Analysis Of Hilados Del Norte II By Lola Alvarez Bravo

Photography is an art form with several layers of complexity. The camera can be used as a tool to create fine art, document historical events, promote political and social agendas, or to symbolically represent beliefs and attitudes. As demonstrated by her piece Hilados del Norte II, Lola Alvarez Bravo was a photographer with the remarkable ability to simultaneously incorporate several of these photographic functions in order to create rich multifaceted compositions. Emerging as a prominent photographer in Mexico during the early 1940s, Bravo lived to observe and photographically document this era of profound economic and social change in Mexico. Although historically a largely agriculturally based nation, Mexico’s involvement in World War

In fact, one particularly significant aspect of Bravo’s Hilados del Norte II is its direct and subtle references to prominent murals painted by well-known Mexican artists. To be specific, the bare chested man who is the focal point of the montage is positioned in a pose very similar to the bare chested woman depicted in David Siqueiros’s mural New Democracy. The body of literature that discusses Siqueiros’s mural proposes that the woman symbolizes Mexico’s victory over oppression and exploitation as she is bursting the chains that once bound her hands together (Cole, 1506). By making this connection to Siqueiros’s work, Bravo implies that industrialization has become Mexico’s new democracy as it empowers the common working class people and allows them to overcome many of nature’s previous limitations. The idealized body of the man in Bravo’s montage is supplemented by his orientation that seems to add a three-dimensional perspective to represent mankind’s dignified emergence into this new and powerful industrial

The way in which both Diego and Bravo utilize line to continually draw the viewer’s attention back to the men who are the focal points of their respective works emphasizes man’s central role in relation to the surrounding subject matter. In the case of Hilados del Norte II, Bravo's deliberate arrangement of the images within the photomontage suggests that all of the impressive technological advancements of Mexico’s industrial revolution are purely attributable to man. Thus, Bravo’s humanist perspective of Mexican industry becomes apparent as all of the other workers depicted within the montage are wielding impressive power tools to further emphasize man’s ultimate level of control over technology and to express the sense of empowerment for the working class that arises from such dominion. These particular elements of Hilados del Norte II stress the immense value of people and their supremacy to make the piece a celebration of man instead of merely a memorial for industrial