Chichicastenango

Description

High up in the mountains above Antigua Guatemala is a small city where Mayan traditions and Catholic rituals merge to produce a culture devoted to the absence of time or progress, where faith is rooted in the past.

The once glorious church interiors with large gold alters are now blackened from a century of smoke wafting upward from devotional candles. The markets by contrast are a riot of color, odor, commerce and character. The variety of produce is overwhelming in both amount and selection.

The lady in the painting is a vegetable monger about to complete a sale. Take special note of the woman further back in the painting. She is pregnant with a fairly large child being carried on her back. Thus is the life

This is a very small painting, 8″ x 10″.