The word Inti refers to the Andean sun god, who protected the Inca empire and was thought to be the ancestor of the Inca rulers. The typical presentation of this deity was surrounded by the rays of the sun, which Torres-García has abstracted with enough shading to make the lozenge with the name and its rays take on a three-dimensional quality that extend towards the viewer. This image directly harkens the  sun god represented in the center of the Tiwanaku Puerta del Sol (the Gate of the Sun), situated at the shore of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. Also included is a mask which may have been influenced by both Wari and Moche geometric masks, textiles and designs.

Torres-García’s deep fascination in Pre-Columbian architecture is visible here in the architectonic structure of Inti. The Incan fortress of Sacsayhuamán, with its precision-cut massive stones and geometric portals, is referenced at upper right. Indeed, there is an astonishing resemblance between the city-plan grid of Sacsayhuamán, arranged around a large central courtyard with radiating lines, and the composition of Inti. It is not clear how Torres-García would have known this plan—perhaps via an archaeological map or early aerial photograph. In the painting, the Pre-Columbian lintel is humanized by equating it with a human head and shoulders. This is Torres-García’s “Abstract Man (Hombre abstracto),” a motif that runs throughout his oeuvre, beginning in 1929 with a series of paintings and later on wooden sculptures.