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Jose Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) worked most of his life in Mexico City. His engravings were innovative in that previous skeleton figures were usually just bare bones. Posada's figures,
however, were attired in traditional Mexican clothing. He personalized them: for example, he portrayed Madero with a serape, a tall sombrero, and a bottle of Parras aguardiente.
He
did not limit himself to skeletons only, but did engravings of national events, miracles and saints; he illustrated songbooks, parlor games, plays, cook books and children's stories. But his best known work is
"la calavera catrina" (the skeleton of a fashionable lady). Originally it was simply the image of a high society woman, but was later published by the artist to parody lower-class women who ape their
social superiors, maids who dress up in their mistress' cast off finery.
Either way, it points out, as much modern calavera folk art does, that we are all alike under the skin, bound for the same fate-- pretense
is useless.
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Day of the Dead, p 5 Some of the origins of Day of the Dead
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