![Luis Coto - The Collegiate Church of Guadalupe - Google Art Project](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Luis_Coto_-_The_Collegiate_Church_of_Guadalupe_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
Various types of
visual arts
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...
developed in the geographical area now known as Mexico. The development of these arts roughly follows the
history of Mexico
The written history of Mexico spans more than three millennia. First populated more than 13,000 years ago, central and southern Mexico (termed Mesoamerica) saw the rise and fall of complex indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous civilizations ...
, divided into the prehispanic
Mesoamerican
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Withi ...
era, the
colonial period, with the period after
Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia de México, links=no, 16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from Spain. It was not a single, co ...
, the development Mexican national identity through art in the nineteenth century, and the florescence of modern Mexican art after the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
(1910-1920).
Mesoamerican art is that produced in an area that encompasses much of what is now central and southern Mexico, before the
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...
for a period of about 3,000 years from Mexican Art can be bright and colourful this is called encopended. During this time, all influences on art production were indigenous, with art heavily tied to religion and the ruling class. There was little to no real distinction among art, architecture, and writing. The Spanish conquest led to 300 years of Spanish colonial rule, and art production remained tied to religion—most art was associated with the construction and decoration of churches, but secular art expanded in the eighteenth century, particularly
casta
() is a term which means "lineage" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier. In the context of the Spanish America, Spanish Empire in the Americas it also refers to a now-discredited 20th-centu ...
paintings, portraiture, and history painting. Almost all art produced was in the European tradition, with late colonial-era artists trained at the
Academy of San Carlos
The Academy of San Carlos ( es, Academia de San Carlos) is located at 22 Academia Street in just northeast of the main plaza of Mexico City. It was the first major art academy and the first art museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1781 as th ...
, but indigenous elements remained, beginning a continuous balancing act between European and indigenous traditions.
After Independence, art remained heavily European in style, but indigenous themes appeared in major works as liberal Mexico sought to distinguish itself from its Spanish colonial past. This preference for indigenous elements continued into the first half of the 20th century, with the
Social Realism or Mexican muralist movement led by artists such as
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
,
David Alfaro Siqueiros
David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...
,
José Clemente Orozco
José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Sique ...
, and
Fernando Leal, who were commissioned by the post-
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
government to create a visual narrative of Mexican history and culture.
The strength of this artistic movement was such that it affected newly invented technologies, such as still photography and cinema, and strongly promoted popular arts and crafts as part of Mexico's identity. Since the 1950s, Mexican art has broken away from the muralist style and has been more globalized, integrating elements from Asia, with Mexican artists and filmmakers having an effect on the global stage.
Pre-Columbian art
![Bonampak-7269](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Bonampak-7269.JPG)
It is believed that the American continent's oldest rock art, 7500 years old, is found in a cave on the peninsula of Baja California.
The pre-Hispanic art of Mexico belongs to a cultural region known as
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...
, which roughly corresponds to central Mexico on into
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
,
[Rosas Volume 1, p. 4.] encompassing three thousand years from 1500 BCE to 1500 CE generally divided into three eras: Pre Classic, Classic and Post Classic.
[Rosas Volume 1, p. 11.] The first dominant Mesoamerican culture was that of the
Olmec
The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that t ...
s, which peaked around 1200 BCE. The Olmecs originated much of what is associated with Mesoamerica, such as
hieroglyphic writing,
calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...
, first advances in astronomy, monumental sculpture (
Olmec heads) and
jade
Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group of ...
work.
[Paz, 1987 p. 38.]
They were a forerunner of later cultures such as
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...
, north of Mexico City, the
Zapotecs in Oaxaca and the
Mayas
The Maya peoples () are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical reg ...
in southern Mexico,
Belize
Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...
and
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
. While empires rose and fell, the basic cultural underpinnings of the Mesoamerica stayed the same until the
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...
.
These included cities centered on plazas, temples usually built on pyramid bases,
Mesoamerican ball court
A Mesoamerican ballcourt ( nah, tlachtli) is a large masonry structure of a type used in Mesoamerica for over 2,700 years to play the Mesoamerican ballgame, particularly the hip-ball version of the ballgame. More than 1,300 ballcourts have been i ...
s and a mostly common cosmology.
![Tlatilco culture figurines](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Tlatilco_culture_figurines.jpg)
While art forms such as cave paintings and rock etchings date from earlier, the known history of Mexican art begins with Mesoamerican art created by sedentary cultures that built cities, and often, dominions.
While the art of Mesoamerica is more varied and extends over more time than anywhere else in the Americas, artistic styles show a number of similarities.
[Rosas Volume 1, p. 9.]
Unlike modern Western art, almost all Mesoamerican art was created to serve religious or political needs, rather than art for art's sake. It is strongly based on nature, the surrounding political reality and the gods.
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and ...
states that "Mesoamerican art is a logic of forms, lines, and volumes that is as the same time a cosmology." He goes on to state that this focus on space and time is highly distinct from European naturalism based on the representation of the human body. Even simple designs such as
stepped frets on buildings fall into this representation of space and time, life and the gods.
[Paz, 1987 p. 41.]
![AztecSerpent](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/AztecSerpent.JPG)
Art was expressed on a variety of mediums such as ceramics,
amate
Amate ( es, amate from nah, āmatl ) is a type of bark paper that has been manufactured in Mexico since the precontact times. It was used primarily to create codices.
Amate paper was extensively produced and used for both communication, record ...
paper and architecture.
Most of what is known of Mesoamerican art comes from works that cover stone buildings and pottery, mostly paintings and reliefs.
Ceramics date from the early the Mesoamerican period. They probably began as cooking and storage vessels but then were adapted to ritual and decorative uses. Ceramics were decorated by shaping, scratching, painting and different firing methods.
[Rosas Volume 1, p. 12.]
The earliest known purely artistic production were small ceramic figures that appeared in
Tehuacán "By faith and hope"
,
, image_map =
, mapsize = 300 px
, map_caption = Location of Tehuacán within the state of Puebla.
, image_map1 = Puebla en México.svg
, mapsize1 = 300 px
, ma ...
area around 1,500 BCE and spread to
Veracruz
Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...
, the
Valley of Mexico
The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico wa ...
,
Guerrero
Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acapulcocopied from article, GuerreroAs of 2020, Guerrero the pop ...
,
Oaxaca
Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...
,
Chiapas
Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...
and the Pacific coast of Guatemala.
The earliest of these are mostly female figures, probably associated with fertility rites because of their often oversized hips and thighs, as well as a number with babies in arms or nursing. When male figures appear they are most often soldiers.
[Rosas Volume 2, pp. 5–6.] The production of these ceramic figures, which would later include animals and other forms, remained an important art form for 2000 years. In the early Olmec period most were small but large-scale ceramic sculptures were produced as large as 55 cm.
[Rosas Volume 2, p. 2.][Rosas Volume 2, p. 6.]
After the middle pre-Classic, ceramic sculpture declined in the center of Mexico except in the
Chupícuaro
Chupícuaro is an important prehispanic archeological site from the late preclassical or formative period. The culture that takes its
name from the site dates to 400 BC to 200 AD, or alternatively 500 BC to 300 AD., although some academics sug ...
region. In the Mayan areas, the art disappears in the late pre-Classic, to reappear in the Classic, mostly in the form of whistles and other musical instruments. In a few areas, such as parts of Veracruz, the creation of ceramic figures continued uninterrupted until the Spanish conquest, but as a handcraft, not a formal art.
[Rosas Volume 2, pp. 6-7.]
![Messico, maya, piatto da calakmul, 600-800 ca](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Messico%2C_maya%2C_piatto_da_calakmul%2C_600-800_ca..JPG)
Mesoamerican painting is found in various expressions—from murals, to the creation of
codices
The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
and the painting of ceramic objects. Evidence of painting goes back at least to 1800 BCE and continues uninterrupted in one form or another until the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.
[Rosas Volume 3, p. 2.] Although it may have occurred earlier, the earliest known cases of artistic painting of monumental buildings occur in the early Classic period with the Mayas at
Uaxactun
Uaxactun (pronounced ) is an ancient sacred place of the Maya civilization, located in the Petén Basin region of the Maya lowlands, in the present-day department of Petén, Guatemala. The site lies some north of the major center of Tikal. The ...
and
Tikal
Tikal () (''Tik’al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archeological sites and urban centers of the pre-Co ...
, and in
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...
with walls painted in various colors.
Paints were made from animal, vegetable and mineral pigments and bases.
[Rosas Volume 3, p. 4.] Most paintings focus one or more human figures, which may be realistic or stylized, masculine, feminine or asexual. They may be naked or richly attired, but the social status of each figure is indicated in some way. Scenes often depict war, sacrifice, the roles of the gods or the acts of nobles. However, some common scenes with common people have been found as well.
[Rosas Volume 3, p. 5.] Other subjects included gods, symbols and animals.
Mesoamerican painting was bi-dimensional with no efforts to create the illusion of depth. However, movement is often represented.
[Rosas Volume 3, p. 7.]
Non-ceramic sculpture in Mesoamerica began with the modification of animal bones, with the oldest known piece being an animal skull from
Tequixquiac
Tequixquiac is a municipality located in the Zumpango Region of the State of Mexico in Mexico. The municipality is located north of Mexico City within the valley that connects the Valley of Mexico with the Mezquital Valley. The name comes from N ...
that dates between 10,000 and 8,000 BCE.
Most Mesoamerican sculpture is of stone; while relief work on buildings is the most dominant, freestanding sculpture was done as well. Freestanding three-dimensional stone sculpture began with the Olmecs, with the most famous example being the
giant Olmec stone heads. This disappeared for the rest of the Mesoamerican period in favor of relief work until the late post-Classic with the
Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
s.
![CoyolxauhquiDisk cropped](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/CoyolxauhquiDisk_cropped.JPG)
The majority of stonework during the Mesoamerican period is associated with monumental architecture that, along with mural painting, was considered an integral part of architecture rather than separate.
[Rosas Volume 1, p. 15.] Monumental architecture began with the Olmecs in southern
Veracruz
Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...
and the coastal area of
Tabasco
Tabasco (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco), is one of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa.
It is located in ...
in places such as San Lorenzo; large temples on pyramid bases can still be seen in sites such as Montenegro,
Chiapa de Corzo and
La Venta
La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta", which is in nearby Villahermosa, ...
. This practice spread to the
Oaxaca
Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...
area and the
Valley of Mexico
The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico wa ...
, appearing in cities such as
Monte Albán
Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca (17.043° N, 96.767°W). The site is located on a low mountainous range rising above the plain in the ...
,
Cuicuilco
Cuicuilco is an important archaeological site located on the southern shore of Lake Texcoco in the southeastern Valley of Mexico, in what is today the borough of Tlalpan in Mexico City. Some historians believe this settlement goes back to 1400 B ...
and
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...
.
[Rosas Volume 1, p. 18.]
![Feather_headdress_Moctezuma_II](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Feather_headdress_Moctezuma_II.JPG)
These cities had a nucleus of one or more plazas, with temples, palaces and
Mesoamerican ball court
A Mesoamerican ballcourt ( nah, tlachtli) is a large masonry structure of a type used in Mesoamerica for over 2,700 years to play the Mesoamerican ballgame, particularly the hip-ball version of the ballgame. More than 1,300 ballcourts have been i ...
s. Alignment of these structures was based on the cardinal directions and astronomy for ceremonial purposes, such as focusing the sun's rays during the spring equinox on a sculpted or painted image. This was generally tied to calendar systems.
[Rosas Volume 1, pp. 20-23.] Relief sculpture and/or painting were created as the structures were built. By the latter pre-Classic, almost all monumental structures in Mesoamerica had extensive relief work. Some of the best examples of this are Monte Albán, Teotihuacan and
Tula
Tula may refer to:
Geography
Antarctica
*Tula Mountains
*Tula Point
India
*Tulā, a solar month in the traditional Indian calendar
Iran
* Tula, Iran, a village in Hormozgan Province
Italy
* Tula, Sardinia, municipality (''comune'') in the pr ...
.
[Rosas Volume 2, p. 5.]
Pre-Hispanic reliefs are general lineal in design and low, medium and high reliefs can be found. While this technique is often favored for narrative scenes elsewhere in the world, Mesoamerican reliefs tend to focus on a single figure. The only time reliefs are used in the narrative sense is when several relief steles are placed together. The best relief work is from the Mayas, especially from
Yaxchilan
Yaxchilan () is an ancient Maya city located on the bank of the Usumacinta River in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. In the Late Classic Period Yaxchilan was one of the most powerful Maya states along the course of the Usumacinta River, with Piedra ...
.
[Rosas Volume 2, p. 4.]
Writing and art were not distinct as they have been for European cultures. Writing was considered art and art was often covering in writing.
The reason for this is that both sought to record history and the culture's interpretation of reality. (salvatvolp14) Manuscripts were written on paper or other book-like materials then bundled into
codices
The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
.
[Boone 2000, p. 28.] The art of reading and writing was strictly designated to the highest priest classes, as this ability was a source of their power over society.
The
pictograms or glyphs of this writing system were more formal and rigid than images found on murals and other art forms as they were considered mostly symbolic, representing formulas related to astronomical events, genealogy and historic events.
Most surviving pre-Hispanic codices come from the late Mesoamerican period and early colonial period, as more of these escaped destruction over history. For this reason, more is known about the Aztec Empire than the Mayan cultures.
Important
Aztec codices
Aztec codices ( nah, Mēxihcatl āmoxtli , sing. ''codex'') are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the pre-Columbian Aztec, and their Nahuatl-speaking descendants during the colonial period in Mexico.
History
Before the start of the Sp ...
include the
Borgia Group
The Borgia Group is the scholarly designation of number of mostly pre-Columbian documents from central Mexico. In 1830–1831, they were first published in their entirety as colored lithographs of copies made by an Italian artist, Agustino Aglio, ...
of mainly religious works, some of which probably pre-date the conquest, the
Codex Borbonicus
The Codex Borbonicus is an Aztec codex written by Aztec priests shortly before or after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. It is named after the Palais Bourbon in France and kept at the Bibliothèque de l'Assemblée Nationale in Paris. The ...
,
Codex Mendoza
The Codex Mendoza is an Aztec codex, believed to have been created around the year 1541. It contains a history of both the Aztec rulers and their conquests as well as a description of the daily life of pre-conquest Aztec society. The codex is wri ...
, and the late
Florentine Codex
The ''Florentine Codex'' is a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún originally titled it: ''La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España'' (in English: ''The ...
, which is in a European style but executed by Mexican artists, probably drawing on earlier material that is now lost.
Important museum collections in Mexico include those of the
National Museum of Anthropology
The National Museum of Anthropology ( es, Museo Nacional de Antropología, MNA) is a national museum of Mexico. It is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. Located in the area between Paseo de la Reforma and Mahatma Gandhi Street withi ...
and the
Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli, both in
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
, as well as provincial museums.
Gallery
File:Olmec Head No. 1.jpg, Olmec Head No.1, 1200–900 BCE
File:WLA metmuseum Olmec Jadeite Mask 3.jpg, Olmec jadeite mask, 1000 to 600 BCE
File:Señor de las limas 2.jpg, Las Limas Monument 1
Las Limas Monument 1, also known as the Las Limas figure or the Señor de las Limas, is a greenstone figure of a youth holding a limp were-jaguar baby. Found in the State of Veracruz, Mexico, in the Olmec heartland, the statue is famous for its ...
, 1000 to 600 BCE
File:Chupicuaro statuette Louvre 70-1998-3-1.jpg, Chupicuaro statuette at the Louvre, 600 to 200 BCE
File:Jar p1070229.jpg, Jars from Casas Grandes
Casas Grandes (Spanish for ''Great Houses''; also known as Paquimé) is a prehistoric archaeological site in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Construction of the site is attributed to the Mogollon culture. Casas Grandes has been design ...
, 12th to 15th century
File:Teotihuacán - Tripod Vase - Walters 482769 - Profile.jpg, Tripod vessel from Teotihuacán, 250 to 600 AD
File:Tepantitla Mountain Stream mural Teotihuacan (Luis Tello).jpg, Detail of a mural in Tepantitla, Teotihuacán, 100 BCE to 700 AD
File:Pinturas prehispánicas.JPG, Mural in Portic A of Cacaxtla
Cacaxtla () is an archaeological site located near the southern border of the Mexican state of Tlaxcala. It was a sprawling palace containing vibrantly colored murals painted in unmistakable Maya style. The nearby site of Xochitecatl was a more ...
.
File:Labna 01.JPG, Sculpture of Chaac
Chaac (also spelled Chac or, in Classic Mayan, Chaahk ) is the name of the Maya god of rain, thunder, and lighting. With his lightning axe, Chaac strikes the clouds, causing them to produce thunder and rain. Chaac corresponds to Tlaloc among ...
, part of the facade of a building in Labna
Labna (or Labná in Spanish orthography) is a Mesoamerican archaeological site and ceremonial center of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, located in the Puuc Hills region of the Yucatán Peninsula. It is situated to the south of the large ...
, 600 to 900 AD
File:K'inich Janaab Pakal I.jpg, Stucco head of K'inich Janaab Pakal I (603-683 AD), ruler of Palenque.
File:Mascara Dios Murcielago.jpg, Zapotec mask of the bat God
File:Escudo De Yanhuitlán.jpg, Shield of Yanhuitlan
File:Codex Zouche-Nuttall, page 20.jpg, Detail from the Codex Zouche-Nuttall
The Codex Zouche-Nuttall or Codex Tonindeye is an accordion-folded pre-Columbian document of Mixtec pictography, now in the collections of the British Museum. It is one of about 16 manuscripts from Mexico that are entirely pre-Columbian in origin ...
, 14th to 15th century
File:Monolito de la Piedra del Sol.jpg, The Aztec Sun Stone, early 16th century, on display at the National Museum of Anthropology
The National Museum of Anthropology ( es, Museo Nacional de Antropología, MNA) is a national museum of Mexico. It is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. Located in the area between Paseo de la Reforma and Mahatma Gandhi Street withi ...
, Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
File:Chimalli Ahuizotl.jpg, Chīmalli (Shield) belonging to the Aztec king Ahuizotl
Ahuitzotl ( nah, āhuitzotl, ) was the eighth Aztec ruler, the '' Huey Tlatoani'' of the city of Tenochtitlan, son of princess Atotoztli II. His name literally means "Water Thorny" and was also applied to the otter. It is also theorized that mo ...
currently Museum of Ethnology of Vienna, Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
.
File:Shield Aztec or Mixtec (Chimalli).jpg, Ceremonial māhuizzoh Chīmalli (shield) with mosaic decoration. Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
or Mixtec
The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerrero. The Mixtec Culture wa ...
, AD 1400-1521. In the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
File:Mask (Mexico, State of Veracruz, 900-500 B.C.).JPG, ''Mask'', Mexico, State of Veracruz, 900-500 B.C. Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...
