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Calavera
A calavera (Spanish language, Spanish – for "skull") is a representation of a human skull. The term is most often applied to edible or decorative skulls made (usually by hand) from either sugar (called Alfeñiques) or clay, used in the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead ( es, Día de Muertos) and the Roman Catholic holiday All Souls' Day. ''Calavera'' can also refer to any artistic representations of skulls, such as the lithographs of José Guadalupe Posada. The most widely known ''calaveras'' are created with cane sugar and are decorated with items such as colored foil, icing, beads, and feathers. They range in multiple colors. Traditional methods for producing ''calaveras'' have been in use since the 1630s. The skulls are created either for children or as offerings to be placed on altars known as ''ofrendas'' ("offerings") for ''Día de Muertos'', which has roots in the Aztec, Mayan people, Mayan, and Toltec cultural celebration of the "Day of the Dead". The traditi ...
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Calavera
A calavera (Spanish language, Spanish – for "skull") is a representation of a human skull. The term is most often applied to edible or decorative skulls made (usually by hand) from either sugar (called Alfeñiques) or clay, used in the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead ( es, Día de Muertos) and the Roman Catholic holiday All Souls' Day. ''Calavera'' can also refer to any artistic representations of skulls, such as the lithographs of José Guadalupe Posada. The most widely known ''calaveras'' are created with cane sugar and are decorated with items such as colored foil, icing, beads, and feathers. They range in multiple colors. Traditional methods for producing ''calaveras'' have been in use since the 1630s. The skulls are created either for children or as offerings to be placed on altars known as ''ofrendas'' ("offerings") for ''Día de Muertos'', which has roots in the Aztec, Mayan people, Mayan, and Toltec cultural celebration of the "Day of the Dead". The traditi ...
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Literary Calavera
The Literary Calavera or ''calavera literaria'' (Spanish: ''literary skull'') is a traditional Mexican literary form: a satirical or light-hearted writing in verse, often composed for the Day of the Dead. History Initially known as panteones, these verses had their origin in the 19th century as mocking epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ... and a way of expressing ideas or feelings that in other occasions might be difficult to express. For this reason they were often censored or destroyed, since they also often served as a means to express political satire. The first calaveras were published in 1879, in the newspaper ''El Socialista'', of Guadalajara. Features *They are irreverent verses, written as epitaphs, portraying people as if they were dead. *They ...
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Dia De Los Muertos
The Day of the Dead ( es, Día de Muertos or ''Día de los Muertos'') is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. It is widely observed in Mexico, where it largely developed, and is also observed in other places, especially by people of Mexican heritage. Although related to the simultaneous Christian remembrances for Hallowtide, it has a much less solemn tone and is portrayed as a holiday of joyful celebration rather than mourning. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pay respects and to remember friends and family members who have died. These celebrations can take a humorous tone, as celebrants remember funny events and anecdotes about the departed. Traditions connected with the holiday include honoring the deceased using calaveras and marigold flowers known as ''cempazúchitl'', building home altars called ''ofrendas'' with the favorite foo ...
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Day Of The Dead
The Day of the Dead ( es, Día de Muertos or ''Día de los Muertos'') is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. It is widely observed in Mexico, where it largely developed, and is also observed in other places, especially by people of Mexican heritage. Although related to the simultaneous Christian remembrances for Hallowtide, it has a much less solemn tone and is portrayed as a holiday of joyful celebration rather than mourning. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pay respects and to remember friends and family members who have died. These celebrations can take a humorous tone, as celebrants remember funny events and anecdotes about the departed. Traditions connected with the holiday include honoring the deceased using calaveras and marigold flowers known as ''cempazúchitl'', building home altars called '' ofrendas'' with the favorite fo ...
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José Guadalupe Posada
José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar (2 February 1852 – 20 January 1913) was a Mexican political lithographer who used relief printing to produce popular illustrations. His work has influenced numerous Latin American artists and cartoonists because of its satirical acuteness and social engagement. He used skulls, calaveras, and bones to convey political and cultural critiques. Among his most enduring works is ''La Calavera Catrina''. Early life and education Posada was born in Aguascalientes on 2 February 1852. His father was Germán Posada Serna and his mother Petra Aguilar Portillo. Posada was one of eight children and received his early education from his older brother Cirilo, a country school teacher. Posada's brother taught him reading, writing and drawing. He then joined ''La Academia Municipal de Dibujo de Aguascalientes'' (the ''Municipal Drawing Academy of Aguascalientes''). Later, in 1868, as a teenager he apprenticed in the workshop of Jose Trinidad Pedroza, who taugh ...
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La Calavera Catrina
''La Calavera Catrina ''("Dapper Skull") or ''Catrina'' ''La Calavera Garbancera'' ("Elegant Skull") is a 1910–1913 zinc etching by the Mexican printmaker, cartoon illustrator and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada. Originally a satirization of an upper class woman of the Porfiriato, the character of ''La Catrina'' has become an icon of the Mexican Day of the Dead (Spanish: ). Cultural importance The original leaflet was named "La Calavera Garbancera" by Posada, describing a person who was ashamed of their Native origins and dressed imitating the French style while wearing lots of makeup to make their skin look whiter. While the original work by Posada introduced the character, the popularity of La Calavera, as well as her name, is derived from a work by artist Diego Rivera in his 1947 completed mural '' Sueño de una Tarde Dominical en la Alameda Central'' ("Dream of a Sunday afternoon along Central Alameda"). Rivera's mural was painted between the years 1946 and 194 ...
