The Execution of Túpac Amaru

A pioneer of non-objective art in Peru, Fernando de Szyszlo approaches Pre-Columbian history and Peruvian culture with a language of lyrical abstraction. The Execution of Túpac Amaru refers to the last indigenous Incan monarch who was publicly beheaded by the viceregal government; he was falsely accused of the murder of a group of Catholic priests. For Szyszlo, Túpac Amaru represents the struggle for Peruvian independence from Spanish colonial rule. Rather than literally illustrate the moment of the Incan leader’s death, Szyszlo alludes to the tragic event through his expressive use of color. The somber black that dominates the composition and the accents of vibrant pink, red, and yellow suggest violence and death. The circular disk, a recurrent motif in Szyszlo’s art, symbolizes a sun, a reference to the self-identification of the Incas as “Children of the Sun.” As king, Túpac Amaru would have functioned as the extension of the sovereignty of the Sun-God on earth; thus the dark orb represents his death. The black disk also derives from a literary source: the 16th-century Quechua text Apu Inka Atahuallpaman, an elegy to Atahualpa, another of the final leaders of the Inca Empire, which describes “a sun that turns yellow then darkens.” The bifurcation of the painting’s circular form may again allude to violence, or to a horizon line, while the bright colors and dotted patterns relate to Andean textiles.