File:Tlaloc Vasija.jpg, Tlāloc
Tlaloc ( nci-IPA, Tlāloc, ˈtɬaːlok) is a deity in Aztec religion. The supreme god of the rain, Tlaloc is also a god of earthly fertility and of water. He was widely worshipped as a beneficent giver of life and sustenance, as well as feared f ...
effigy vessel; 1440–1469; painted earthenware; height: 35 cm (1 in.); (Mexico City). , dedicated to .
File:Mimbres Bowl with bighorn sheep and geometrical design 224 DMA 1990-215-FA.jpg, ''Mimbres Bowl with Bighorn Sheep and Geometrical Design,'' New Mexico, c. 1000-1150 A.D. Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...
Colonial era, 1521–1821
The early colonial era and criollo and indigenous artists and influences
![FacSFtztztz](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/FacSFtztztz.JPG)
Since the
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...
, Mexican art has been an ongoing and complex interaction between the traditions of Europe and native perspectives.
![CortesArrivalFranciscansOzumba](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/CortesArrivalFranciscansOzumba.JPG)
Church construction After the conquest, Spaniards' first efforts were directed at evangelization and the related task of building churches, which needed indigenous labor for basic construction, but they Nahuas elaborated stonework exteriors and decorated church interiors. Indigenous craftsmen were taught European motifs, designs and techniques, but very early work, called ''tequitqui'' (
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
for "vassal"), includes elements such as flattened faces and high-stiff relief.
[Rosas Volume 4, p. 34.] The Spanish friars directing construction were not trained architects or engineers. They relied on indigenous stonemasons and sculptors to build churches and other Christian structures, often in the same places as temples and shrines of the traditional religion. "Although some Indians complained about the burden such labor represented, most communities considered a large and impressive church to be a reflection of their town's importance and took justifiable pride in creating a sacred place for divine worship." The fact that so many colonial-era churches have survived centuries it testament to their general good construction.
The first monasteries built in and around Mexico City, such as the
monasteries on the slopes of Popocatepetl, had
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
,
Plateresque
Plateresque, meaning "in the manner of a silversmith" (''plata'' being silver in Spanish), was an artistic movement, especially architectural, developed in Spain and its territories, which appeared between the late Gothic and early Renaissance in ...
,
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
or
Moorish
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or se ...
elements, or some combination. They were relatively undecorated, with building efforts going more towards high walls and fortress features to ward off attacks.
[Rosas Volume 4, p. 17.] The construction of more elaborate churches with large quantities of religious artwork would define much of the artistic output of the colonial period. Most of the production was related to the teaching and reinforcement of Church doctrine, just as in Europe. Religious art set the rationale for Spanish domination over the indigenous. Today, colonial-era structures and other works exist all over the country, with a concentration in the central highlands around
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
.
[Rosas Volume 4, p. 3.]
Feather work was a highly valued skill of prehispanic central Mexico that continued into the early colonial era. Spaniards were fascinated by this form of art, and indigenous feather workers (''amanteca'') produced religious images in this medium, mainly small "paintings", as well as religious vestments.
Indigenous writings Indians continued production of written manuscripts in the early colonial era, especially
codices in the Nahua area of central Mexico. An important early manuscript that was commissioned for the Spanish crown was
Codex Mendoza
The Codex Mendoza is an Aztec codex, believed to have been created around the year 1541. It contains a history of both the Aztec rulers and their conquests as well as a description of the daily life of pre-conquest Aztec society. The codex is wri ...
, named after the first viceroy of Mexico, Don
Antonio de Mendoza
Antonio de Mendoza y Pacheco (, ; 1495 – 21 July 1552) was a Spanish colonial administrator who was the first Viceroy of New Spain, serving from 14 November 1535 to 25 November 1550, and the third Viceroy of Peru, from 23 September 1551, ...
, which shows the tribute delivered to the Aztec ruler from individual towns as well as descriptions of proper comportment for the common people. A far more elaborate project utilizing indigenous scribes illustration is the project resulting in the
Florentine Codex
The ''Florentine Codex'' is a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún originally titled it: ''La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España'' (in English: ''The ...
directed by Franciscan
Bernardino de Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún, OFM (; – 5 February 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he ...
. Other indigenous manuscripts in the colonial era include the
Huexotzinco Codex and Codex Osuna.
An important type of manuscript from the early period were pictorial and textual histories of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs from the indigenous viewpoint. The early
Lienzo de Tlaxcala
''History of Tlaxcala'' (Spanish: ''Historia de Tlaxcala'') is an alphabetic text in Spanish with illustrations written by and under the supervision of Diego Muñoz Camargo in the years leading up to 1585.
Muñoz Camargo's work is divided into t ...
illustrated the contributions the Spaniards' Tlaxcalan allies made to the defeat of the Aztec Empire, as well the
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...
and his cultural translator Doña Marina (
Malinche
Marina or Malintzin ( 1500 – 1529), more popularly known as La Malinche , a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, became known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521), by acting as an interpreter, advi ...
).
Painting Most Nahua artists producing this visual art are anonymous. An exception is the work of Juan Gerson, who ca. 1560 decorated the vault of the Franciscan church in the Nahua town of Tecamachalco,(Puebla state), with individual scenes from the Old Testament.
While colonial art remained almost completely European in style, with muted colors and no indication of movement—the addition of native elements, which began with the ''tequitqui,'' continued. They were never the center of the works, but decorative motifs and filler, such as native foliage, pineapples, corn, and
cacao.
Much of this can be seen on portals as well as large frescoes that often decorated the interior of churches and the walls of monastery areas closed to the public.
The earliest of Mexico's colonial artists were Spanish-born who came to Mexico in the middle of their careers. This included mendicant friars, such as Fray Alonso López de Herrera. Later, most artists were born in Mexico, but trained in European techniques, often from imported engravings. This dependence on imported copies meant that Mexican works preserved styles after they had gone out of fashion in Europe.
In the colonial period, artists worked in guilds, not independently. Each guild had its own rules, precepts, and mandates in technique—which did not encourage innovation.
[Rosas Volume 4, p. 10.]
Important museum collections include those of the
Museo Soumaya
The Museo Soumaya is a private museum in Mexico City and a non-profit cultural institution with two museum buildings in Mexico City — Plaza Carso and Plaza Loreto. It has over 66,000 works from 30 centuries of art including sculptures from Pre-H ...
and
Museo Nacional de San Carlos
The Museo Nacional de San Carlos ( en, National Museum of San Carlos) is a Mexican national art museum devoted to European art, located in the Cuauhtémoc borough in Mexico City. The museum is housed in the Palace of the Count of Buenavista, a n ...
, both in Mexico City.
Gallery
File:Geistliche_Schatzkammer_Wien_(2).JPG, Representation of Mary as a feather picture, Juan Baptista Cuiris, 1550/1580
File:Codex Mendoza folio 2r.jpg, Founding of Tenochtitlan
, ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...
in Codex Mendoza
The Codex Mendoza is an Aztec codex, believed to have been created around the year 1541. It contains a history of both the Aztec rulers and their conquests as well as a description of the daily life of pre-conquest Aztec society. The codex is wri ...
ca. 1541.
File:Codex Mendoza folio 47r.jpg, Towns owing tribute to the Aztec Empire
The Aztec Empire or the Triple Alliance ( nci, Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān, Help:IPA/Nahuatl, jéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥ was an alliance of three Nahua peoples, Nahua altepetl, city-states: , , and . These three city-states ruled ...
shown in Codex Mendoza
The Codex Mendoza is an Aztec codex, believed to have been created around the year 1541. It contains a history of both the Aztec rulers and their conquests as well as a description of the daily life of pre-conquest Aztec society. The codex is wri ...
ca. 1541
File:Cortez & La Malinche.jpg, Image of Cortés and Malinche in the Lienzo de Tlaxcala
''History of Tlaxcala'' (Spanish: ''Historia de Tlaxcala'') is an alphabetic text in Spanish with illustrations written by and under the supervision of Diego Muñoz Camargo in the years leading up to 1585.
Muñoz Camargo's work is divided into t ...
, chronicling the conquest of central Mexico from the Tlaxcalans' viewpoint.
File:Duran Codex Eagle.png, Native illustration of Diego Durán
Diego Durán (c. 1537 – 1588) was a Dominican friar best known for his authorship of one of the earliest Western books on the history and culture of the Aztecs, ''The History of the Indies of New Spain'', a book that was much criticised in hi ...
's history of ancient Mexico, showing the founding of Tenochtitlan
, ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...
File:Codex azcatitlan222.jpg, Codex Azcatitlan
The Codex Azcatitlan is an Aztec codex detailing the history of the Mexica and their migration journey from Aztlán to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The exact date when the codex was produced is unknown, but scholars speculate it was ...
, page depicting Spanish conquerors, with Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...
and Malinche
Marina or Malintzin ( 1500 – 1529), more popularly known as La Malinche , a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, became known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521), by acting as an interpreter, advi ...
File:Tzompantli Tovar.jpeg, Codex Ramirez, A depiction of a ''tzompantli
A () or skull rack was a type of wooden rack or palisade documented in several Mesoamerican civilizations, which was used for the public display of human skulls, typically those of war captives or other sacrificial victims. It is a scaffold-l ...
'', or skull rack, associated with the depiction of a temple dedicated to Huitzilopochtli from Juan de Tovar's manuscript.
File:The Florentine Codex- Aztec Feather Painters VI.tiff, Feather work artists as depicted in the Florentine Codex
The ''Florentine Codex'' is a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún originally titled it: ''La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España'' (in English: ''The ...
(ca. 1576).
File:Nezahualpiltzintli.jpg, ''Nezahualpilli'', tlatoani of Texcoco. Codex Ixtlilxochitl
Aztec codices ( nah, Mēxihcatl āmoxtli , sing. ''codex'') are Mesoamerican manuscripts made by the pre-Columbian Aztec, and their Nahuatl-speaking descendants during the colonial period in Mexico.
History
Before the start of the ...
ca. 1582.
File:Badianus.jpg, A page of the Badinus Herbal, 16th c.
File:Huex codex 1a loc.jpg, Huexotzinco Codex; the panel contains an image of the Virgin and Child
In art, a Madonna () is a representation of Mary, either alone or with her child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word is (archaic). The Madonna and Child type is very prevalent in ...
and symbolic representations of tribute paid to the administrators
File:NunoBeltranGuzman-1.jpg, Conquistador Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán (Spanish) or (Catalan) is a masculine given name of Latin origin (, , , and so on). Its Portuguese form is . Its patronymic is (). Already in the Middle Ages the name was being confused with the similar but distinct name Munio.
The meaning of ...
as depicted in Codex Telleriano Remensis
The Codex Telleriano-Remensis, produced in sixteenth century Mexico on European paper, is one of the finest surviving examples of Aztec manuscript painting. Its Latinized name comes from Charles-Maurice Le ''Tellier'', archbishop of ''Reims'', ...
, a 16th c. pictorial annal/history
File:Aubin codex.jpg, Codex Aubin
The Aubin Codex is an 81-leaf Aztec codex written in alphabetic Nahuatl on paper from Europe. Its textual and pictorial contents represent the history of the Aztec peoples who fled Aztlán, lived during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire ...
File:TecamachalcoPue.JPG, Juan Gerson's religious paintings in the Franciscan church of Tecamachalco, Puebla, 1562.
File:AtriumCrossAcolman1.JPG, An atrium cross in Acolman
Acolman de Nezahualcóyotl is a town and municipality located in the northern part of State of Mexico, part of the Greater Mexico City area, just north of the city proper. According to myth, the first man was placed here after being taken out of ...
, an anthropomorphized stone cross with Jesus at its center.
Mexican Baroque
Baroque painting became firmly established in Mexico by the middle of the 17th century with the work of Spaniard Sebastián López de Arteaga. His painting is exemplified by the canvas called ''Doubting Thomas'' from 1643. In this work, the
Apostle Thomas
Thomas the Apostle ( arc, 𐡀𐡌𐡅𐡕𐡌, hbo, תוֹמא הקדוש or תוֹמָא שליחא (''Toma HaKadosh'' "Thomas the Holy" or ''Toma Shlikha'' "Thomas the Messenger/Apostle" in Hebrew-Aramaic), syc, ܬܐܘܡܐ, , meaning "twi ...
is shown inserting his finger in the wound in Christ's side to emphasize Christ's suffering. The caption below reads "the Word made flesh" and is an example of Baroque's didactic purpose.
One difference between painters in Mexico and their European counterparts is that they preferred realistic directness and clarity over fantastic colors, elongated proportions and extreme spatial relationships. The goal was to create a realistic scene in which the viewer could imagine himself a part of. This was a style created by
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...
in Italy, which became popular with artists in
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
, from which many migrants came to New Spain came.
Similarly, Baroque free standing sculptures feature life-size scales, realistic skin tones and the simulation of gold-threaded garments through a technique called ''
estofado'', the application of paint over gold leaf.
![Vista de la Fachada del Templo de San Francisco Acatepec 9](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Vista_de_la_Fachada_del_Templo_de_San_Francisco_Acatepec_9.jpg)
The most important later influence to Mexican and other painters in Latin America was the work of Flemish artist
Peter Paul Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...
, known through copies made from engravings and
mezzotint
Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the '' intaglio'' family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonali ...
techniques. His paintings were copied and reworked and became the standard for both religious and secular art.
Later Baroque paintings moved from the confines of altarpieces to colossal freestanding canvases on church interiors. One of the best known Mexican painters of this kind of work was
Cristóbal de Villalpando
Cristóbal de Villalpando (ca. 1649 – 20 August 1714) was a Baroque Criollo artist from New Spain, arts administrator and captain of the guard. He painted prolifically and produced many Baroque works now displayed in several Mexican cathedrals ...
. His work can be seen in the
sacristy
A sacristy, also known as a vestry or preparation room, is a room in Christian churches for the keeping of vestments (such as the alb and chasuble) and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records.
The sacristy is usually located ...
of the Mexico City Cathedral, which was done between 1684 and 1686. These canvases were glued directly onto the walls with arched frames to stabilize them, and placed just under the vaults of the ceiling. Even the fresco work of the 16th century was not usually this large.
Another one of Villalpando's works is the cupola of the
Puebla Cathedral
The Basilica Cathedral of Puebla, as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is known according to its Marian invocation, is the episcopal see of the Archdiocese of Puebla de los Ángeles (Mexico). It is one of the most importan ...
in 1688. He used Rubens' brush techniques and the shape of the structure to create a composition of clouds with angels and saints, from which a dove descends to represent the Holy Spirit. The light from the cupola's windows is meant to symbolize God's grace.
Juan Rodríguez Juárez
Juan Rodríguez Juárez (1675 in Mexico City – 1728) was an artist in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. He was a member of a Spanish family long noted for their accomplishments in the world of painting. His brother was Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez (1 ...
(1675–1728) and mulatto artist
Juan Correa
Juan Correa (1646–1716) was a Mexican distinguished painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His years of greatest activity were from 1671 to 1716. He was an Afro-Mexican, the son of a Mulatto or dark-skinned physician fr ...
(1646–1716) were also prominent painters of the baroque era. Correa's most famous student,
José de Ibarra
José de Ibarra (1688–1756) was a New Spanish painter. He was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1688, and died November 21, 1756 in Mexico City, in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Colonial Mexico).Katzew, p. 169,citing Eduardo Báez Macías, "Plan ...
(1685–1756), was also mixed-race. One of Mexico's finest painters,
Miguel Cabrera
José Miguel Cabrera Torres (born April 18, 1983), nicknamed "Miggy", is a Venezuelan professional baseball first baseman and designated hitter for the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball (MLB). Since his debut in 2003 he has been a two-t ...
(1695–1768), was likely mixed race.
The Church produced the most important works of the seventeenth century. Among the important painters were
Baltasar de Echave Ibia and his son Baltasar Echave Rioja, also
Luis Juárez and his son
José Juárez
José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ).
In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacul ...
,
Juan Correa
Juan Correa (1646–1716) was a Mexican distinguished painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His years of greatest activity were from 1671 to 1716. He was an Afro-Mexican, the son of a Mulatto or dark-skinned physician fr ...
,
Cristóbal de Villalpando
Cristóbal de Villalpando (ca. 1649 – 20 August 1714) was a Baroque Criollo artist from New Spain, arts administrator and captain of the guard. He painted prolifically and produced many Baroque works now displayed in several Mexican cathedrals ...
, Rodrigo de la Piedra, Antonio de Santander, Polo Bernardino, Juan de Villalobos, Juan Salguero and Juan de Herrera. Juan Correa, worked from 1671 to 1716 and reached great prestige and reputation for the quality of its design and scale of some of his works. Among the best known: 'Apocalypse in the Cathedral of Mexico', 'Conversion of St. Mary Magdalene', now in the 'Pinacoteca Virreinal' and 'Santa Catarina and Adam and Eve casting out of paradise', the latter located in the
National Museum of Viceroyalty of
Tepotzotlán
Tepotzotlán () is a city and a municipality in the Mexican state of Mexico. It is located northeast of Mexico City about a 45-minute drive along the Mexico City- Querétaro at marker number 41. In Aztec times, the area was the center of a do ...
.
Colonial religious art was sponsored by Church authorities and private patrons. Sponsoring the rich ornamentation of churches was a way for the wealthy to gain prestige.
In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Mexico City was one of the wealthiest in the world, mostly due to mining and agriculture, and was able to support a large art scene.
Gallery
File:Lactación de Santo Domingo.JPG, The ''Lactación de Santo Domingo'', by Cristóbal de Villalpando
Cristóbal de Villalpando (ca. 1649 – 20 August 1714) was a Baroque Criollo artist from New Spain, arts administrator and captain of the guard. He painted prolifically and produced many Baroque works now displayed in several Mexican cathedrals ...
painted near the end of the 17th century.
File:Mujer del Apocalipsis - Cristóbal de Villalpando.jpg, Cristóbal de Villalpando, ''Woman of the Apocalypse'' (Mujer del Apocalipsis), 1686
File:Santa rosa tentada por el demonio - Cristobal de Villalpando.jpg, Cristóbal de Villalpando, ''Saint Rose tempted by the devil'' (Santa rosa tentada por el demonio), ca. 1695/1697
File:Correa La Pascua de Maria.jpg, Juan Correa
Juan Correa (1646–1716) was a Mexican distinguished painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His years of greatest activity were from 1671 to 1716. He was an Afro-Mexican, the son of a Mulatto or dark-skinned physician fr ...
''La Pascua de María'', 1698.
File:Ibarra-virgen del apocalipsis.jpg, ''Inmaculada del Apocalipsis'', Pinacoteca de La Profesa, México, by José de Ibarra
José de Ibarra (1688–1756) was a New Spanish painter. He was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1688, and died November 21, 1756 in Mexico City, in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Colonial Mexico).Katzew, p. 169,citing Eduardo Báez Macías, "Plan ...