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Folk Art
Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art are typically trained within a popular tradition, rather than in the fine art tradition of the culture. There is often overlap, or contested ground with naive art, 'naive art'. "Folk art" is not used in regard to traditional societies where ethnographic art continue to be made. The types of objects covered by the term "folk art" vary. The art form is categorised as "divergent... of cultural production ... comprehended by its usage in Europe, where the term originated, and in the United States, where it developed for the most part along very different lines." For a European perspective, Edward Lucie-Smith described it as "Unsophisticated art, both fine and applied, which is supposedly rooted in the collective awareness of simple people. ...
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Ofrenda
An ''ofrenda'' (Spanish: " offering") is the offering placed in a home altar during the annual and traditionally Mexican ''Día de los Muertos'' celebration. An ''ofrenda'', which may be quite large and elaborate, is usually created by the family members of a person who has died and is intended to welcome the deceased to the altar setting. __TOC__ Background This display coincides with the Día de Muertos, which is a tradition some believe originated with the Aztecs, though others dispute this. The Aztec culture considered souls to continuously live and enter different realms when a body would die. This view the Aztecs held was commingled with the Christian beliefs that the soul is eternal (whether it be in heaven, purgatory, or hell) during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire when the two cultures were merged. The ofrenda is presented in one's home in order to commemorate the souls of loved ones in the family. Components of the offering A common format for an ''of ...
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Manuel Calavera
''Grim Fandango'' is a 1998 adventure game directed by Tim Schafer and developed and published by LucasArts for Microsoft Windows. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on Rendering (computer graphics), pre-rendered static backgrounds. As with other LucasArts adventure games, the player must converse with characters and examine, collect, and use objects to solve puzzles. ''Grim Fandango'' is set in the Land of the Dead, through which recently departed souls, represented as ''calaca''-like figures, travel before they reach their final destination. The story follows travel agent Manuel "Manny" Calavera as he attempts to save new arrival Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, a virtuous soul, on her journey. The game combines elements of the Aztec religion#Cosmology and ritual, Aztec afterlife with ''film noir'' style, with influences including ''The Maltese Falcon (1941 film), The Maltese Falcon'', ''On the Waterfront'' and ''Casablanca (film), Casabla ...
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Santa Muerte
''Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte'' (; Spanish for Our Lady of Holy Death), often shortened to Santa Muerte, is a cult image, female deity, and folk saint in folk Catholicism and Religion in Mexico, Mexican Modern Paganism, Neopaganism. A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees. Despite condemnation by leaders of the Catholic Church, and more recently Evangelicalism, evangelical movements, her Cult (religious practice), following has become increasingly prominent since the turn of the 21st century. Originally appearing as a male figure, Santa Muerte now generally appears as a skeletal female figure, clad in a long robe and holding one or more objects, usually a scythe and a globe. Her robe can be of any color, as more specific images of the figure vary widely from devotee to devotee and according to the rite being performed or the petition being made. The following of Santa Muerte began in Mexico ...
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Alfeñique
Alfeñique is a type of confection or sweet originating in Spain molded into a long or twisted shape made of cane sugar together with other ingredients. This sweet has been used in Hispanic America in folkloric events since colonial times. The alfeñique was a typical sweet of Islamic Spain, known as "Al-Fanid", which was warm and wet and used to treat coughs. In the Kingdom of Granada, it was made of sugar, water, honey and almond oil, stretched to created a viscous paste. Alfeñique figures, especially calaveras (known in the US as Sugar Skulls), are widely created in Mexico for the Day of the Dead celebrations in November. Alfeñiques in Mexico Today, the main production center for alfeñique figures are Toluca, San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato. Today, the paste is used to form hundreds of types of shapes which include rabbits, lions, ducks, doves, cows, bulls, donkeys, pigs, frogs, horses, deer, angels, skulls and coffins. The art form has taken on more elaborate scul ...
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All Souls' Day
All Souls' Day, also called ''The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed'', is a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed, observed by certain Christian denominations on 2 November. Through prayer, intercessions, alms and visits to cemeteries, people commemorate the poor souls in purgatory and gain them indulgences. In Western Christianity, including the Roman Catholicism and certain parts of Lutheranism and Anglicanism, All Souls' Day is the third day of Allhallowtide, after All Saints' Day (1 November) and All Hallows' Eve (October 31). Before the standardization of Western Christian observance on 2 November by St. Odilo of Cluny in the 10th century, many Catholic congregations celebrated All Souls Day on various dates during the Easter season as it is still observed in some Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Catholic and Eastern Lutheran churches. Churches of the East Syriac Rite ( Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Chu ...
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