Now That I've Walked Uphill to Get Here, Let's Go in La Capilla Del Hombre

Let's sit a spell and enjoy us some of that modern art.
This is the artist Guayasamín's Piata, patterned after the more famous Piata of Avignon.

Time for the day's main event: Touring La Capilla Del Hombre.

This is the museum housing the main collection of Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamín.

I like statues that look like stone totems.

This one has a name.

"Dandelion."

This one may have a name, but with no nearby placard, it's name shall remain a mystery.

And here is that same un-named work being desecrated by that most vile of species, Turista Americana.
 

Some people have no respect.

And speaking of no respect, let's go inside.

Guayasamín's work definitely has a dark quality.

This one looks like souls tormented in hell. But it's in a ceiling dome, which ordinarily would connote the heavenly. But it's black with pale white figures.

Heaven? Hell? You decide.

This one I liked. It has green in it.

Yes. I am that superficial in what art I choose to like.

Let's go down to the basement. And we find, in the stairwell, "El Guitarrista."

The name for that one was easy to remember.  And, once down in the basement, we see:

"Mujer Pajaro." She looks kind of Aztec, although the head is probably condor and not eagle. You can tell she's a lady because ... well, I don't really want to go into detail, but it's kind of obvious.

And then there was this one:

I call this one: "The Philadelphia Eagle Visits Guernica."

It kind of looks like a giant Philadelphia Eagle attacking a bull from Picasso's Guernica painting. In fact, a lot of Guayasamín's art has a Guernica feel to it. It's as if he looked at Picasso's masterpiece from the Spanish Civil War and said (to himself) (or maybe out loud, who knows): "I can do that. And I can make it even darker and more disturbing and more unsettling."

This one is not dark, however.

This one might be:

Who knows?

And here I am, enjoying the nice view of Quito from La Capilla Del Hombre.

On the walk back (yes, it was uphill, too) (I told you all walks in Quito were straight uphill, both ways), I visited Plaza Argentina, featuring some lovely distinctly non-modern statuary.

Way up high on the horse, in classic style, is Jose de San Martin.

San Martin is known as "El Libertador de Argentina." Shorthand: He was the Simon Bolivar of Argentina.

This is ... well, I don't know what this is ...

It must have something to do with Argentina, as this is as a plaza featuring things Argentine.

And here is a man, an Argentine man, who must have been a scholar, since his statuary involves lots of books.

And, with that, I am back in my hotel room. Enjoying the view when the sun came back out after the afternoon thunder.

Slow day in Quito for me. Lots of things were closed for the Monday and my legs had not fully recovered. So a slow day was a good day.