File:Miracles_of_Saint_Salvador_de_Horta_(Milagros_del_beato_Salvador_de_Horta)_LACMA_M.2008.32_(1_of_4).jpg, Mexico, circa 1720 Paintings Oil on canvas, Latin American Art Currently on public view: Art of the Americas Building, floor 4
File:La_Visitación_-_Miguel_Cabrera.jpg, The Visitation by Miguel Cabrera. 18th Century. New Spain (Mexico). Oil on canvas, Arocena Museum Collection.
Virgin of Guadalupe
Starting in the seventeenth century, the
Virgin of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe ( es, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe ( es, Virgen de Guadalupe), is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus associated with a series of five Marian apparitions, which are believed t ...
was increasingly a subject for religious painters.
Juan Correa
Juan Correa (1646–1716) was a Mexican distinguished painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His years of greatest activity were from 1671 to 1716. He was an Afro-Mexican, the son of a Mulatto or dark-skinned physician fr ...
and his atelier produced many such images. Increasingly there was an emphasis on the accuracy of the image to the original, and Correa created a wax template to ensure that every detail was correct.Guadalupe became the focus of Criollo patriotism, with her intervention being called upon in catastrophic events and then rendered in art.
Gallery
File:Traslado de la imagen y dedicación del santuario de Guadalupe, Ciudad de México, Manuel de Arellano.jpg, Manuel Arellano, ''Inauguration of the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico city'' (Traslado de la imagen y dedicación del santuario de Guadalupe en la Ciudad de México), 1709
File:Verdadero retrato de Santa María Virgen de Guadalupe.jpg, Painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe ( es, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe ( es, Virgen de Guadalupe), is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus associated with a series of five Marian apparitions, which are believed t ...
, including scenes of the apparition of the Virgin Mary
Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...
to Juan Diego
Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, also known as Juan Diego (; 1474–1548), was a Chichimec peasant and Marian visionary. He is said to have been granted apparitions of the Virgin Mary on four occasions in December 1531: three at the hill of Tepeyac a ...
by Josefus De Ribera Argomanis. (1778)
File:Eternal father painting guadalupe.jpg, 18th-century painting of God the Father
God the Father is a title given to God in Christianity. In mainstream trinitarian Christianity, God the Father is regarded as the first person of the Trinity, followed by the second person, God the Son Jesus Christ, and the third person, God t ...
fashioning the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe
File:Dibujo Escudo de Armas de México.jpg, Virgin of Guadalupe intervenes in a Mexico City disastrous plague, ca. 1743.
File:Brooklyn Museum - Virgin of Guadalupe - Isidro Escamilla - overall.jpg, ''Virgin of Guadalupe'', 1 September 1824. Oil on canvas by Isidro Escamilla. Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
.
File:Miguel_Cabrera_-_Altarpiece_of_the_Virgin_of_Guadalupe_with_Saint_John_the_Baptist,_Fray_Juan_de_Zumárraga_and_Juan_Diego_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg, The altar image of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe ( es, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe ( es, Virgen de Guadalupe), is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus associated with a series of five Marian apparitions, which are believed t ...
with St. John the Baptist, Juan de Zumárraga
Juan de Zumárraga, OFM (1468 – June 3, 1548) was a Spanish Basque Franciscan prelate and the first Bishop of Mexico. He was also the region's first inquisitor. He wrote ''Doctrina breve'', the first book published in the Western Hemispher ...
and St. Juan Diego. Miguel Cabrera.
File:Cuadro NovohispanoxFernando VII MNH.jpg, The Virgin of Guadalupe, Ferdinand VII of Spain
, house = Bourbon-Anjou
, father = Charles IV of Spain
, mother = Maria Luisa of Parma
, birth_date = 14 October 1784
, birth_place = El Escorial, Spain
, death_date =
, death_place = Madrid, Spain
, burial_plac ...
, royal officials, and indigenous cacique
A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a Spa ...
s, showing the legitimate conveyance of power. Anon. Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City.
Portraiture
![Sor Juana by Miguel Cabrera](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Sor_Juana_by_Miguel_Cabrera.png)
In New Spain, as in the rest of the
New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
, since the seventeenth century, particularly during the eighteenth century, the portrait became an important part of the artistic repertoire. In a society characterized by a deep religious feeling which was imbued, it is not surprising that many portraits reflected the moral virtues and piety of the model.
While most commissioned art was for churches, secular works were commissioned as well. Portrait painting was known relatively early in the colonial period, mostly of viceroys and archbishops, as well as the conqueror
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...
. Portraits of royal and ecclesiastical officials were an approximation of the sitter's appearance, and were displayed in their official settings. They often included their coats of arms. In the sixteenth-century portrait of Cortés, the conqueror is portrayed with a baton, sword, and armor "symbolize political and military might, but the discarded glove helmet and glove reveal that his warring activities are completed."
[Donahue-Wallace, p. 204.] Portraits of viceroys and ecclesiastics were often portrayed in rich clothing and writing implements, along with their coats of arms indicating their genealogy and high standing as well as books and writing implements. In Mexico, there are few exemplars of royal officials from before the eighteenth century, perhaps because the 1696 riot destroyed the portrait gallery in the viceregal palace.
Beginning in the late seventeenth century, portrait painting of local elites became a significant genre. Especially important is that women were portrayed for the first time, starting in the eighteenth century. These works followed European models, with symbols of rank and titles either displayed unattached in the outer portions or worked into another element of the paintings such as curtains.
Elite women were dressed in rich embroidered and embellished dresses, usually of silk and lace, with jewelry and other adornment. Many were painted with fans in their hands. Unlike their male counterparts in elite society showing their status and authority, portraits of women were idealized images of womanhood with symbols of femininity. A subset of their genre were portraits of nuns when they first professed, dressed in elaborate clothing appropriate for the solemn step they were taking in entering the convent. A notable example is by
José de Alcíbar
José de Alcíbar, or Alzíbar (1725/30 - 1803, Mexico City) was a Mexican painter, of Basque origin; active from 1751 to 1801.
Biography
He may have been a student of José de Ibarra and is known to have worked in the studios of Miguel Cabrera. ...
of Sor (sister) María Ignacia de la Sangre de Cristo, with a ceremonial crown, embroidered robes, and other accoutrements. Miguel Cabrera's posthumous portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, famous in her own time, in her convent cell surrounded by books, is different from most nun's portraits, painted from life or immediately postmortem. There are also a number of postmortem portraits of nuns.
There are quite a number of family group portraits with a religious devotional theme, commissioned to show the family's piety, but also as way to display the family's wealth. Josep Antonio de Ayala was a prominent artist, who is known for painting "The family of the Valley at the foot of
Our Lady of Loreto
A shrine to the Virgin Mary (or Marian shrine) is a shrine marking an apparition or other miracle ascribed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or a site on which is centered a historically strong Marian devotion. Such locales are often the destination ...
" (c. 1769). This devotional painting was commissioned for the children of the del Valle family in memory of his parents and is characteristic of the painting of this century. The Virgin of Loreto is central to the composition, with the stiff figures of the family members are finely dressed. The men are in fashionable clothing of the era, with the matriarch of the family wearing an embroidered and lace dress, along with pearls. The daughters are shown in the habit of Conceptionist nuns, with ''escudos de monjas'', religious paintings worn on their chests. The painting is inscribed with in information about its commission and the parents, and the fact that it hung in chapel of the family's hacienda. The painting is a display of piety and wealth. There are such group paintings with different central religious figures.
Two notable portrait painters are brothers in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century are
Juan Rodríguez Juárez
Juan Rodríguez Juárez (1675 in Mexico City – 1728) was an artist in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. He was a member of a Spanish family long noted for their accomplishments in the world of painting. His brother was Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez (1 ...
and
Nicolás. Some other prominent painters of this period are:
Cristóbal de Villalpando
Cristóbal de Villalpando (ca. 1649 – 20 August 1714) was a Baroque Criollo artist from New Spain, arts administrator and captain of the guard. He painted prolifically and produced many Baroque works now displayed in several Mexican cathedrals ...
,
Juan Correa
Juan Correa (1646–1716) was a Mexican distinguished painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His years of greatest activity were from 1671 to 1716. He was an Afro-Mexican, the son of a Mulatto or dark-skinned physician fr ...
,
José de Ibarra
José de Ibarra (1688–1756) was a New Spanish painter. He was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1688, and died November 21, 1756 in Mexico City, in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Colonial Mexico).Katzew, p. 169,citing Eduardo Báez Macías, "Plan ...
, Joseph Mora, Francisco Martinez,
Miguel Cabrera
José Miguel Cabrera Torres (born April 18, 1983), nicknamed "Miggy", is a Venezuelan professional baseball first baseman and designated hitter for the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball (MLB). Since his debut in 2003 he has been a two-t ...
, Andrés López, and Nicolás Enríquez.
In the 18th century, artists increasingly included the Latin phrase ''
pinxit
(from Latin: "one painted") is a stylized amendment added to the signature depiction of the name of the person responsible for a work of art, found conventionally in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance art, Renaissance. It is sometimes abbre ...
Mexici'' (painted in Mexico) on works bound for the European market as a sign of pride in their artistic tradition.
Gallery
Image:Hernán Cortés Retrato Portrait 17th century.png, Hernán Cortés, with his coat of arms on the upper right corner. 17th c.
File:AntonioMendoza.jpg, Official Portrait of Don Antonio de Mendoza
Antonio de Mendoza y Pacheco (, ; 1495 – 21 July 1552) was a Spanish colonial administrator who was the first Viceroy of New Spain, serving from 14 November 1535 to 25 November 1550, and the third Viceroy of Peru, from 23 September 1551, ...
, first viceroy of New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...
. Unknown artist. 1535.
File:PedroMoyaContreras.jpg, Official Portrait of Don Pedro Moya de Contreras
Pedro Moya de Contreras (sometimes ''Pedro de Moya y Contreras'') (c. 1528, Pedroche, Córdoba Province, Spain – December 21, 1591, Madrid) was a prelate and colonial administrator who held the three highest offices in the Spanish colon ...
, first secular cleric to be archbishop of Mexico and first cleric to serve as viceroy. Unknown artist.
File:Juan Rodríguez Juárez - Portrait of the Viceroy, the Duke of Linares - Google Art Project.jpg, Juan Rodríguez Juárez
Juan Rodríguez Juárez (1675 in Mexico City – 1728) was an artist in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. He was a member of a Spanish family long noted for their accomplishments in the world of painting. His brother was Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez (1 ...
''Portrait of Viceroy Fernando de Alencastre Noroña y Silva, duque de Linares y marqués de Valdefuentes'', ca. 1717
File:Ayala La familia del Valle a los pies de la Virgen de Loreto.jpg, Josep Antonio de Ayala, The del Valle family at the feet the Virgin of Loreto, 1769. In the collections of the Museo Soumaya
The Museo Soumaya is a private museum in Mexico City and a non-profit cultural institution with two museum buildings in Mexico City — Plaza Carso and Plaza Loreto. It has over 66,000 works from 30 centuries of art including sculptures from Pre-H ...
File:Retrato de familia Fagoga Arozqueta - Anónimo ca.1730.jpg, ''Portrait of family Fagoaga Arozqueta'' 1730
File:Miguel Cabrera - Doña María de la Luz Padilla y (Gómez de) Cervantes - Google Art Project.jpg, Miguel Cabrera (1695–1768). ''Doña María de la Luz Padilla y Gómez de Cervantes'', ca. 1760. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
File:Alcíbar - Sor María Ignacia de la Sangre de Cristo.jpg, Sor (sister) María Ignacia de la Sangre de Cristo. José de Alcíbar
José de Alcíbar, or Alzíbar (1725/30 - 1803, Mexico City) was a Mexican painter, of Basque origin; active from 1751 to 1801.
Biography
He may have been a student of José de Ibarra and is known to have worked in the studios of Miguel Cabrera. ...
. 18th c.
File:José de Alcibar - Portrait of María Anna Josefa Taking Vow - WGA00135.jpg, Sor María Anna Josefa
History paintings and other secular art
Starting in the seventeenth century, painters began to produce canvases and biombos with historical themes, including the conquest of Mexico and imagined scenes of events involving Mexico's Nahua population. Also important was a history painting of the destruction of the Franciscan mission of San Sabá by Comanches, by
José de Páez.
Paintings of Mexico City sites appeared beginning in the seventeenth century, most famously a painting by
Cristóbal de Villalpando
Cristóbal de Villalpando (ca. 1649 – 20 August 1714) was a Baroque Criollo artist from New Spain, arts administrator and captain of the guard. He painted prolifically and produced many Baroque works now displayed in several Mexican cathedrals ...
of the Plaza Mayor in Mexico City, ca. 1696, showing the damage to the viceregal palace from the 1692 corn riot. It also shows the Parián market, where luxury goods were sold. The Parián market was also the subject of at least one other painting.
Gallery
File:Conquista-de-México-por-Cortés-Tenochtitlan-Painting.png, History painting of the Spanish Conquest of Tenochtitlan
, ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...
, 17th century
File:La consagración de los templos paganos y la primera misa en México-Tenochtitlan.jpg, ''The consecration of pagan temples and the first mass in Mexico-Tenochtitlan'' by José Vivar y Valderrama, ca. 1752. Oil on canvas.
File:Bautizo de Ixtlixóchitl.jpg, Baptism of Ixtlilxochitl by José Vivar y Valderrama, 18th century.
File:Attributed to José de Páez - The Destruction of the Saint Sabá Mission in the Province of Texas and the Martyrdom of the Priests,... - Google Art Project.jpg, The destruction of the mission of San Sabá in the province of Texas, ca. 1765. José de Páez
File:Vista de la Plaza Mayor de la Ciudad de México - Cristobal de Villalpando.jpg, Cristóbal de Villalpando
Cristóbal de Villalpando (ca. 1649 – 20 August 1714) was a Baroque Criollo artist from New Spain, arts administrator and captain of the guard. He painted prolifically and produced many Baroque works now displayed in several Mexican cathedrals ...
, ''View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico city'', 1695
File:5829_Paseo_de_la_Viga_con_la_iglesia_de_Iztacalco.jpg, Paseo de la Viga 1706
File:El Parian - 18th century in New Spain.jpg, ''The Parian'' (El Parián), ca. 1770
Casta painting
Another type of secular colonial genre is called
casta
() is a term which means "lineage" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier. In the context of the Spanish America, Spanish Empire in the Americas it also refers to a now-discredited 20th-centu ...
paintings referring to the depiction of racial hierarchy racially in eighteenth-century
New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...
. Some were likely commissioned by Spanish functionaries as souvenirs of Mexico. A number of artists of the era created casta paintings, including
Miguel Cabrera
José Miguel Cabrera Torres (born April 18, 1983), nicknamed "Miggy", is a Venezuelan professional baseball first baseman and designated hitter for the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball (MLB). Since his debut in 2003 he has been a two-t ...
,
José de Ibarra
José de Ibarra (1688–1756) was a New Spanish painter. He was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1688, and died November 21, 1756 in Mexico City, in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Colonial Mexico).Katzew, p. 169,citing Eduardo Báez Macías, "Plan ...
,
Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz
Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz (San Miguel de Allende, 1713–1770, Mexico City) was an 18th-century Mexican painter, a mestizo according to the system of racial classification. He is most well known for his Casta#Pintura de castas, casta paintings.
...
,
Francisco Clapera, and
Luis de Mena
Luis de Mena was a Mexican artist who lived and worked predominantly in the middle of the eighteenth century. Mena painted religious works and has been described as "no more than a journeyman painter in 18th century Mexico." He signed a work entitl ...
, but most casta paintings are unsigned. Ibarra, Morlete, and possibly Cabrera were of mixed race and born outside Mexico City. Mena's only known casta painting links the Virgin of Guadalupe and the casta system, as well as depictions of fruits and vegetables and scenes of everyday life in mideighteenth-century Mexico. It is one of the most-reproduced examples of casta paintings, one of the small number that show the casta system on a single canvas rather than up to 16 separate paintings. It is unique in uniting the thoroughly secular genre of casta painting with a depiction of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Production of these paintings stopped after the 1821 conclusion of the
Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia de México, links=no, 16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from Spain. It was not a single, co ...
, when legal racial categories were repudiated in independent Mexico. Until the run-up to the 500th anniversary of the Columbus's 1492 voyage, casta paintings were of little or no interest, even to art historians, but scholars began systematically studying them as a genre. A set of casta paintings was included in
Pedro Alonso O'Crouley's ''A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain'', published in translation in 1972. and were then included in the first major catalog of casta paintings published in 1989.
Gallery
File:Casta_Painting_by_Luis_de_Mena.jpg, Luis de Mena
Luis de Mena was a Mexican artist who lived and worked predominantly in the middle of the eighteenth century. Mena painted religious works and has been described as "no more than a journeyman painter in 18th century Mexico." He signed a work entitl ...
, Virgin of Guadalupe and castas, 1750.
File:Casta painting all.jpg, ''Las castas''. Anonymous, 18th century, Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán
Tepotzotlán () is a city and a municipality in the Mexican state of Mexico. It is located northeast of Mexico City about a 45-minute drive along the Mexico City- Querétaro at marker number 41. In Aztec times, the area was the center of a do ...
, Mexico.
File:Castas 01mestiza max.jpg, From Spaniard and Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
woman, Mestiza. Miguel Cabrera
José Miguel Cabrera Torres (born April 18, 1983), nicknamed "Miggy", is a Venezuelan professional baseball first baseman and designated hitter for the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball (MLB). Since his debut in 2003 he has been a two-t ...
, 1763
File:De_español_y_mestiza,_castiza.jpg, Spanish (español) father, Mestiza
(; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ...
(mixed Spanish-Indian) mother, and their Castiza daughter. Miguel Cabrera, 1763.
File:Cabrera_Pintura_de_Castas.jpg, Spaniard + Mulata
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
, Morisca. Miguel Cabrera, 1763
File:Castas 07tornatras max.jpg, Spanish father and '' Albina'' mother, Torna atrás
Torna atrás () or Tornatrás is a term once used in 18th century ''Casta'' paintings to portray a mixed-race person (mestizaje, mestizo) who showed phenotypic characteristics of only one of the "original races", that is, white, black, Amerindian, ...
. Miguel Cabrera
José Miguel Cabrera Torres (born April 18, 1983), nicknamed "Miggy", is a Venezuelan professional baseball first baseman and designated hitter for the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball (MLB). Since his debut in 2003 he has been a two-t ...
, eighteenth century Mexico.
File:Cabrera_15_Coyote.jpg, Casta Painting, No. 15. From Mestizo and from Indian; Coyote
The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecologica ...
.
