- Title
- The Call of Instinct (La llamada del instinto)
- Date Made
- 1942
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 27 9/16 × 35 7/16 in. (70 × 90 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2019.175.1
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
This enigmatic painting embodies Raúl Anguiano’s interest in the uncanny, a characteristic associated with surrealist and metaphysical works. A group of women sit in a circle, wrapped in rebozos (shawls) and looking up at a towering, disembodied head of a horse, as a man passes by, oblivious to the ominous spectacle. The strange horse has been variously interpreted as a carnival prop, a fantastic apparition, and a symbol of sexual instinct (referring to the painting’s title). The dramatic perspective of the village street is reminiscent of the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978), while the careening horse head recalls Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937).
Nineteen-year-old Anguiano relocated from his hometown of Guadalajara to Mexico City in 1934 to pursue his artistic career. Over the next two decades, he came into increasing prominence as his work was included in important traveling exhibitions that promoted Mexican art in the United States such as Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1940) and Mexican Art Today (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1943). It was also during this productive period that Anguiano experimented with surrealist tendencies. The Call of Instinct is a major work of this pivotal moment in the artist’s career.
Rachel Kaplan
2024
