Day of the Dead Masks, Latin American Art

Human Skull is Symbol of Dia de los Muertos, Colorful Fall Festival

Sep 19, 2009

Human skull masks symbolize the Hispanic festival called the Day of the Dead held on November 1 and 2. Special mask designs are works of art based on Posada's La Catrina.

Mexico and other Latin American cultures of Mesoamerica, including communities in the United States, observe the Day of the Dead Festival, or Dia de los Muertos, that occurs every year on November 1st and 2nd .

Day of the Dead is an ancient rite to honor deceased relatives, rooted in Aztec culture thousands of years before the arrival of Christian Spaniards in the New World. After that time, like many rituals, the festival merged with Catholic observances.

Day of the Dead Festival Activities

People make an altar in their homes on which they place candles, flowers, food, and photos of their deceased loved ones. They visit their dead relatives’ gravesites in cemeteries. They leave a trail of marigolds between the cemetery and the house so the loved ones can find their way home to the party and back to their graves when Dia de los Muertos ends.

Feasts are made and set out with flowers and candles in honor of the dead. Dancing, parades and music add color, sound and celebration to the festival. The ceremony of the Day of the Dead embraces death as an extension of life, a celebration.

Celebration of departed ancestors provides a continuity of life down through the family’s generations, to regenerate the spirit of the living with the spirit of death. November 1st is for children departed; November 2nd for adults.

Food, flowers, candles, dancing, masks, and music are attributes of the celebration as outward manifestations of the human spirit’s connections with the metaphysical.

Day of the Dead Masks -- Latin American Art and Cutural Symbols

Because the Day of the Dead celebration honors the dead, the human skull is a central symbol of the festival. Masks (calacas) can be made out of various materials. Many small ones are traditionally done in sugar.

The Day of the Dead art masks made for wearing in the festival ceremonies are usually done in wood or papier mache. They are colorfully decorated and people wear them to dance in honor of their dead relatives.

Day of the Dead art masks are also placed on altars set up in remembrance of the dead during the festival.

La Catrina Day of the Dead Masks

Mexican artist and satirist, José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913), created a famous drawing of a skull wearing a fancy woman’s hat. He named it ,or "her," La Calavera de la Catrina, or skull of a “female dandy,” as a satire on the Mexican upper class.

The rich were less likely to succumb to the diseases and malnutrition that ravaged the poor, but they were ultimately no more immune from death than anyone else. Such was Posada’s point with his drawing. Posada's decorated skull in the drawing is known as La Catrina.

Posada’s powerful, yet humorous, image of the skeletal rich woman, a dead woman who could not buy immortality, became the inspiration for a genre of masks and figures that have become an integral part of the Day of the Dead festival's ceremonies.

These La Catrina style masks are a definitive contribution to Mesoamerican art linked to the Day of the Dead traditions. These skull masks are painted and decorated in rich colors and detail, adorned with feathers, ribbons, jewels, sequins, crystals, and other such embellishments. Each is an original, much prized work of art. Flowers nearly always are included in the design.

Some masks have the eye sockets of the skull filled in, usually with flowers or crystals. Others leave them open. This decision may depend in part on whether the mask is intended to be actually worn or is solely to be a decoration for the Day of the Dead altar or wall art hanging.

Day of the Dead art skull masks, particularly the La Catrina style masks, entail artistic talent and workmanship. Each mask is endowed with special meaning and ceremonial purpose as a link between two spiritual worlds, plus intrinsic value as a work of Mesoamerican art.

The copyright of the article Day of the Dead Masks, Latin American Art in Folk Art is owned by Linda Ashar. Permission to republish Day of the Dead Masks, Latin American Art in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.