The Temptations of Saint Anthony

In 1940, on the fringes of the International Surrealist Exhibition that was held that year in Mexico City, Diego Rivera exhibited two works that he had painted in 1939. A few years later, in 1947, the Guanajuato-born artist painted The Temptations of Saint Anthony - a work whose title alludes to the Egyptian hermit, born in the year 251, who sought sanctity while being assailed with impure apparitions sent by the devil- in the Surrealist manner. While the humanized tubers in this painting are probably linked to the medieval legends surrounding the mandrake root - a human shaped, supposedly aphrodisiac, plant which was purported to emit shrieks that drove hearers insane or killed them- there can be no doubt that they also refer to the festival held each December in the State of Oaxaca, where competitors fashion radishes into sculptures. It is worth mentioning that, in 1946, Rivera had painted The Night of the Radishes, a watercolor painting in which he depicted the aforesaid vegetable —in a composition that was identical, in all but a few details, to the one discussed here- as a horned personification of the devil, sitting astride a phallic shape and holding a trident. Saint Anthony's likeness can be seen lying in the lower right-hand comer of this work -whose forms, coloring and contrastive lighting combine to produce a teeming, fantasy-filled microcosmic world- with his arms raised to fend off the seductive, highly erotic figures that are threatening him. This work entered the MUNAL in 1982, as part of the latter's founding endowment.