The End of the Vulture El Fin del Zopilote

Date

1944

Creator

El Fin del Zopilote is one of forty prints based on Yucatán folk songs that Méndez created to illustrate the 1944 book the Incidentes melódicos del mundo irracional. Written by Juan de la Cabada, the Incidentes melódicos recounts the mythical story of a snail woman, Doña Caracol, who is kidnapped by an evil vulture, El Zopilote. El Zopilote holds her captive until his true nature is revealed and he meets his fate: he is hung by a rebelling crowd. This image narrates the death of El Zopilote and the liberation of Doña Caracol. El Zopilote hangs lifelessly from the branch of a bare, twisted tree, while the snail woman’s saviors rejoice and dance in the glow of several bonfires. Méndez’s contribution to this book, marked by pre-Columbian imagery and a fantastic, otherworldly quality, may seem exceptional in his usually political and socially-minded oeuvre. However, he never lost sight of his Aztec and Mayan ancestry, using symbols from this fertile cultural tradition increasingly over the course of his career, especially after 1947. And even these folk images served his political message: El Zopilote has been seen to represent the oppressors of the Mexican people and leftist thought—capitalism, imperialism, and fascism. from Costa, Para la Gente: Art, Politics and Cultural Identity of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (Notre Dame, 2009)