Biombos, or folding screens
''Biombos'' or folding screens became popular among elites in the seventeenth century. Large and meant for display in public and private rooms of elite homes, they had a variety of subject matter, ranging from paintings of historical events, real or imagined, allegorical presentations, and scenes from everyday life in Mexico. Mexico was a crossroads of trade in the colonial period, with goods from Asia and Europe mixing with those locally produced. This convergence is most evident in the decorative arts of New Spain.
It was popular among the upper classes to have a main public room, called a ''salon de estrado'', to be covered in rugs and cushions for women to recline in Moorish fashion. Stools and later chairs and settees were added for men. Starting in the seventeenth century when the
Manila Galleon
fil, Galyon ng Maynila
, english_name = Manila Galleon
, duration = From 1565 to 1815 (250 years)
, venue = Between Manila and Acapulco
, location = New Spain (Spanish Empire) ...
sailed regularly from the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
to the Pacific port of
Acapulco
Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has bee ...
, folding screens or ''biombos'' (from the Japanese ''byo-bu'' or "protection from wind") were among the luxury goods brought from Asia. They are known to have been brought by 1610 and were subsequently produced by Mexican artists and artisans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were fashionable Mexican elites at the highest level and some were shipped to Europe. Most appear to have been produced locally in Mexico.
Juan Correa
Juan Correa (1646–1716) was a Mexican distinguished painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His years of greatest activity were from 1671 to 1716. He was an Afro-Mexican, the son of a Mulatto or dark-skinned physician fr ...
produced several in the late seventeenth century, one of the 1519 meeting of
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...
and
Moctezuma, which might have depicted more current events of a traditional Indian dance (''mitote'') performed on feast of Corpus Christi, symbolizing indigenous submission to Spanish rule and Christianity. Cortés is presented as "both a secular and religious hero" while Moctezuma on a ceremonial litter has "the trappings of a Roman emperor," depicting a meeting of equals. Another was allegorical, entitled ''The Four Continents'' (ca. 1683), showing Europe, America, Asia and Africa with Europe and Asia at the center, and America and Africa at either end. The earliest of these Mexican made screens had oriental designs but later ones had European and Mexican themes. One example of this is a screen by an anonymous artist with the conquest of Mexico one side and an aerial view of central Mexico City's streets and buildings, but no people, on the other, now at the
Franz Mayer Museum
The Franz Mayer Museum ( es, Museo Franz Mayer), in Mexico City opened in 1986 to house, display and maintain Latin America’s largest collection of decorative arts. The collection was amassed by stockbroker and financial professional Franz May ...
.
Another is a local scene of an Indian wedding, with ''voladores'' ("flyers") suspended by ropes on their feet.
Gallery
File:Large_screen_of_the_Palace_of_the_Viceroys_of_Mexico,_ca._1676-1700,_Mexico_City,_Museum_of_the_Americas,_anonimous_painter.jpg, Large screen of the Palace of the Viceroys of Mexico, ca. 1676-1700, Mexico City, Museum of the Americas
File:ScreenConquest17Cent01.jpg, A Biombo screen with a depiction of the Spanish conquest of Mexico at the Franz Mayer Museum
The Franz Mayer Museum ( es, Museo Franz Mayer), in Mexico City opened in 1986 to house, display and maintain Latin America’s largest collection of decorative arts. The collection was amassed by stockbroker and financial professional Franz May ...
File:Los Cuatro Elementos - Juan Correa.jpg, Juan Correa
Juan Correa (1646–1716) was a Mexican distinguished painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His years of greatest activity were from 1671 to 1716. He was an Afro-Mexican, the son of a Mulatto or dark-skinned physician fr ...
, ''The liberal arts and the four elements'' (Las artes liberales y los cuatro elementos). 1670
File:Folding Screen with Indian Wedding and Flying Pole (Biombo con desposorio indígena y palo volador) - Google Art Project.jpg, Folding Screen with Indian Wedding and Voladores, ca. 1690
DisplayRoomFranzMayer.jpg, One of the display areas in the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City
DisplayroomFranzMayerDF.jpg, One of the display areas in the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City
The Academy of San Carlos
The last colonial era art institution established was the
Academy of San Carlos
The Academy of San Carlos ( es, Academia de San Carlos) is located at 22 Academia Street in just northeast of the main plaza of Mexico City. It was the first major art academy and the first art museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1781 as th ...
in 1783.
While the depiction of saints consumed most artistic efforts, they were not without political effects. The most important of these was the rise of the cult of the
Virgin of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe ( es, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe ( es, Virgen de Guadalupe), is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus associated with a series of five Marian apparitions, which are believed t ...
as an American rather than European saint, representative of a distinct identity.
[Rosas, 1982, p. 13.]
The Crown promoted the establishment in Mexico of the
Neoclassical style of art and architecture, which had become popular in Spain. This style was a reinterpretation of Greco-Roman references and its use was a way to reinforce European dominance in the Spain's colonies. One Neoclassical artist from the Academy at the end of the colonial period was
Manuel Tolsá
Manuel Vicente Tolsá Sarrión (Enguera, Valencia (autonomous community), Valencia, Spain, May 4, 1757 – Mexico City, December 24, 1816) was a prolific Neoclassicism, Neoclassical architect and sculptor in Spain and Mexico. He served as the f ...
. He first taught sculpture at the
Academy of San Carlos
The Academy of San Carlos ( es, Academia de San Carlos) is located at 22 Academia Street in just northeast of the main plaza of Mexico City. It was the first major art academy and the first art museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1781 as th ...
and then became its second director. Tolsá designed a number of
Neoclassical buildings in Mexico but his best known work is an equestrian status of King Charles IV in bronze cast in 1803 and originally placed in the
Zócalo
The Zócalo () is the common name of the town square, main square in central Mexico City. Prior to the European colonization of the Americas, colonial period, it was the main ceremonial center in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. The plaza used t ...
. As of 2011 it can be seen at the
Museo Nacional de Arte
The Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL) ( en, National Museum of Art) is the Mexico, Mexican national art museum, located in the Centro (Mexico City), historical center of Mexico City. The museum is housed in a neoclassical building at No. 8 Tacuba, C ...
.
By the late 18th century, Spain's colonies were becoming culturally independent from Spain, including its arts. The Academy was established by the
Spanish Crown
, coatofarms = File:Coat_of_Arms_of_Spanish_Monarch.svg
, coatofarms_article = Coat of arms of the King of Spain
, image = Felipe_VI_in_2020_(cropped).jpg
, incumbent = Felipe VI
, incumbentsince = 19 Ju ...
to regain control of artistic expression and the messages it disseminated. This school was staffed by Spanish artists in each of the major disciplines, with the first director being Antonio Gil.
The school became home to a number of plaster casts of classic statues from the
San Fernando Fine Arts Academy in Spain, brought there for teaching purposes. These casts are on display in the Academy's central patio.
The Academy of San Carlos survived into post-independence Mexico.
List of Colonial Mexican artists
Independence to the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, 1821–1910
Early Post-independence era to the Mid Nineteenth Century
![Flag of Mexico (1823-1864, 1867-1893)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Flag_of_Mexico_%281823-1864%2C_1867-1893%29.svg)
Artists of the independence era in Mexico (1810–21) produced works showing the insurgency's heroes. A portrait of secular cleric
José María Morelos
José María Teclo Morelos Pérez y Pavón () (30 September 1765 – 22 December 1815) was a Mexican Catholic priest, statesman and military leader who led the Mexican War of Independence movement, assuming its leadership after the execution of ...
in his military uniform was painted by an unknown artist, traditionally ascribed to be indigenous. The portrait is typical of those from the late eighteenth century, with framing elements, a formal caption, and new elements being iconography of the emerging Mexican nationalism, including the eagle atop the nopal cactus, which became the central image for the Mexican flag. Morelos was the subject of a commissioned statue, with
Pedro Patiño Ixtolinque
Pedro Patiño Ixtolinque (1774 in San Pedro Ecatzingo – 1835 in Mexico City) was a mixed-race Mexican sculptor. His father was Spanish and his mother a mestiza (mixed Indian and European). He won a scholarship at the Academy of San Carlos that ...
, who trained at the Academy of San Carlos and remained an important sculptor through the era of era independence.
The Academy of San Carlos remained the center of academic painting and the most prestigious art institution in Mexico until the
Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia de México, links=no, 16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from Spain. It was not a single, co ...
, during which it was closed.
Despite its association with the Spanish Crown and European painting tradition, the Academy was reopened by the new government after Mexico gained full independence in 1821. Its former Spanish faculty and students either died during the war or returned to Spain, but when it reopened it attracted the best art students of the country, and continued to emphasize classical European traditions until the early 20th century.
The academy was renamed to the National Academy of San Carlos. The new government continued to favor
Neoclassical as it considered the
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
a symbol of colonialism. The Neoclassical style continued in favor through the reign of
Maximilian I although President
Benito Juárez
Benito Pablo Juárez García (; 21 March 1806 – 18 July 1872) was a Liberalism in Mexico, Mexican liberal politician and lawyer who served as the 26th president of Mexico from 1858 until his death in office in 1872. As a Zapotec peoples, Zapo ...
supported it only reluctantly, considering its European focus a vestige of colonialism.
![Estatua-a-Tlahuicole](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Estatua-a-Tlahuicole.jpg)
Despite Neoclassicism's association with European domination, it remained favored by the Mexican government after Independence and was used in major government commissions at the end of the century. However, indigenous themes appeared in paintings and sculptures. One indigenous figure depicted in Neoclassical style is
Tlahuicole
Tlahuicole or ''Tlahuicolli'' (1497–1518) was a Tlaxcaltec warrior noted for his skill and ethical standards.Graulich, Michel, F. Navarrete, and G. Olivier. "Tlahuicole: Un héroe tlaxcalteca controvertido." El héroe entre el mito y la histori ...
, done by
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
artist
Manuel Vilar
Manuel Vilar i Roca (15 November 1812, Barcelona - 25 November 1860, Mexico City) was a Spanish sculptor, in the Romantic style.Alberto Espinosa, ''La Renovación de la Real Academia de San Carlos: Manuel Vilar y Pelegrín Clavé'', Terranova/r ...
in 1851.
There were two reasons for this shift in preferred subject. The first was that Mexican society denigrated colonial culture—the indigenous past was seen as more truly Mexican.
The other factor was a worldwide movement among artists to confront society, which began around 1830. In Mexico, this anti-establishment sentiment was directed at the Academy of San Carlos and its European focus.
[Paz, 1987 p. 2.]
In the first half of the 19th century, the
Romantic style of painting was introduced into Mexico and the rest of Latin America by foreign travelers interested in the newly independent country. One of these was
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
n artist
Johann Moritz Rugendas
Johann Moritz Rugendas (29 March 1802 – 29 May 1858) was a German painter, famous in the first half of the 19th century for his works depicting landscapes and ethnographic subjects in several countries in the Americas. Rugendas is considered " ...
, who lived in the country from 1831 to 1834. He painted scenes with dynamic composition and bright colors in accordance with Romantic style, looking for striking, sublime, and beautiful images in Mexico as well as other areas of Latin America. However much of Rugendas's works are sketches for major canvases, many of which were never executed. Others include Englishman
Daniel Egerton
Daniel Egerton (1772–1835) was an English actor.
Life
Egerton was born in the city of London on 14 April 1772. According to various accounts, presumably supplied by himself, he was 'bred to the law in a public office.' Another source says, h ...
, who painted landscapes in the British Romantic tradition, and German
Carl Nebel
Carl Nebel (18 March 1805 – 4 June 1855) was a German engineer, architect and draughtsman,Thieme-Becker, entry "Nebel, Carl" best known for his detailed paintings and lithographic prints made from them of the Mexican landscape and people during ...
, who primarily created
lithograph
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
s of the various social and ethnic populations of the country.
A number of native-born artists at the time followed the European Romantic painters in their desire to document the various cultures of Mexico. These painters were called ''
costumbristas'', a word deriving from ''costumbre'' (custom). The styles of these painters were not always strictly Romantic, involving other styles as well. Most of these painters were from the upper classes and educated in Europe. While the European painters viewed subjects as exotic, the costumbristas had a more nationalistic sense of their home countries. One of these painters was
Agustín Arrieta from Puebla, who applied realistic techniques to scenes from his home city, capturing its brightly painted tiles and ceramics. His scenes often involved everyday life such as women working in kitchen and depicted black and Afro-Mexican vendors.
Gallery
File:Entrada del Generalisimo Don Agustin de Iturbide a Mexico.jpg, Entrance of Agustín de Iturbide
Agustín de Iturbide (; 27 September 178319 July 1824), full name Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu and also known as Agustín of Mexico, was a Mexican army general and politician. During the Mexican War of Independence, he built a ...
to Mexico City in 1821. Unknown artist, no date.
File:Water carrier in Mexico by Claudio Linati 1828.jpg, Claudio Linati
Claudio Linati (1 February 1790 – 11 December 1832) was an Italian painter and lithographer who studied under Jacques-Louis David in Paris and established the first lithographic press in Mexico. He co-founded and edited '' El Iris'', a periodic ...
, Mexican Water carrier
File:Miliciens provinciaux de Guazacualco by Claudio Linati 1828.png, Claudio Linati
Claudio Linati (1 February 1790 – 11 December 1832) was an Italian painter and lithographer who studied under Jacques-Louis David in Paris and established the first lithographic press in Mexico. He co-founded and edited '' El Iris'', a periodic ...
Militia of Guazacualco
File:Cacique Apache by Claudio Linati 1828.png, Claudio Linati
Claudio Linati (1 February 1790 – 11 December 1832) was an Italian painter and lithographer who studied under Jacques-Louis David in Paris and established the first lithographic press in Mexico. He co-founded and edited '' El Iris'', a periodic ...
Apache chief
File:Tortilleras Nebel.jpg, Carl Nebel
Carl Nebel (18 March 1805 – 4 June 1855) was a German engineer, architect and draughtsman,Thieme-Becker, entry "Nebel, Carl" best known for his detailed paintings and lithographic prints made from them of the Mexican landscape and people during ...
''Las Tortilleras'', one of 50 plates in his ''Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la partie la plus intéressante du Mexique''
File:Nebel Voyage 41 Indias de la Sierra.jpg, Carl Nebel
Carl Nebel (18 March 1805 – 4 June 1855) was a German engineer, architect and draughtsman,Thieme-Becker, entry "Nebel, Carl" best known for his detailed paintings and lithographic prints made from them of the Mexican landscape and people during ...
's depiction of Sierra Indians.
File:Nebel Mexican War 12 Scott in Mexico City.jpg, The Plaza de la Constitución
A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
during the Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...
. Carl Nebel
Carl Nebel (18 March 1805 – 4 June 1855) was a German engineer, architect and draughtsman,Thieme-Becker, entry "Nebel, Carl" best known for his detailed paintings and lithographic prints made from them of the Mexican landscape and people during ...
File:Juan Cordero - Cristopher Columbus at the Court of the Catholic Monarchs - Google Art Project.jpg, Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
at the Court of the Catholic Monarchs (painted in Italy, 1850/1) by Juan Cordero
Juan Nepomuceno María Bernabé del Corazón de Jesús Cordero de Hoyos (16 May 1822, Teziutlán - 29 May 1884, Coyoacán) was a Mexican painter and muralist in the Classical style, who began his career in Rome and Florence, Italy.
Biography
Jua ...
File:Arrietatertulia1.jpg, Agustín Arrieta, ''Tertulia de pulquería'', 1851
File:Arrietacomedor.jpg, Agustín Arrieta, Cuadro de comedor, pintado entre 1857 y 1859, oleo sobre tela
File:Still-life by José Agustín Arrieta, San Diego Museum of Art.JPG, Still-life, oil on canvas painting by José Agustín Arrieta (Mexican), c. 1870, San Diego Museum of Art
The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine arts museum located at 1450 El Prado in Balboa Park in San Diego, California that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. The San Diego Museum of Art opened as The Fine Arts Galler ...
File:Salome_-_Niña_con_Flores.jpg, Girl with flowers by José Salomé Pina
File:TulumCatherwood1844.jpg, Frederick Catherwood
Frederick Catherwood (27 February 1799 – 27 September 1854) was an English artist, architect and explorer, best remembered for his meticulously detailed drawings of the ruins of the Maya civilization. He explored Mesoamerica in the mid 19th ...
, Main temple at Tulum
Tulum (, yua, Tulu'um) is the site of a pre-Columbian Mayan walled city which served as a major port for Coba, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The ruins are situated on cliffs along the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula on the Caribb ...
, from ''Views of Ancient Monuments''.
File:Catherwood stela d.jpg, Frederick Catherwood
Frederick Catherwood (27 February 1799 – 27 September 1854) was an English artist, architect and explorer, best remembered for his meticulously detailed drawings of the ruins of the Maya civilization. He explored Mesoamerica in the mid 19th ...
Lithograph of Stela D. Copan (1844), from ''Views of Ancient Monuments''.
File:Gran Teatro Nacional Mexico City by Pedro Gualdi.jpg, Pedro Gualdi, Gran Teatro Nacional de México/Teatro Santa Anna, Mexico City
File:Pedro Gualdi, Interior of the Royal and Pontificial University of Mexico, ca. 1840.jpg, Pedro Gualdi, Interior of the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico
The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico (in es, Real y Pontificia Universidad de México) was founded on 21 September 1551 by Royal Decree signed by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Charles I of Spain, in Valladolid, Spain. It is generally co ...
File:Juan Cordero - Portrait of Doña Dolores Tosta de Santa Anna - Google Art Project.jpg, Juan Cordero
Juan Nepomuceno María Bernabé del Corazón de Jesús Cordero de Hoyos (16 May 1822, Teziutlán - 29 May 1884, Coyoacán) was a Mexican painter and muralist in the Classical style, who began his career in Rome and Florence, Italy.
Biography
Jua ...
, Portrait of General Antonio López de Santa Anna
Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón (; 21 February 1794 – 21 June 1876),Callcott, Wilfred H., "Santa Anna, Antonio Lopez De,''Handbook of Texas Online'' Retrieved 18 April 2017. usually known as Santa Ann ...
's wife, Doña Dolores Tosta de Santa Anna. (1855)
File:Nebel Voyage 11 Hacendero.jpg, ''The hacienda
An ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or ''finca''), similar to a Roman ''latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards), ...
owner and his mayordomo'' (painting by Carl Nebel, litografía de Lemercier y Lassalle).
File:Hermenegildo_Bustos_Da_Francisca.jpg, Da. Francisca Valdivia de Chávez and sons. (1862) by Hermenegildo Bustos
José Hermenegildo de la Luz Bustos Hernández (13 April 1832, Purísima del Rincón – 28 June 1907, Purísima del Rincón) was a Mexican painter; known mostly for portraits, although he also created religious paintings and still-lifes.
