Untitled
1942
tempera
From the collection of Museum of Modern Art
Untitled is a 1942 tempera by Diógenes Paredes, depicting basketry, held at Museum of Modern Art.
You see two farm workers bent over, cutting grain with sickles in a sunlit field. Paredes painted this in 1942, when Ecuador was still mostly rural. The tempera—pigment mixed with egg yolk—lets him build up tiny brushstrokes that look like straw and sweat. The faces are blurred, so the focus stays on the work itself. Look up more tempera paintings in The Museum of Modern Art.
