I am rather fond of the Mexican muralist school myself, and of that lot Rivera is IMHO the best and most technically able. Kahlo I am of two minds about. Some of her work is very moving and original - particularly when she draws on the Mexican tradition of the ex voto. She looks like a Surrealist, but she isn't, really. But much of her painting is technically inept, sloppy and self-indulgent. That's not as obvious in small reproductions on the internet, but when you see the works in the original it kind of jumps out at you. I'm afraid I'm a serious traditionalist re: art and demand a certain level of technical skill in all but the true folk artist (vide Howard Finster, our local visionary folk artist, whom God reward.)
My daughter just wrote a paper for her Spanish class about Rivera, and when I got into the closed stacks at my old school (on my alumni card) to get her some source material, I naturally couldn't resist reading it all myself. :-D I'm really convinced that Rivera and Kahlo were supreme egoists, each in their own way, and that's why their Red leanings don't really disturb me. Communism was just another playtoy and sop to each one's view of the universe with him or herself as the Hub. (Great (or self-promoted "great") artists must make uncomfortable neighbors. Reminds me of something my grandmother once said about people you couldn't possibly ask to dinner! :-D )
Chookter, I figured it was something like that - analogous to incense I suppose. I still find it surprising the way folks outside the voudon tradition throw this entity's name around in a casual way (you notice I don't use it myself.) While as a great Irish writer once said, "the shadow of the Crucifix is between me and them," I guess I've been around too many Haitians to take it lightly.