Biog ...
File:Gutierrez-Indias.jpg, Oaxaca Indians painting by Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez
File:Costumes Mexicains00.jpg,
![Valle de México José Maria Velazco 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Valle_de_M%C3%A9xico_Jos%C3%A9_Maria_Velazco_3.jpg)
In the mid-to late 19th century Latin American academies began to shift away from severe
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was ...
to "
academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
". Idealized and simplified depictions became more realistic, with emphasis on details. Scenes in this style were most often portraits of the upper classes, Biblical scenes, and battles—especially those from the Independence period. When the Academy of San Carlos was reopened after a short closure in 1843, its new Spanish and Italian faculty pushed this realist style. Despite government support and nationalist themes, native artists were generally shorted in favor of Europeans.
One of the most important painters in Mexico in the mid 19th century was Catalan
Pelegrí Clavé
Pelegrí Clavé i Roqué sometimes Pelegrin Clavé (17 June 1811, Barcelona – 13 September 1880, Barcelona) was a Spanish painter in the Romantic style who lived and taught in Mexico for many years.
Biography
From 1822 to 1833, he studie ...
, who painted landscapes but was best known for his depictions of the intellectual elite of Mexico City. Realist painters also attempted to portray Aztec culture and people by depicting settings inhabited by indigenous people, using live indigenous models and costumes based on those in Conquest era codices. One of these was
Félix Parra, whose depictions of the conquest empathized with the suffering of the indigenous. In 1869, José Obregón painted ''The Discovery of Pulque''; he based his depictions of architecture on
Mixtec
The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerrero. The Mixtec Culture wa ...
codices, but misrepresented temples as a setting for a throne.
[dead link ]
The art of the 19th century after Independence is considered to have declined, especially during the late 19th century and early 20th, during the regime of
Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( or ; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 Decem ...
(1876–1911). Although during this time, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts were often limited to imitation of European styles,
the emergence of young artists, such as
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
and
Saturnino Herrán
Saturnino Herrán Guinchard (9 July 1887 – 8 October 1918) was a Mexican painter influential to Latin culture in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Biography
Born a mix of Indigenous Mexican and Swiss descent, Saturnino Herrán was rais ...
, increased the focus on Mexican-themed works. This meant that following the military phase of the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
in the 1920s, Mexican artists made huge strides is forging a robust artistic nationalism.
In this century there are examples of murals such as folkloric style created between 1855 and 1867 in La Barca, Jalisco.
Highlights at this time: Pelegrín Clavé,
Juan Cordero
Juan Nepomuceno María Bernabé del Corazón de Jesús Cordero de Hoyos (16 May 1822, Teziutlán - 29 May 1884, Coyoacán) was a Mexican painter and muralist in the Classical style, who began his career in Rome and Florence, Italy.
Biography
Jua ...
, Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez and José Agustín Arrieta.
In Mexico, in 1846 he was hired to direct Pelegrín Clavé's reopening of the Academy of San Carlos, a body from which he promoted the historical and landscaping themes with a pro-European vision.
Gallery
File:14Orizaba desde el Puente de Paso del Toro.png, ''Orizaba desde el Puente de Paso del Toro'' by Casimiro Castro
Casimiro Castro (24 April 1826 Tepetlaoxtoc – 8 January 1889 Mexico City), was a Mexican painter and lithographer, and is regarded as having been a leading graphic and landscape artist in nineteenth century Mexico.
Biography
Casimiro, son of ...
, from ''Album of the Mexican Railway'' (1877)
File:FundacionMexicoDF.JPG, José María Jara (1867–1939), ''Foundation of Mexico City''. Museo Nacional de Arte. (1889)
File:José María Jara - The wake - Google Art Project.jpg, ''El Velorio'' by José María Jara. (1889)
File:Inspiración de Cristóbal Colón, por José María Obregón.jpg, The Inspiration of Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
by José Obregon. (1856)
File:Descubrimiento del pulque José María Obregón Óleo sobre tela 1869.jpg, ''The Discovery of Pulque'' by José Obregón at the Museo Nacional de Arte
The Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL) ( en, National Museum of Art) is the Mexico, Mexican national art museum, located in the Centro (Mexico City), historical center of Mexico City. The museum is housed in a neoclassical building at No. 8 Tacuba, C ...
. (1869)
File:DelasCasasParraDF.JPG, Félix Parra, ''Fray Bartolomé de las Casas
Bartolomé de las Casas, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman then became a Dominican friar ...
'' (1875) exhibited at the Centennial International Exposition of Philadelphia in 1876.
File:MatanzaCholula.JPG, Matanza de Cholula, by Félix Parra. (1875)
File:El suplicio de Cuauhtémoc.jpg, Leandro Izaguirre
Leandro Izaguirre (February 13, 1867 in Mexico City – February 26, 1941 in Mexico City) was a Mexican painter, illustrator and teacher. He entered the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City in 1884. He is perhaps best known for his ''Torture o ...
''Torture of Cuauhtémoc'' (1892)
File:Jose ma velasco exconvento.jpg, Patio del Exconvento de San Agustín, José María Velasco
File:Vicente Guerrero (1865).png, Oil painting of Vicente Guerrero
Vicente Ramón Guerrero (; baptized August 10, 1782 – February 14, 1831) was one of the leading revolutionary generals of the Mexican War of Independence. He fought against Spain for independence in the early 19th century, and later served as ...
, leader of independence and president of Mexico. Ramón Sagredo (1865)
File:Miguel Hidalgo con estandarte.jpg, Painting of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla
Don (honorific), Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla y Gallaga Mandarte Villaseñor (8 May 1753 – 30 July 1811), more commonly known as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla or Miguel Hidalgo (), was a Catholic priest, leader ...
, considered the father of Mexican independence, by Antonio Fabrés
File:Clausell Paisaje con bosque y río.jpg, Joaquín Clausell, Countryside with forest and river.
File:Saturnino Herrán - La cosecha, 1909.jpg, Saturnino Herrán
Saturnino Herrán Guinchard (9 July 1887 – 8 October 1918) was a Mexican painter influential to Latin culture in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Biography
Born a mix of Indigenous Mexican and Swiss descent, Saturnino Herrán was rais ...
''La cosecha'' ("The Harvest"), 1909
File:Saturnino Herrán - The offering - Google Art Project.jpg, Saturnino Herrán
Saturnino Herrán Guinchard (9 July 1887 – 8 October 1918) was a Mexican painter influential to Latin culture in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Biography
Born a mix of Indigenous Mexican and Swiss descent, Saturnino Herrán was rais ...
''La ofrenda'' ("The Offering"), 1913
File:Saturnino Herran Mujer en Tehuantepec (1914).jpg, Saturnino Herrán
Saturnino Herrán Guinchard (9 July 1887 – 8 October 1918) was a Mexican painter influential to Latin culture in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Biography
Born a mix of Indigenous Mexican and Swiss descent, Saturnino Herrán was rais ...
''Mujer en Tehuantepec'' ("Woman of Tehuantepec) 1914
File:Julio Ruelas - Criticism - Google Art Project.jpg, Julio Ruelas '' Crítica''
File:José Guadalupe Posada, Calavera oaxaqueña, broadsheet, 1903.jpg, José Guadalupe Posada
José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar (2 February 1852 – 20 January 1913) was a Mexican political lithographer who used relief printing to produce popular illustrations. His work has influenced numerous Latin American artists and cartoonists becaus ...
, 1903, ''Calavera oaxaqueña''. Posada published
File:Juan_Cordero_007.JPG, Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
in the Temple, Juan Cordero
Juan Nepomuceno María Bernabé del Corazón de Jesús Cordero de Hoyos (16 May 1822, Teziutlán - 29 May 1884, Coyoacán) was a Mexican painter and muralist in the Classical style, who began his career in Rome and Florence, Italy.
Biography
Jua ...
File:13488_2_de_abril_de_1867._Entrada_del_general_Porfirio_Díaz_a_Puebla.jpg, April 2, 1867. General Porfirio Díaz Entry at Puebla, by Francisco de Paula Mendoza, 1902.
Monuments and sculpture
In the second half of the nineteenth century, monuments to historical events were erected in many Mexican cities, most especially in the capital. One of the first was a
monument to Christopher Columbus, on the broad
Paseo de la Reforma
Paseo de la Reforma (translated as "Promenade of the Reform") is a wide avenue that runs diagonally across the heart of Mexico City. It was designed at the behest of Emperor Maximilian by Ferdinand von Rosenzweig during the era of the Secon ...
, commissioned by
Antonio Escandón, who made a fortune constructing the Mexico City-Veracruz railway. Escandón "decided to commemorate the era of the railroad in Mexico with a monument to an equally epochal event, the Discovery of the New World." During the
Porfiriato
, common_languages =
, religion =
, demonym =
, currency =
, leader1 = Porfirio Díaz
, leader2 = Juan Méndez
, leader3 = Porfirio Díaz
, leader4 ...
(1876-1910), the Paseo de la Reforma became a key place to display statues to Mexican heroes, with the traffic round-abouts (''glorietas'') having a particular place of honor. In 1887,
Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( or ; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 Decem ...
commissioned the statue of the last Aztec emperor,
Cuauhtémoc
Cuauhtémoc (, ), also known as Cuauhtemotzín, Guatimozín, or Guatémoc, was the Aztec ruler (''tlatoani'') of Tenochtitlan from 1520 to 1521, making him the last Aztec Emperor. The name Cuauhtemōc means "one who has descended like an eagle" ...
, which can be seen on
Paseo de la Reforma
Paseo de la Reforma (translated as "Promenade of the Reform") is a wide avenue that runs diagonally across the heart of Mexico City. It was designed at the behest of Emperor Maximilian by Ferdinand von Rosenzweig during the era of the Secon ...
. Cuauhtémoc is depicted with a toga-like cloak with a feathered headdress similar to an Etruscan or Trojan warrior rather than an Aztec emperor. The base has elements reminiscent of Mitla and Roman architecture. This base contains bronze plates depicting scenes from the Spanish conquest, but focusing on the indigenous figures.
A modest obelisk commemorating the
Niños Héroes
The ''Niños Héroes'' (Boy Heroes, or Heroic Cadets) were six Mexican military cadets who were killed in the defence of Mexico City during the Battle of Chapultepec, one of the last major battles of the Mexican–American War, on 13 September ...
, cadets who died defending their post during the U.S. takeover of Mexico City during the
Mexican American War
Mexican may refer to:
Mexico and its culture
*Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America
** People
*** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants
*** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...
(1847), was erected in 1884. A much larger one was built in the mid-twentieth century at the entrance to Chapultepec Park. Arguably the most famous monument of the era is
the Monument to Independence, often called "the Angel of independence" for its winged victory. It was commissioned for the centenary of independence in 1910 and inaugurated by
Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( or ; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 Decem ...
during the festivities in September 1910.
Gallery
File:Monumento a Colón Paseo de la Reforma Ciudad de México.jpg, Monument to Columbus, Mexico City, 1877.
File:MonumentCuauhtemocPaseo2.jpg, Monument to Cuauhtémoc, Paseo de la Reforma
Paseo de la Reforma (translated as "Promenade of the Reform") is a wide avenue that runs diagonally across the heart of Mexico City. It was designed at the behest of Emperor Maximilian by Ferdinand von Rosenzweig during the era of the Secon ...
, Mexico City. 1887.
File:SceneTortureCuautemocMonumentDF.jpg, Cuauhtemoc's torture on the Cuauhtémoc monument.Gabriel Guerra
Gabriel Guerra (1847 – 3 November 1893) was a Mexican sculptor. He was born in Unión de San Antonio, Jalisco and trained at Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (National School of Fine Arts) in Mexico City where he studied with Miguel Noreña. ...
(1847–1893).
File:NezahualcoyotlGardenTADF.JPG, A bronze casting (1888–1889) of Nezahualcoyotl Nezahualcoyotl may refer to:
* Nezahualcoyotl (tlatoani), the ruler of Texcoco
* Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, a city in the State of Mexico
* Nezahualcóyotl metro station, in Mexico City
* The Nezahualcóyotl Award, a literary prize in Mexico
* Nezah ...
, by Jesús F. Contreras at the Garden of the Triple Alliance, Filomeno Mata street, historical center of Mexico City.
File:Mexico_City_(2018)_-_322.jpg, Obelisk to the Niños Héroes
The ''Niños Héroes'' (Boy Heroes, or Heroic Cadets) were six Mexican military cadets who were killed in the defence of Mexico City during the Battle of Chapultepec, one of the last major battles of the Mexican–American War, on 13 September ...
. Chapultepec Park. Mexico City. Ramón Rodríguez Arangoity. 1884
File:20150717 IMG 6697 by sebaso (19998936614).jpg, Monument to Independence, "el Ángel". 1910.
File:Mexico.DF.HemicicloJuarez.01.jpg, Benito Juárez
Benito Pablo Juárez García (; 21 March 1806 – 18 July 1872) was a Liberalism in Mexico, Mexican liberal politician and lawyer who served as the 26th president of Mexico from 1858 until his death in office in 1872. As a Zapotec peoples, Zapo ...
hemicycle
In legislatures, a hemicycle is a semicircular, or horseshoe-shaped, debating chamber (''plenary chamber''), where deputies (members) sit to discuss and pass legislation. Although originally of Ancient Greek roots, the term and modern design de ...
. Mexico City. 1910.
20th century
The Academy of San Carlos continued to advocate classic, European-style training until 1913. In this year, the academy was partially integrated with
National Autonomous University of Mexico
The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...
(UNAM). Between 1929 and the 1950s, the academy's architecture program was split off as a department of the university; the programs in painting, sculpture, and engraving were renamed the National School of Expressive Arts, now the
Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas (ENAP). Both moved to the south of the city in the mid-20th century, to
Ciudad Universitaria and
Xochimilco
Xochimilco (; nci, Xōchimīlco, ) is a borough (''demarcación territorial'') of Mexico City. The borough is centered on the formerly independent city of Xochimilco, which was established on what was the southern shore of Lake Xochimilco in the ...
respectively, leaving only some graduate programs in fine arts in the original academy building in the
historic center. ENAP remains one of the main centers for the training of Mexico's artists.
Mexican muralism and Revolutionary art
![GuadalupeRevueltasSICDF](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/GuadalupeRevueltasSICDF.JPG)
While a shift to more indigenous and Mexican themes appeared in the 19th century, the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
from 1910 to 1920 had a dramatic effect on Mexican art.
The conflict resulted in the rise of the Partido Revolucionario Nacional (renamed the
Partido Revolucionario Institucional
The Institutional Revolutionary Party ( es, Partido Revolucionario Institucional, ; abbr. PRI) is a political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929 and held uninterrupted power in the country for 71 years, from 1929 to 2000, first as the Nati ...
), which took the country in a socialist direction. The government became an ally to many of the intellectuals and artists in Mexico City
and commissioned murals for public buildings to reinforce its political messages including those that emphasized Mexican rather than European themes. These were not created for popular or commercial tastes; however, they gained recognition not only in Mexico, but in the United States.
[Paz, 1987 p. 24.] "The great Mexican muralists of the post-revolution developed, with the paint mural, the concept of 'public art', an art to be seen by the masses in major public buildings of the time, and could not be bought and transported easily elsewhere, as with easel painting."
![FiestaChalmaLealSICDF](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/FiestaChalmaLealSICDF.JPG)
This production of art in conjunction with government propaganda is known as the Mexican Modernist School or the Mexican Muralist Movement, and it redefined art in Mexico.
[Paz, 1987 pp. 298-299.] Octavio Paz gives
José Vasconcelos
José Vasconcelos Calderón (28 February 1882 – 30 June 1959), called the "cultural " of the Mexican Revolution, was an important Mexican writer, philosopher, and politician. He is one of the most influential and controversial personalities ...
credit for initiating the Muralist movement in Mexico by commissioning the best-known painters in 1921 to decorate the walls of public buildings. The commissions were politically motivated—they aimed to glorify the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
and redefine the Mexican people vis-à-vis literally "face to face (with)" their indigenous and Spanish past.
[Paz, 1987 p. 11.]
![TreeLifeScience2MuseoLuzDF](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/TreeLifeScience2MuseoLuzDF.JPG)
The first of these commissioned paintings were at
San Ildefonso
San Ildefonso (), La Granja (), or La Granja de San Ildefonso, is a town and municipality in the Province of Segovia, in the Castile and León autonomous region of central Spain.
It is located in the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama mounta ...
done by Fernando Leal,
Fermín Revueltas,
David Alfaro Siqueiros
David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...
, and
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
. The first true fresco in the building was the work of
Jean Charlot
Louis Henri Jean Charlot (February 8, 1898 – March 20, 1979) was a French people, French-born United States, American Painting, painter and illustrator, active mainly in Mexico and the United States.
Life
Charlot was born in Paris. His father, ...
. However, technical errors were made in the construction of these murals: a number of them began to blister and were covered in wax for preservation.
[Paz, 1987 p. 12.] Roberto Montenegro
Roberto Montenegro Nervo (February 19, 1885 in Guadalajara – October 13, 1968 in Mexico City) was a painter, muralist and illustrator, who was one of the first to be involved in the Mexican muralism movement after the Mexican Revolution. His m ...
painted the
former church and monastery of San Pedro y San Pablo, but the mural in the church was painted in
tempera
Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...
and began to flake. In the monastery area, Montenegro painted the ''Feast of the Holy Cross,'' which depicts Vasconcelos as the protector of Muralists. Vasconcelos was later blanked out and a figure of a woman was painted over him.
[Paz, 1987 pp. 12-13.]
![Fragmento Mural Alfredo Zalce 6 063](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Fragmento_Mural_Alfredo_Zalce_6_063.jpg)
The first protagonist in the production of modern murals in Mexico was
Dr. Atl
Gerardo Murillo Cornado, also known by his signature "Dr. Atl", (October 3, 1875 – August 15, 1964) was a Mexican painter and writer. He was actively involved in the Mexican Revolution in the Constitutionalist faction led by Venustiano Carra ...
. Dr Atl was born "Gerard Murillo" in
Guadalajara
Guadalajara ( , ) is a metropolis in western Mexico and the capital of the list of states of Mexico, state of Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population of 1,385,629 people, making it the 7th largest city by population in Me ...
in 1875. He changed his name in order to identify himself as Mexican. Atl worked to promote
Mexico's folk art and handcrafts. While he had some success as a painter in Guadalajara, his radical ideas against academia and the government prompted him to move to more liberal Mexico City. In 1910, months before the start of the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
, Atl painted the first modern mural in Mexico. He taught major artists to follow him, including those who came to dominate Mexican mural painting.
The muralist movement reached its height in the 1930s with four main protagonists:
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
,
David Alfaro Siqueiros
David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...
,
José Clemente Orozco
José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Sique ...
, and Fernando Leal. It is the most studied part of Mexico's art history.
