I, with all my style and pep, can’t get a man my equal because a girl is always judged by her mother.
    Anzia Yezierska (c. 1881–1970)

    To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one’s own style and creatively adjust this to one’s author.
    Paul Goodman (1911–1972)