In Wifredo Lam’s painting Rumblings of the Earth (1950), nothing and no one appears human. Eyes, breasts, and mouths intermingle with horns, hooves, blades, and arrows. Hybrid figures rise from deep within the earth. They are the color of soil and ore, crystals and minerals, and the darkest subterranean depths.
Our planet is not presented here as a paradise or nurturer: it is churning and furious, marked by centuries of slavery, extraction, and colonization. Lam’s figures are both mythic and historical, evoking arcane rites of initiation and sacrifice while simultaneously reflecting the tumult of the modern age that made them.