All were artists trained in classical European techniques and many of their early works are imitations of then-fashionable European paintings styles, some of which were adapted to Mexican themes.
The political situation in Mexico from the 1920s to 1950s and the influence of Dr. Atl prompted these artists to break with European traditions, using bold indigenous images, much color, and depictions of human activity, especially of the masses, in contrast to the solemn and detached art of Europe.
Preferred mediums generally excluded traditional canvases and church porticos and instead were the large, then-undecorated walls of Mexico's government buildings. The main goal in many of these paintings was the glorification of Mexico's pre-Hispanic past as a definition of Mexican identity.
They had success in both Mexico and the United States, which brought them fame and wealth as well as Mexican and American students.
![The_Kid_-_Diego_Rivera](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/The_Kid_-_Diego_Rivera.jpg)
These muralists revived the fresco technique for their mural work, although Siqueiros moved to industrial techniques and materials such as the application of
pyroxilin, a commercial enamel used for airplanes and automobiles.
One of Rivera's earliest mural efforts emblazoned the courtyard of the Ministry of Education with a series of dancing tehuanas (natives of
Tehuantepec
Tehuantepec (, in full, Santo Domingo Tehuantepec) is a city and municipality in the southeast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is part of the Tehuantepec District in the west of the Istmo Region. The area was important in pre Hispanic peri ...
in southern Mexico). This four-year project went on to incorporate other contemporary indigenous themes, and it eventually encompassed 124 frescoes that extended three stories high and two city blocks long.
The
Abelardo Rodriguez Market was painted in 1933 by students of Diego Rivera, one of whom was
Isamu Noguchi
was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several ...
.
[Paz, 1987 p. 16.]
![Maize Rivera](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Maize_Rivera.jpg)
Another important figure of this time period was
Frida Kahlo
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, ...
, the wife of Diego Rivera. While she painted canvases instead of murals, she is still considered part of the Mexican Modernist School as her work emphasized Mexican folk culture and colors.
Kahlo's self-portraits during the 1930s and 40s were in stark contrast to the lavish murals artists like her husband were creating at the time. Having suffered a crippling bus accident earlier in her teenage life, she began to challenge Mexico's obsession with the female body. Her portraits, purposefully small, addressed a wide range of topics not being addressed by the mainstream art world at the time. These included motherhood, domestic violence, and male egoism.
Her paintings never had subjects wearing lavish jewelry or fancy clothes like those found in muralist paintings. Instead, she would sparsely dress herself up, and when there were accessories, it added that much more importance to them. She would also depict herself in very surreal, unsettling scenarios like in ''
The Two Fridas
''The Two Fridas'' (''Las dos Fridas'' in Spanish) is an oil painting by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The painting was the first large-scale work done by Kahlo and is considered one of her most notable paintings. It is a double self-portrait, de ...
'' where she depicts two versions of herself, one with a broken heart and one with a healthy infusing the broken heart with "hopeful" blood., or Henry Ford Hospital where she depicts herself in having an abortion and the struggle she had in real life coming to terms with it.
Although she was the wife of Diego Rivera, her self-portraits stayed rather obscured from the public eye until well after her passing in 1954. Her art has grown in popularity and she is seen by many to be one of the earliest and most influential feminist artists of the 20th century.
Gallery
File:Hidalgo de José Clemente Orozco.JPG, José Clemente Orozco
José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Sique ...
, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla
Don (honorific), Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla y Gallaga Mandarte Villaseñor (8 May 1753 – 30 July 1811), more commonly known as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla or Miguel Hidalgo (), was a Catholic priest, leader ...
, Jalisco Governmental Palace, Guadalajara
File:LaTrincheraOrozcoSICDF.JPG, José Clemente Orozco
José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Sique ...
, ''The Trench'' San Ildefonso College
Colegio de San Ildefonso, currently is a museum and cultural center in Mexico City, considered to be the birthplace of the Mexican muralism movement. San Ildefonso began as a prestigious Jesuit boarding school, and after the Reform War it gai ...
, Mexico City
File:Murales Rivera - Markt in Tlatelolco 3.jpg, Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
''Tenochtitlan'', Palacio Nacional, Mexico City.
File:RiveraMuralNationalPalace.jpg, Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
Mural in the main stairwell of the National Palace
File:Mural David Alfaro Siqueiros en el Tecpan Tlatelolco.jpg, David Alfaro Siqueiros
David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...
, Mural at Tecpan
File:EagleSnakeMexicoCharlotSICDF.JPG, Jean Charlot
Louis Henri Jean Charlot (February 8, 1898 – March 20, 1979) was a French people, French-born United States, American Painting, painter and illustrator, active mainly in Mexico and the United States.
Life
Charlot was born in Paris. His father, ...
, Eagle and snake, San Ildefonso College
Colegio de San Ildefonso, currently is a museum and cultural center in Mexico City, considered to be the birthplace of the Mexican muralism movement. San Ildefonso began as a prestigious Jesuit boarding school, and after the Reform War it gai ...
File:Mural_-_nopal.jpg, Part of the mural Presencia de América Latina
''Presencia de América Latina'' (''Presence of Latin America''), also known as ''Integración de América Latina'' (''Integration of Latin America'') is a mural painted by Mexican artist Jorge González Camarena between November 1964 and April 196 ...
by Jorge González Camarena
Jorge González Camarena (24 March 1908 – 24 May 1980) was a Mexican painter, muralist and sculptor. He is best known for his mural work, as part of the Mexican muralism movement, although his work is distinct from the main names associat ...
Other Artistic Expressions 1920–1950
![HoyTamayoBADF](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/HoyTamayoBADF.JPG)
The first to break with the nationalistic and political tone of the muralist movement was
Rufino Tamayo
Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico.Sullivan, 170-171Ades, 357 Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, ...
. For this reason he was first appreciated outside of Mexico.
[Paz, 1987 pp. 24-25.] Tamayo was a contemporary to Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco, and trained at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes. Like them he explored Mexican identity in his work after the Mexican Revolution. However, he rejected the political Social Realism popularized by the three other artists and was rejected by the new establishment.
He left for New York in 1926 where success allowed him to exhibit in his native Mexico. His lack of support for the post-Revolutionary government was controversial. Because of this he mostly remained in New York, continuing with his success there and later in Europe. His rivalry with the main three Mexican muralists continued both in Mexico and internationally through the 1950s. Even a belated honorific of "The Fourth Great Ones" was controversial.
Despite maintaining an active national art scene, Mexican artists after the muralist period had a difficult time breaking into the international art market. One reason for this is that in the Americas, Mexico City was replaced by New York as the center of the art community, especially for patronage.
[Paz, 1987 p. 25.] Within Mexico, government sponsorship of art in the 20th century (dominated until 2000 by the PRI party) meant religious themes and criticism of the government were effectively censored. This was mostly passive, with the government giving grants to artists who conformed to their requirements.
In the 1940s,
Wolfgang Paalen
Wolfgang Robert Paalen (July 22, 1905 in Vienna, Austria – September 24, 1959 in Taxco, Mexico) was an Austrian-Mexican painter, sculptor, and art philosopher. A member of the Abstraction-Création group from 1934 to 1935, he joined the infl ...
published the extremely influential ''
DYN'' magazine in Mexico City, which focused on a transitional movement between surrealism to abstract expressionism.
Fumiko Nakashima
is a Japanese artist who lives in Mexico. She began exhibiting works in various galleries in Japan but has since settled in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City. Her interest in Mexico came when she was seventeen, visiting the country tw ...
a Japanese artist lives in Mexico, primarily working on surrealist pieces in watercolor.
In 1953,
Museo Experimental El Eco (in Mexico City) opened; it was created by
Mathias Goeritz
Werner Mathias Goeritz Brunner (4 April 1915, Danzig, German Empire – 4 August 1990, Mexico City) was a Mexican painter and sculptor of German people, German origin. After spending much of the 1940s in North Africa and Spain, he and his wife, ...
.
The Rupture Movement
![Murayl y tempusfugit](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Murayl_y_tempusfugit.jpg)
The first major movement after the muralists was the
Rupture Movement, which began in the 1950s and 1960s with painters such as
José Luis Cuevas
José Luis Cuevas (February 26, 1934 – July 3, 2017) was a Mexican artist, he often worked as a painter, writer, draftsman, engraver, illustrator, and printmaker. Cuevas was one of the first to challenge the then dominant Mexican muralism ...
, Gilberto Navarro,
Rafael Coronel
Rafael Coronel (24 October 1932 – 7 May 2019) was a Mexican painter. He was the son-in-law of Diego Rivera.
His representational paintings have a melancholic sobriety, and include faces from the past great masters, often floating in a diffuse ...
, Alfredo Casaneda, and sculptor
Juan Soriano. They rejected social realism and nationalism and incorporated surrealism, visual paradoxes, and elements of Old World painting styles.
This break meant that later Mexican artists were generally not influenced by muralism or by Mexican folk art.
José Luis Cuevas created self-portraits in which he reconstructed scenes from famous paintings by Spanish artists such as
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...
,
Francisco de Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...
, and
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
. Like Kahlo before him, he drew himself but instead of being centered, his image is often to the side, as an observer. The goal was to emphasize the transformation of received visual culture.
Another important figure during this time period was Swiss-Mexican
Gunther Gerzso Gunther Gerzso (June 17, 1915 – April 21, 2000) was a Mexican painter, designer and director and screenwriter for film and theatre.
Biography
Gerzso was born in Mexico City, in the times of the Revolution. His parents were Oscar Gerzso ( hu, ...
, but his work was a "hard-edged variant" of Abstract Expressionism, based on clearly defined geometric forms as well as colors, with an effect that makes them look like low relief. His work was a mix of European abstraction and Latin American influences, including Mesoamerican ones.
In the
watercolor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
field we can distinguish
Edgardo Coghlan Edgardo Coghlan (1928 – September 28, 1995), was a Mexican painter who mostly specialized in watercolors depicting Mexican landscapes and people. His work became very popular during his lifetime, collected by museums, other institutions and Mexic ...
and
Ignacio Barrios
Ignacio Barrios (March 10, 1930 – January 22, 2013) was a Mexican painter mostly known for his absolute commitment to watercolour painting. He earned the reputation of one of the top watercolour painters in his country of originGarcía Barrag ...
who were not aligned to a specific artistic movement but were not less important.
The Olympics in Mexico City (1968) and later
"Designed by
Mathias Goeritz
Werner Mathias Goeritz Brunner (4 April 1915, Danzig, German Empire – 4 August 1990, Mexico City) was a Mexican painter and sculptor of German people, German origin. After spending much of the 1940s in North Africa and Spain, he and his wife, ...
, a series of sculptures ...
inedthe "Route of Friendship" (
Ruta de la Amistad
Ruta de la Amistad (English: Friendship Route) is a sculpture corridor in Mexico City located along the southern section of the Anillo Periférico highway. The route was inaugurated in 1968 as part of 1968 Summer Olympics, that year Summer Olympics ...
) in celebration of the Olympics ... In contestation to the government-sanctioned artistic exhibition for the Olympics, a group of diverse, independent visual artists organize a counterpresentation entitled ''
Salón Independiente'', or ''Independent Salon''; the exhibition signifies a key event in the resistance by artists of state-controlled cultural policies. This show of antigovernment efforts by artists would also be expressed in a mural in support of student movement's protests; the work became known as the ''Mural Efímero'' (or ''Ephemeral Mural'')" at
UNAM
The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...
".
The third Independent Salon was staged in 1970. In 1976 "
Fernando Gamboa
Fernando Andrés Gamboa (born 28 October 1970 in Marcos Juárez, Córdoba) is an Argentine football manager and former player who played as a defender.
Playing career
Gamboa started his playing career in 1988 with Newell's Old Boys where h ...
spearheads the organization of an exposition of abstract art entitled ''El Geometrismo Mexicano Una Tendencia Actual''".
"In an attempt to reassess ... post-1968 Mexican art, the Museum of Science and Art at UNAM" organized in 2007, the exhibition ''La Era de la Discrepancia. Arte y cultura visual en México 1968-1997''
In 1990 the exhibition ''Mexico: Esplendor de Treinta Siglos'', started its world tour at
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in New York.
Neo-expressionism
![JCuevasSiamesas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/JCuevasSiamesas.jpg)
From the 1960s to the 1980s
Neo-expressionist
Neo-expressionism is a style of late modernist or early- postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called '' Transavantgarde'', ''Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wilden'' ('The new wild ones'; 'N ...
art was represented in Mexico by
Manuel Felguerez, Teresa Cito, Alejandro Pinatado, and
Jan Hendrix
Jan Hendrix (born 1949) is a Dutch people, Dutch-born artist who has lived and worked in Mexico since 1978. Hendrix received the Order of the Aztec Eagle from the Government of Mexico, Mexican government for his work in art and architecture.
Life ...
.
Swiss-German artist,
Mathias Goeritz
Werner Mathias Goeritz Brunner (4 April 1915, Danzig, German Empire – 4 August 1990, Mexico City) was a Mexican painter and sculptor of German people, German origin. After spending much of the 1940s in North Africa and Spain, he and his wife, ...
, in the 1950s created public sculptures including the ''Torres Satélite'' in
Ciudad Satélite
Ciudad Satélite (), commonly known as Satélite, is a Greater Mexico City upper middle class suburban area located in Naucalpan, State of Mexico. Officially, the name corresponds exclusively to the homonym neighborhood, Ciudad Satélite, found ...
. In the 1960s, he became central to the development of abstract and other modern art along with
José Luis Cuevas
José Luis Cuevas (February 26, 1934 – July 3, 2017) was a Mexican artist, he often worked as a painter, writer, draftsman, engraver, illustrator, and printmaker. Cuevas was one of the first to challenge the then dominant Mexican muralism ...
and
Pedro Friedeberg
Pedro Friedeberg (born January 11, 1936) is a Mexican artist and designer known for his surrealist work filled with lines colors and ancient and religious symbols. His best known piece is the “Hand-Chair” a sculpture/chair designed for people ...
.
Neomexicanismo
In the mid-1980s, the next major movement in Mexico was Neomexicanismo, a slightly surreal, somewhat kitsch and postmodern version of Social Realism that focused on popular culture rather than history.
The name ''neomexicanismo'' was originally used by critics to belittle the movement. Works were not necessarily murals: they used other mediums such as collage and often parodied and allegorized cultural icons, mass media, religion, and other aspects of Mexican culture. This generation of artists were interested in traditional Mexican values and exploring their roots—often questioning or subverting them. Another common theme was Mexican culture vis-à-vis globalization.
Postmodern
Art from the 1990s to the present is roughly categorized as Postmodern, although this term has been used to describe works created before the 1990s. Major artists associated with this label include
Betsabeé Romero,
Monica Castillo,
Francisco Larios,
Martha Chapa and Diego Toledo.
File:La_Paloma_de_Soriano.jpg, Jalisco artist Juan Soriano sculpture
File:Tribute to Wirikuta, Betsabeé Romero.jpg, ''Tribute to Wirikuta'' by Betsabeé Romero
Image:MauricioAntionio01.JPG, Mexican artist Mauricio García Vega
Mauricio García Vega (born December 21, 1944) is a Mexican painter whose work has been recognized by various awards and membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana. His work is mostly focus on urban landscapes often with dark themes and ...
at his workshop in Nezahualcoyotl Nezahualcoyotl may refer to:
* Nezahualcoyotl (tlatoani), the ruler of Texcoco
* Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, a city in the State of Mexico
* Nezahualcóyotl metro station, in Mexico City
* The Nezahualcóyotl Award, a literary prize in Mexico
* Nezah ...
File:Wholeness by Sandra Pani.jpg, ''Wholeness'' by Sandra Pani
The success of Mexican artists is demonstrated by their inclusion in galleries in New York, London, and
Zurich.
[Gallo, 2004 p. 10.]
Art collections and galleries
*In 1974 Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (MACG), a gallery and museum, opened.
*
Museo Tamayo de Arte Contemporáneo
Museo Rufino Tamayo is a public contemporary art museum located in Mexico City's Chapultepec Park, that produces contemporary art exhibitions, using its collection of modern and contemporary art, as well as artworks from the collection of its fo ...
opened in Mexico City in 1981. The
National Museum of Art (MUNAL) opened in 1982.
*In 1994, the foundation behind
Colección Jumex
Colección Jumex is a private art collection owned by Eugenio López Alonso. It includes around 2,800 works by Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Gabriel Orozco, Cy Twombly, Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Andreas Gursky, Darren Almond, Tacita Dean, Olafur ...
and its collection of contemporary art, was established; it's located in the industrial outskirts of Mexico City.
*
Kurimanzutto—a private gallery was founded in 1999.
[Gallo, 2004 p. 11.]
*In 1994 the
Olmedo Museum was opened to the public.
*In 1996 the
Gelman collection was donated to
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
(in New York); part of the Gelmans' collection is on display in the
Muros Museum in
Cuernavaca
Cuernavaca (; nci-IPA, Cuauhnāhuac, kʷawˈnaːwak "near the woods", ) is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. The city is located around a 90-minute drive south of Mexico City using the Federal Highway 95D.
The na ...
.
*
Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo
The Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo ("University Museum of Contemporary Art"), also known as MUAC, is a large contemporary art museum located within the main campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). It opened in Nove ...
(MUAC) opened in 2008.
*Private art exhibition is concentrated to major urban centers, in particular
Monterrey
Monterrey ( , ) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, and the third largest city in Mexico behind Guadalajara and Mexico City. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the city is anchor ...
,
Nuevo Léon,
Guadalajara
Guadalajara ( , ) is a metropolis in western Mexico and the capital of the list of states of Mexico, state of Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population of 1,385,629 people, making it the 7th largest city by population in Me ...
,
Oaxaca City
Oaxaca de Juárez (), also Oaxaca City or simply Oaxaca (Valley Zapotec languages, Zapotec: ''Ndua''), is the capital and largest city of the eponymous Administrative divisions of Mexico, Mexican state Oaxaca. It is the municipal seat for the surr ...
and
Puebla
Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...
.
Art criticism
Octavio Mercado said in 2012 that the activity of art criticism still can be found in specialized magazines and nationally disseminated newspapers; furthermore, a new generation of art critics include
Daniela Wolf,
Ana Elena Mallet,
Gabriella Gómez-Mont, and
Pablo Helguera
Pablo Helguera (born April 25, 1971, Mexico City) is an artist, performer, author, and educator. From 2007 to 2020 he was Director of Adult and Academic Programs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He currently is an Assistant Professor ...
.
(Prior to that, claims were made in 2004, that a deficit of native writing about Mexican art, symbolism, and trends, resulted in modern Mexican art shown abroad having been mislabeled or poorly described, as foreign institutions do not sufficiently understand or appreciate the political and social circumstances behind the pieces.
[Gallo, 2004 p. 13.])
