A lively and vibrantly colored painting dense with figures that take up the entire canvas. These include a wizard-like man with a long white beard in a black top hat, spectacles, and a bright-blue robe adorned with celestial imagery. Robed revelers pass behind him on white horses, and he is flanked by two figures: to the left, a medium-skinned woman in a yellow dress holds a cone-shaped telescope aloft and peers into it with one eye, while at left, a light-skinned child wearing a cone-shaped party hat holds a horn-shaped noisemaker to their mouth.

El Mago/Pim Pam Pum (The Magician/Pim Pam Pum)

1926

Maruja Mallo Spanish, 1902-1995

Spain

Maruja Mallo blended depictions of spectacle with social critique in this painting, which was inspired by open-air celebrations, or verbenas, in Madrid. As she explained, these "cosmic festivals" began to shift in the 1920s from religious holidays to secular public celebrations. Here Mallo depicted the popular street-festival game Pim Pam Pum, in which participants toss balls at mannequin-like puppets on horseback. The artist modeled the titular magician wearing bright blue robes on Spanish poet and playwright Ramón del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936). Del Valle-Inclán's concept of esperpento—a literary genre known for distorted and exaggerated representations of reality—aligns with Mallo's vision in this lively and disorienting scene.

Oil on panel

Modern Art