Landscape, Milpa Alta
Jean Charlot
American, born France. 1898–1979
1924
An oil-on-canvas scene in which Jean Charlot reduces a Milpa Alta field and its inhabitants to bold, rhythmic shapes to evoke the dignity and mystery of rural Mexican life.
You’re struck by the monumental, dark agave-like forms jutting from the foreground like sculpted crescents against a low, shadowy horizon, while a small, curled figure and a distant house make the world feel both spare and intimate.
Painted in 1924, the work fuses European modernist simplification with Mexican folk subjects, helping to shape a modern art that foregrounded local identity and everyday labor.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
11 x 14" (27.9 x 35.6 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (by exchange)
Accession
217.1937
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