20th century Mexican artists
Most prominent painters with international reputations
*
José Clemente Orozco
José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Sique ...
*
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
*
David Alfaro Siqueiros
David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...
*
Rufino Tamayo
Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico.Sullivan, 170-171Ades, 357 Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, ...
*
Frida Kahlo
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, ...
Others of note
![Exposición el Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Exposici%C3%B3n_el_Antiguo_Colegio_de_San_Ildefonso.JPG)
*
Raul Anguiano, harmonic geometry, muralist and printmaker.
*
Gustavo Arias Murueta
*
Ignacio Barrios
Ignacio Barrios (March 10, 1930 – January 22, 2013) was a Mexican painter mostly known for his absolute commitment to watercolour painting. He earned the reputation of one of the top watercolour painters in his country of originGarcía Barrag ...
, watercolorist.
*
Federico Cantú Federico (; ) is a given name and surname. It is a form of Frederick, most commonly found in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.
People with the given name Federico
Artists
* Federico Ágreda, Venezuelan composer and DJ.
* Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, ...
, muralist, printmaker and sculptor.
*
Leonora Carrington
Mary Leonora Carrington (6 April 191725 May 2011) was a British-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the surrealist movement of ...
, painter and novelist of English origin.
*
Mario Orozco Rivera Mario Orozco Rivera (January 19, 1930 – November 20, 1998) was a Mexican muralist and painter, a later proponent of Mexican muralism, and whose work was particularly influenced by David Alfaro Siqueiros. He created a number of murals, mostly in t ...
, muralist and easel.
*
Joaquín Clausell, oil,
Impressionist
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
.
*
Miguel Condé
Miguel Condé (born 1939) is a Mexican figurative painter, draughtsman, and print maker. According to ''Radio France'', he is "one of the most important contemporary masters in the field of engraving." Condé's works are in important museum ...
, painter, draftsman and figurative recorder.
*
Vladimir Cora, painter and sculptor, oil, acrylic and enamel.
*
Pedro Coronel
Pedro Coronel (b. Jerez, Zacatecas March 25, 1922- d. Mexico City May 23, 1985) was a Mexican sculptor and painter, part of the Generación de la Ruptura, bringing innovation into Mexican art in the mid 20th century. Coronel’s training was wit ...
, painter, sculptor, draftsman and engraver abstract.
*
Rafael Coronel
Rafael Coronel (24 October 1932 – 7 May 2019) was a Mexican painter. He was the son-in-law of Diego Rivera.
His representational paintings have a melancholic sobriety, and include faces from the past great masters, often floating in a diffuse ...
oil, melancholy painting.
*
Miguel Covarrubias
Miguel Covarrubias, also known as José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud (22 November 1904 — 4 February 1957) was a Mexican painter, caricaturist, illustrator, ethnologist and art historian. Along with his American colleague Matthew W. Stirling, ...
,
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
cartoon.
*
José Luis Cuevas
José Luis Cuevas (February 26, 1934 – July 3, 2017) was a Mexican artist, he often worked as a painter, writer, draftsman, engraver, illustrator, and printmaker. Cuevas was one of the first to challenge the then dominant Mexican muralism ...
, painter, sculptor.
*
Gunther Gerzso Gunther Gerzso (June 17, 1915 – April 21, 2000) was a Mexican painter, designer and director and screenwriter for film and theatre.
Biography
Gerzso was born in Mexico City, in the times of the Revolution. His parents were Oscar Gerzso ( hu, ...
, oil, pioneer of Mexican (Abstract Surrealism
Expressionism
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
).
*
Francisco Goitia
Francisco Bollaín y Goitia García (4 October 1882 – 26 March 1960) was a Mexican artist. Goitia was a reclusive and complicated man, whose life and work was heavily influenced by the Mexican Revolution. He was of the Mexican muralism genera ...
, oil
*
Jorge González Camarena
Jorge González Camarena (24 March 1908 – 24 May 1980) was a Mexican painter, muralist and sculptor. He is best known for his mural work, as part of the Mexican muralism movement, although his work is distinct from the main names associat ...
, painter, sculptor and muralist.
*
Saturnino drawing, oil painting, frieze at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico city.
*
María Izquierdo, oil painting, surreal, muralist, first Mexican painter to exhibit in the US.
*
Gerardo Murillo
Gerardo Murillo Cornado, also known by his signature "Dr. Atl", (October 3, 1875 – August 15, 1964) was a Mexican painter and writer. He was actively involved in the Mexican Revolution in the Constitutionalist faction led by Venustiano Carra ...
'' Dr. Atl,'' Oil, (pioneer of "mural" in Mexico).
Casino de la Selva
The Hotel Casino de la Selva (Jungle Casino Hotel) was a hotel and casino located in the city of Cuernavaca, Mexico.
The main building was opened in 1931 as a hotel and casino, but from 1934 it was used only as a hotel.
Additions in the late 1950 ...
* Gilberto Aceves Navarro, painter, muralist, professor.
* Leonardo Nierman, painter and sculptor.
* Luis Nishizawa, artist (various techniques).
* Juan O'Gorman, mural (murals at UNAM, Mexico).
* Pablo O'Higgins, American-Mexican (SEP murals and the National School of Agriculture at Chapingo) muralist.
* Rodrigo R. Pimentel painter.
*
José Guadalupe Posada
José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar (2 February 1852 – 20 January 1913) was a Mexican political lithographer who used relief printing to produce popular illustrations. His work has influenced numerous Latin American artists and cartoonists becaus ...
, engraving.
* Alfredo Ramos Martínez, painter and muralist.
* Verónica Ruiz de Velasco, neofigurative painter and muralist.
*
Juan Soriano "The Mozart of Mexican painting."
* Francisco Toledo, painter, sculptor and ceramist.
* Remedios Varo, surrealist painter.
* Alfredo Zalce, muralist, printmaker and sculptor.
*
Roberto Montenegro
Roberto Montenegro Nervo (February 19, 1885 in Guadalajara – October 13, 1968 in Mexico City) was a painter, muralist and illustrator, who was one of the first to be involved in the Mexican muralism movement after the Mexican Revolution. His m ...
.
* Desiderio Hernández Xochitiotzin Tlaxcala muralist painter.
File:Joaquín Clausell - Canal de Xochimilco.jpg, Canal de Xochimilco. Joaquín Clausell
File:Francisco Goitia - Zacatecas Landscape with Hanged Men II - Google Art Project.jpg, Francisco Goitia
Francisco Bollaín y Goitia García (4 October 1882 – 26 March 1960) was a Mexican artist. Goitia was a reclusive and complicated man, whose life and work was heavily influenced by the Mexican Revolution. He was of the Mexican muralism genera ...
's "Zacatecas Landscape with Hanged Men II", circa 1914, oil on canvas, 194 × 109.7 cm. Museo Nacional de Arte
The Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL) ( en, National Museum of Art) is the Mexico, Mexican national art museum, located in the Centro (Mexico City), historical center of Mexico City. The museum is housed in a neoclassical building at No. 8 Tacuba, C ...
File:Alfredo Ramos Martínez - Portrait of Belinda Palavicini - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Portrait of Belinda Palavicini''. 1915. Pastel on paper. 187 × 87 cm. Museo Nacional de Arte
The Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL) ( en, National Museum of Art) is the Mexico, Mexican national art museum, located in the Centro (Mexico City), historical center of Mexico City. The museum is housed in a neoclassical building at No. 8 Tacuba, C ...
by Alfredo Ramos Martínez
File:Cosmogonía.jpg, By Gustavo Arias Murueta, "Cosmogonía"
Image:Chivo.jpg, "Chivo" (Goat)
File:ENAP37.JPG, Mural en Cerámica II at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas.
21st century
![Mexican Street Artist](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Mexican_Street_Artist.jpg)
Just like many other parts in the world, Mexico has adopted some modern techniques like with the existence of street artists depicting popular paintings from Mexico throughout history or original content.
Modern Mexican visual artists
![013Sor Juana](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/013Sor_Juana.jpg)
Some of painters in this century are:
* Eliseo Garza Aguilar, painter and performance artist. Considered among the leading exponents of provocative and thoughtful art of the Third Millennium. In search of a critical response from viewers, combines his paintings in the performances with the theatrical Acting, histrionics.
* Emanuel Espintla, painter and performer. Considered among the leading exponents of Mexican naive art and Fridamania.
* Pilar Goutas, a painter who uses oil on amate support, strongly influenced by Pollock and Chinese calligraphy.
* Torres Rafael Correa, he settled in Mexico in 2001 and joined the workshop of contemporary art, "The Moth" in Guadalajara (Mexico), Guadalajara, doing various art projects and scenographic. In Mexico works with painters, José Luis Malo, Rafael Sáenz, Edward Enhanced and sculptor Javier Malo. He participated in workshops recorded by the painter Margarita Pointelin. In 2003 he made a formation of Washi Zoo Kei with the Salvadoran master Addis Soriano.
* Enrique Pacheco, sculptor, painter, characterized by merge painting and sculpture with worldwide recognition.
* Pilar Pacheco Méndez, visual artist and sound.
* Daniel Lezama, visual artist. Works on all major formats oil. Born in 1968 to Mexican American parents.
* Roberto Cortazar, visual artist, painter.
* Margarita Orozco Pointelin
* Jazzamoart, visual artist, Guanajuato.
* Rafael Cauduro, painter, sculptor, muralist.
* Arturo Rivera, Painter.
* Germán Montalvo, Painter.
* Omar Rodriguez-Graham, Painter. Born in Mexico City in 1978.
* Vicente Rojo, Painter.
* Sebastian, painter, sculptor.
* Miguel Sanchez Lagrieta, Painter, visual artist.
* Gabriel Orozco, Painter, Sculptor Veracruz.
Popular arts and handcrafts
![Visión_de_un_mundo_místico](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Visi%C3%B3n_de_un_mundo_m%C3%ADstico.jpg)
Mexican handcrafts and folk art, called ''artesanía'' in Mexico, is a complex category of items made by hand or in small workshops for utilitarian, decorative, or other purposes. These include ceramics, wall hangings, certain types of paintings, and textiles.
Like the more formal arts, artesanía has both indigenous and European roots and is considered a valued part of Mexico's ethnic heritage.
This linking among the arts and cultural identity was most strongly forged by the country's political, intellectual, and artistic elite in the first half of the 20th century, after the Mexican Revolution.
Artists such as
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
,
Rufino Tamayo
Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico.Sullivan, 170-171Ades, 357 Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, ...
, and
Frida Kahlo
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, ...
used artesanía as inspiration for a number of their murals and other works.
Unlike the fine arts, artesanía is created by common people and those of indigenous heritage, who learn their craft through formal or informal apprenticeship.
The linking of artesanía and Mexican identity continues through television, movies, and tourism promotion.
![Posada2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Posada2.Catrina.jpeg)
Most of the artesanía produced in Mexico consists of ordinary things made for daily use. They are considered artistic because they contain decorative details or are painted in bright colors, or both.
The bold use of colors in crafts and other constructions extends back to pre-Hispanic times. These were joined by other colors introduced by European and Asian contact, always in bold tones.
Design motifs vary from purely indigenous to mostly European with other elements thrown in. Geometric designs connected to Mexico's pre-Hispanic past are prevalent, and items made by the country's remaining purely indigenous communities.
Motifs from nature are popular, possibly more so than geometric patterns in both pre-Hispanic and European designs. They are especially prevalent in wall-hangings and ceramics.
One of the best of Mexico's handcrafts is Talavera (pottery), Talavera pottery produced in
Puebla
Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...
.
It has a mix of Chinese, Arab, Spanish, and indigenous design influences.
The best known folk paintings are the ''ex-voto'' or ''retablo'' Votive paintings of Mexico, votive paintings. These are small commemorative paintings or other artwork created by a believer, honoring the intervention of a saint or other figure. The untrained style of ex-voto painting was appropriated during the mid-20th century by Kahlo, who believed they were the most authentic expression of Latin American art.
Cinema
![Francisco Villa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Francisco_Villa.gif)
Cinema in Mexico, Cinematography came to Mexico during the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
from the U.S. and France. It was initially used to document the battles of the war. Revolutionary general Pancho Villa himself starred in some silent films. In 2003, HBO broadcast ''And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself'', with Antonio Banderas as Villa; the film focuses on the making of the film ''The Life of General Villa''. Villa consciously used cinema to shape his public image.
The first sound film in Mexico was made in 1931, called ''Desde Santa''. The first Mexican film genre appeared between 1920 and 1940, called ''ranchero''.
Mexico has twice won the highest honor at the Cannes Film Festival, having won the ''Grand Prix du Festival International du Film'' for ''María Candelaria'' in 1946 and the Palme d'Or in 1961 for ''Viridiana'', more than any other Latin American nation.
While Golden Age of Mexican cinema, Mexico's Golden Age of Cinema is regarded as the 1940s and 1950s, two films from the mid to late 1930s, ''Allá en el Rancho Grande'' (1936) and ''Let's Go with Pancho Villa, Vámonos con Pancho Villa'' (1935), set the standard of this age thematically, aesthetically, and ideologically. These films featured archetypal star figures and symbols based on broad national mythologies. Some of the mythology according to Carlos Monsiváis, includes the participants in family melodramas, the masculine ''charros'' of ranchero films, femme fatales (often played by María Félix and Dolores del Río), the indigenous peoples of Emilio Fernández's films, and Cantinflas's ''peladito'' (urban miscreant).
Settings were often ranches, the battlefields of the Mexican Revolution, revolution, and cabarets. Movies about the Mexican Revolution focused on the initial overthrow of the
Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( or ; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 Decem ...
government rather than the fighting among the various factions afterwards. They also tended to focus on rural themes as "Mexican," even though the population was increasingly urban.
[Strayer, 2009 pp. 7-12.]
![Recorrido_en_la_Videoteca_Digital_'Carlos_Monsiváis'_11](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Recorrido_en_la_Videoteca_Digital_%27Carlos_Monsiv%C3%A1is%27_11.JPG)
Mexico had two advantages in filmmaking during this period. The first was a generation of talented actors and filmmakers. These included actors such as María Félix, Jorge Negrete, Pedro Armendáriz, Pedro Infante, Cantinflas, and directors such as Emilio Fernández, Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa. Many of these starts had success in the United States and at the Cannes Film Festival .
On the corner of La Brea Avenue, La Brea and Hollywood Boulevard, there is a sculpture of four women who represent the four pillars of the cinema industry, one of whom is Mexican actress Dolores del Río.
Gabriel Figueroa is known for black-and-white camerawork that is generally stark and expressionist, with simple but sophisticated camera movement.
The second advantage was that Mexico was not heavily involved in the Second World War, and therefore had a greater supply of celluloid for films, then also used for bombs.
In the 1930s, the government became interested in the industry in order to promote cultural and political values. Much of the production during the Golden Age was financed with a mix of public and private money, with the government eventually taking a larger role. In 1942 the Banco Cinematográfico financed almost all of the industry, coming under government control by 1947. This gave the government extensive censorship rights through deciding which projects to finance.
While the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) censored films in many ways in the 1940s and 1950s, it was not as repressive as other Spanish speaking countries, but it played a strong role in how Mexico's government and culture was portrayed.
The Golden Age ended in the late 1950s, with the 1960s dominated by poorly made imitations of Hollywood westerns and comedies. These films were increasingly shot outdoors and popular films featured stars from lucha libre. Art and experimental film production in Mexico has its roots in the same period, which began to bear fruit in the 1970s.
Director Paul Leduc (film director), Paul Leduc surfaced in the 1970s, specializing in films without dialogue. His first major success was with ''Reed: Insurgent Mexico'' (1971) followed by a biography of
Frida Kahlo
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, ...
called ''Frida'' (1984). He is the most consistently political of modern Mexican directors. In the 1990s, he filmed ''Latino Bar'' (1991) and ''Dollar Mambo'' (1993). His silent films generally have not had commercial success.
![Amores-perros-logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Amores-perros-logo.svg)
In the late 20th century the main proponent of Mexican art cinema was Arturo Ripstein, Arturo Ripstein Jr. His career began with a spaghetti Western-like film called ''Tiempo de morir'' in 1965 and who some consider the successor to Luis Buñuel who worked in Mexico in the 1940s. Some of his classic films include ''The Castle of Purity, El Castillo de la pureza'' (1973), ''The Place Without Limits, Lugar sin limites'' (1977) and ''The Queen of the Night, La reina de la noche'' (1994) exploring topics such as family ties and even homosexuality, dealing in cruelty, irony, and tragedy.
State censorship was relatively lax in the 1960s and early 1970s, but came back during the latter 1970s and 1980s, monopolizing production and distribution.
Another factor was that many Mexican film making facilities were taken over by Hollywood production companies in the 1980s, crowding out local production.
The quality of films was so diminished that for some of these years, Ariel Award, Mexico's Ariel film award was suspended for lack of qualifying candidates.
Popular filmmaking decreased but the art sector grew, sometimes producing works outside the view of censors such as Jorge Fons' 1989 film ''Rojo Amanecer'' on the Tlatelolco massacre, 1968 Tlatelolco massacre. The movie was banned by the government but received support in Mexico and abroad. The film was shown although not widely. It was the beginning of more editorial freedom for filmmakers in Mexico.
Starting in the 1990s, Mexican cinema began to make a comeback, mostly through co-production with foreign interests. One reason for international interest in Mexican cinema was the wild success of the 1992 film Like Water for Chocolate (film), ''Como Agua Para Chocolate'' (''Like Water for Chocolate'').
In 1993, this film was the largest grossing foreign language film in U.S. history and ran in a total of 34 countries.
Since then, Mexican film divided into two genres. Those for a more domestic audience tend to be more personal and more ambiguously political such as ''Pueblo de Madera'', ''La Vida Conjugal'', and ''Angel de fuego''. Those geared for international audiences have more stereotypical Mexican images and include ''Sólo con Tu Pareja'', ''Cronos (film), La Invencion de Cronos'' along with ''Como Agua para Chocolate''.
Mexico's newest generation of successful directors includes Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo del Toro, and Alfonso Cuarón known as "The Three Amigos of Cinema". Films by this directors include Cuarón's ''Gravity (2013 film), Gravity'', del Toro's ''The Shape of Water'' and Iñárritu's ''Birdman (film), Birdman''. Film professionals in the early 21st century tend to be at least bilingual (Spanish and English) and are better able to participate in the global market for films than their predecessors.
Photography in Mexico
![Maximilian and Charlotte](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Maximilian_and_Charlotte.jpg)
Photography came to Mexico in the form of daguerreotype about six months after its discovery, and it spread quickly. It was initially used for portraits of the wealthy (because of its high cost), and for shooting landscapes and pre-Hispanic ruins.
Another relatively common type of early photographic portraits were those of recently deceased children, called ''little angels,'' which persisted into the first half of the 20th century. This custom derived from a Catholic tradition of celebrating a dead child's immediate acceptance into heaven, bypassing purgatory. This photography replaced the practice of making drawings and other depictions of them as this was considered a "happy occasion."
Formal portraits were the most common form of commercial photography through the end of the 19th century.
![MetlacBridgeKahlo-2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/MetlacBridgeKahlo-2.jpg)
Modern photography in Mexico did not begin as an art form, but rather as documentation, associated with periodicals and government projects. It dates to the
Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( or ; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 Decem ...
period of rule, or the ''Porfiriato'', from the late 19th century to 1910.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 p. 7.] Porfirian-era photography was heavily inclined toward the presentation of the nation's modernization to the rest of the world, with Mexico City as its cultural showpiece. This image was European-based with some indigenous elements for distinction.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 p. 24.]
Stylized images of the indigenous during the Porfirato were principally done by Ybañez y Sora in the costumbrista painting style, which was popular outside of Mexico.
One of most important photographers of the
Porfiriato
, common_languages =
, religion =
, demonym =
, currency =
, leader1 = Porfirio Díaz
, leader2 = Juan Méndez
, leader3 = Porfirio Díaz
, leader4 ...
was Guillermo Kahlo, né Wilhelm.
Kahlo established his own studio in the first decade of the 1900s and was hired by businesses and the government to document architecture, interiors, landscapes, and factories.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 p. 35.] Another German-born photographer was Hugo Brehme, working at the same time as Kahlo. The two apparently did not get along, possibly since they were rivals for producing images of colonial-era buildings.
Kahlo's style reflected the narratives of the period, solely focusing on major constructions and events, and avoiding the common populace, rarely having people appear in his photos.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 p. 37.] It avoided subjects that hinted at the political instability of the country at the time, such as strike actions.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 p. 26.] One major Kahlo project was the Photographic Inventory of Spanish Colonial Church Architecture in Mexico (1910), which consisted of twenty-five albums sponsored by the federal government to document the remaining colonial architecture.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 p. 25.] Kahlo's photography was used to link Mexico's pre-Hispanic and colonial past in their architecture, to Mexico's current progress, as shown in his photos of industry and infrastructure.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 p. 34.]
![Zapatistas and Nacional de Mexico, No](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Zapatistas_and_Nacional_de_Mexico%2C_No._739_%285655532688%29.jpg)
Another pioneer of Mexican photography was Agustín Casasola, Agustín Victor Casasola. Like Kahlo, he began his career in the Porfirato, but his career was focused on photography for periodicals. Again like Kahlo, Casasola's work prior to the Mexican Revolution focused on non-controversial photographs, focusing on the lives of the elite. The outbreak of civil war caused Casasola's choice of subject to change. He began to focus not only on portraits of the main protagonists (such as Francisco Villa) and general battle scenes, but on executions and the dead. He focused on people whose faces showed such expressions as pain, kindness, and resignation.
His work during this time produced a large collection of photographs, many of which are familiar to Mexicans as they have been widely reprinted and reused, often without credit to Casasola. After the war, Casasola continued to photograph common people, especially migrants to Mexico City during the 1920s and 1930s. His total known archives comprise about half a million images with many of his works archived in the former monastery of San Francisco in Pachuca.
![Decena trágica](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Decena_Tr%C3%A1gica.jpg)
Kahlo and Casasola are considered the two most important photographers to develop the medium in Mexico, with Kahlo defining architectural photography and Casasolas establishing photojournalism. Neither man thought of himself as an artist—especially not Casasolas—who thought of himself as a historian in the Positivism, Positivist tradition, but the photography of both show attention to detail, lighting, and placement of subjects for emotional or dramatic effect.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 p. 9.][Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 pp. 18-25.]
For the rest of the 20th century, most photography was connected to documentation. However, artistic trends from both inside and outside the country had an effect. In the 1920s, the dominant photographic style was Pictorialism, in which images had a romantic or dream-like quality due to the use of filters and other techniques. American Edward Weston broke with this tradition, taking these effects away for more realistic and detailed images.
This caused a split in the photography world between Pictorialists and Realists both inside and outside of Mexico.
![Villa y zapata](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Villa_y_zapata.jpg)
Weston and his Italian assistant Tina Modotti were in Mexico from 1923 to 1926, allying themselves with Mexican Realist photographers Manuel Álvarez Bravo as well as muralists such as Gabriel Fernández Ledesma. These photographers' political and social aspirations matched those of the muralist movement and the new post-Revolution government.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 pp. 17-18.] Mariana Yampolsky, originally from the U.S., became an important photographer in Mexico. Photography and other arts shifted to depictions of the country's indigenous heritage and the glorification of the Mexican common people.
This was mainly to reject the elitist and heavily European values of the Porfiriato, along with the increasing cultural influence of the United States in favor of an "authentic" and distinct Mexican identity.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 pp. 9-10.] Another was the government's decision to use this imagery, rather than the still-fresh memories of the battles and atrocities of the Revolution to promote itself.
[Cuevas-Wolf, 1997 p. 27.]
![Modotti Frau in Tehuantepec](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Modotti_Frau_in_Tehuantepec.jpg)
Manuel Alvarez Bravo experimented with abstraction in his photography and formed his own personal style concerned with Mexican rites and customs. He was active from the 1920s until his death in the 1990s. Like other artists of the 20th century, he was concerned with balancing international artistic trends with the expression of Mexican culture and people. His photographic techniques were concerned with transforming the ordinary into the fantastic. From the end of the 1930s to the 1970s his photography developed along with new technologies such as color, using the same themes. In the 1970s, he experimented with female nudes.
These post-Revolution photographers influenced the generations after them, but the emphasis remained on documentary journalism, especially for newspapers. For this reason, the focus remained on social issues. This included work by Nacho López and Héctor García Cobos, Hector Garcia, best known for their photography of the Tlatelolco massacre, student uprising of 1968.
![Exèrcit_al_Zócalo-28_d'agost](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Ex%C3%A8rcit_al_Z%C3%B3calo-28_d%27agost.jpg)
During the 1970s, a fusion of various styles retained a social focus.
During the same period, institutions were established that dedicated themselves to the promotion of photography and conservation of photographs, such as the Centro de la Imagen, the Fototeca Nacional del INAH, and the publication ''Luna Córnea''.
Photography in Mexico from the latter 20th century on remains mostly focused on photojournalism and other kinds of documentary. Francisco Mata de Rosas is considered the most notable photographer in contemporary Mexico mostly working with documentaries. He has published a number of books including ''México Tenochtitlan'' and ''Tepito, Bravo el Barrio''. Eniac Martínez specializes in panoramas. Patricia Aridjis works with social themes, mostly to illustrate books. Gerardo Montiel Klint's work has been described as a "shadowing and dark world", focusing on the angst and violence of adolescents.
The most recent generation of photographers work with new and digital technologies. One of these is Javier Orozco who specializes in interiors.
However, purely artistic photography has had an impact. In 2002, a photographic exhibit by Daniela Rossell featured images of Mexican multimillionaires posing in their ostentatious homes, filled with expensive paintings, hunting trophies, crystal chandeliers, gold lamé wallpaper, and household help. The photographs set off a wave of social criticism as well as tabloid gossip.
[Gallo, 2004 p. 47.]
Gallery
File:Tunnel_and_bridge_of_railway_in_Vera_Cruz,_Mexico.jpg, Tunnel and bridge of the Infiernillo Cañon, on the Mexican railway, in the state of Vera Cruz.
File:Piedra del sol Porfirio Diaz.png, Porfirio Díaz
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ( or ; ; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915), known as Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general and politician who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 31 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 Decem ...
with the Piedra del Sol, photographer not known
File:Emiliano Zapata - LOC.jpg, General Emiliano Zapata, leader of revolutionaries in Morelos beginning in 1911 and ending in his assassination in 1919
File:David Alfaro Siqueiros (El Coronelazo).jpg, Siqueiros by Héctor García Cobo at Lecumberri prison, Mexico City, 1960.
File:Niño Soldado.jpg, Boy soldier during the Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
, Casasola Archive.[Photograph by Antonio Gomes Delgado ''El Negro'', Casasola Archive, Mexico]
File:Centro-fotografico-in-oaxaca-founded-by-toledo.jpg, Centro Fotográfico Álvarez Bravo at the Institute of Graphic Arts of Oaxaca.
File:0000-1938-DESFILE DEL 16 DE SEPTIEMBRE (2) (38866081012).jpg, Photo of the Independence Day parade (September 16) in Mexico City at the Museo Archivo de la Fotografía (Museum of the Photographic Archive).
File:UNAMBiblioteca1974.jpg, National Autonomous University of Mexico, National Autonomous University, Mexico City. View to Central Library 1974.
See also
*
* Latin American art
* List of Mexican artists
* List of Mexican women photographers
* Mexicana (website)
* Architecture of Mexico
* Index of Mexico-related articles
* African art
Further reading
General – Latin American art
* Dawn Adès, Ades, Dawn. ''Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820–1980''. New Haven: Yale University Press 1989.
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* Alcalá, Luisa Elena and Jonathan Brown. ''Painting in Latin America: 1550–1820''. New Haven: Yale University Press 2014.
* Anreus, Alejandro, Diana L. Linden, and Jonathan Weinberg, eds. ''The Social and the Real: Political Art of the 1930s in the Western Hemisphere''. University Park: Penn State University Press 2006.
* Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. ''Art of Colonial Latin America''. New York: Phaidon Press 2005.
* Barnitz, Jacqueline. ''Twentieth-Century Art of Latin America''. Austin: University of Texas Press 2001.
* Craven, David. ''Art and Revolution in Latin America, 1910–1990''. New Haven: Yale University Press 2002.
* Dean, Carolyn and Dana Leibsohn, "Hybridity and Its Discontents: Considering Visual Culture in Colonial Spanish America," ''Colonial Latin American Review'', vol. 12, No. 1, 2003.
*
* Donahue-Wallace, Kelly. ''Art and Architecture of Viceregal Latin America, 1521–1821''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2008.
*
* Frank, Patrick, ed. ''Readings in Latin American Modern Art''. New Haven: Yale University Press 2004.
* Goldman, Shifra M. ''Dimensions of the Americas: Art and Social Change in Latin America and the United States''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1994.
* ''Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century''. New York: MoMA 1992.
* ''Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States''. New York: Bronx Museum 1989.
* Ramírez, Mari Carmen and Héctor Olea, eds. ''Inverted Utopias: Avant Garde Art in Latin America''. New Haven: Yale University Press 2004.
* Reyes-Valerio, Constantino. ''Arte Indocristiano, Escultura y pintura del siglo XVI en México''. Mexico City: INAH Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes 2000.
* Sullivan, Edward. ''Latin American Art''. London: Phaidon Press, 2000.
* Turner, Jane, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Art''. New York: Grove's Dictionaries 2000.
General – Mexican art
* ''Artes de México'' (1953–present). Individual issues on particular topics.
* Museum of Modern Art, ''Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art''. New York: Museum of Modern Art 1940.
* Oles, James. ''Art and Architecture in Mexico''. London: Thames & Hudson 2013.
*
*
*
*
*
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* Vargas Lugo, Elisa. ''Estudio de pintura colonial hispanoamericana''. Mexico City: UNAM 1992.
* Zavala, Adriana. ''Becoming Modern, Becoming Tradition: Women, Gender and Representation in Mexican Art''. State College: Penn State University Press 2010.
Prehispanic art
*
* Klein, Cecilia. "Visual Arts: Mesoamerica". ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 1539–1552.
* Miller, Mary Ellen. ''The Art of Mesoamerica: From Olmecs to Aztecs''. London: Thames & Hudson 2012.
* Pasztory, Esther. ''Pre-Columbian Art''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
* Paxton, Merideth and Leticia Staines Cicero, eds. ''Constructing Power and Place in Mesoamerica: Pre-Hispanic Paintings from Three Regions''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2017.
* Townsend, Richard F. ''State and Cosmos in the Art of Tenochtitlan''. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archeology 20. Washington D.C., Dumbarton Oaks 1979.
Colonial-era art
* Armella de Aspe, Virginia and Mercedes Meade de Angula. ''A Pictorial Heritage of New Spain: Treasures of the Pinacoteca Virreinal''. Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex 1993.
* Burke, Marcus. ''Pintura y escultura en Nueva España: El barroco''. Mexico City: Azabache 1992.
* Burke, Marcus. ''Treasures of Mexican Colonial Painting''. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico 1998.
* Castello Yturbide, Teresa and Marita Martínez del Río de Redo. ''Biombos mexicanos''. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Historia e Antropología (INAH), 1970.
* Gruzinski, Serge. "Colonial Indian Maps in sixteenth-century Mexico". In ''Res'' 13 (Spring 1987)
* Hernández-Durán, Raymond. "Visual Arts: Seventeenth Century". ''Encyclopedia of Mexico'', Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, 1558–1568.
* Katzew, Ilona. ''Casta Paintings: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
* Katzew, Ilona, ed. ''Painted in Mexico, 1700-1790: Pinxit Mexici''. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art 2017.
* Kubler, George. ''Mexican Architecture of the Sixteenth Century''. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press 1948.
* Mundy, Barbara E. ''The Mapping of New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps of the Relaciones Geográficas''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1996.
* Peterson, Jeanette, ''The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco: Utopia and Empire in Sixteenth-Century Mexico''. Austin: University of Texas Press 1993.
* Pierce, Donna, ed. ''Exploring New World Imagery''. Denver: Denver Museum of Art 2005.
*
* Robertson, Donald. ''Mexican Manuscript Painting of the Early Colonial Period''. New Haven: Yale University Press 1959.
* Schreffler, Michael. "Visual Arts: Sixteenth Century." ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 1553–1558.
* Sebastián, Santiago. ''Iconografía e iconología del arte novohispano''. Mexico City: Azabache 1992.
* Toussaint, Manuel. ''Colonial Art in Mexico'', edited and translated by Elizabeth Wilder Weismann. Austin: University of Texas Press 1967.
* Tovar de Teresa, Guillermo. ''Pintura y escultura en Nueva España, 1557–1640''. Mexico City: Fundación Mexicana para la Educación Ambienttal and Radioprogramma de México 1992.
* Widdifield, Stacie G. "Visual Arts: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Academic Art." ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 1568–1576.
Nineteenth-century art
* Fernández, Justino. ''El arte del siglo XIX''. Mexico City: UNAM-IIE 1967.
* García Barragán, Elisa. ''El pintor Juan Cordero: Los días y las obras''. Mexico City: UNAM 1984.
* Moriuchi, Mey-Yen. ''Mexican Costumbrismo: Race, Society, and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Art''. University Park: Penn State University Press 2018.
* ''Pintores mexicanos del siglo XIX''. Mexico City: Museo de San Carlos. Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) 1985.
* Ramírez, Fausto. "Vertientes nacionalistas en el modernismo." In ''El nacionalismo y el arte mexicano''. Mexico City: UNAM 1986.
* Rodríguez Prampolini, Ida. ''La crítica de arte en el siglo XIX''. 3 vols. Mexico City: UNAM 1964.
* Rodríguez Prampolini, Ida. "La figura del indio en la pintura del siglo XIX, fondo ideológico," ''Arte, Sociedad e Ideología''. 3 (Oct-Nov. 1977).
* Romero de Terreros, Manuel. ''Catálogos de las Exposiciones de la Antigua Academia de San Carlos, 1850–1898''. Mexico City: UNAM-IIE 1963.
* Segre, Erica. ''Intersected Identities: Strategies of Visualization in Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century Mexican Culture''. New York and Oxford: Berhahn Books 2007.
* Uribe, Eloisa. ''Problemas de la producción escultórica en la ciudad de México, 1843–1847''. Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana 1984.
* Uribe, Eloisa, ed. ''Y todo ....por una nación, historia social de la producción plástica de la ciudad Mexicana, 1761–1910''. Mexico City: INAH-SEP 1987.
* Widdiefield, Stacie G. ''The Embodiment of the National in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexican Painting''. Tucson: University of Arizona Press 1996.
* Widdifield, Stacie G. "Visual Arts: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Academic Art." ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 1568–1576.
Modern art
* Alonso, Ana María. "Conforming Discomformity: 'Mestizaje, Hybridity, and the Aesthetics of Mexican Nationalism." ''Cultural Anthropology'' vol. 19, no. 4 (2004) 459-90.
* Billeter, Erika, ed. ''Images of Mexico: The Contribution of Mexico to 20th-Century Art''. Frankfurt: Shirn Kunsthall Frankfurt 1997.
* Coffey, Mary. ''How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture: Murals, Museums, and the Mexican State''. Durham: Duke University Press 2012.
* Elliott, Ingrid. "Visual Arts: 1910–37, The Revolutionary Tradition." ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 1576–1584.
* Emmerich, Luis Carlos. ''100 Pintores Mexicanos/100 Mexican Painters''. Monterrey: Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey 1993.
* Ferrer, Elizabeth. ''Through the Path of Echoes: Contemporary Art in Mexico''. New York: Independent Curators 1990.
* Flores, Tatiana. ''Mexico's Revolutionary Avant-Gardes: From Estridentismo to ¡30-30!''. New Haven: Yale University Press 2013.
* Folgarait, Leonard. ''Mural Painting and Social Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998.
*
* García Ponce, Juan. ''Nueve Pintores Mexicanos''. Mexico City: Era 1968,
* Gilbert, Courtney. "Visual Arts: 1920–45, Art Outside the Revolutionary Tradition." ''Encyclopedia or Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 1584–1590.
* Good, Carl and John V. Waldron, eds. ''The Effects of the Nation: Mexican Art in an Age of Globalization''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press 2001.
* Hurlburt, Laurance P. ''The Mexican Muralists in the United States''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press
* Indych-López, Anna. ''Muralism Without Walls: Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros in the United States, 1927–1940''. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press 2009.
* Ittman, John, ed. ''Mexico and Modern Printmaking, A Revolution in the Graphic Arts, 1920 to 1950''. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art 2006.
* Oles, James, ed. ''South of the Border, Mexico in the American Imagination, 1914–1947''. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery 1993.
* Picard, Charmaine. "Visual Arts: 1945-96." ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 1590–1594.
* Rodríguez, Antonio. ''A History of Mexican Mural Painting''. London: Thames & Hudson 1969.
* Segre, Erica. ''Intersected Identities: Strategies of Visualization in Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century Mexican Culture''. New York and Oxford: Berhahn Books 2007.
* Sullivan, Edward. ''Aspects of Contemporary Mexican Painting''. New York: The Americas Society 1990.
Photography
* Bartra, Eli. "Women and Portraiture in Mexico". In "Mexican Photography." Special Issue, ''History of Photography'' 20, no. 3 (1996)220-25.
* Cabrera Luna, Claudia, Mayra Mendoza Avilés, Friedhelm Schimdt-Welle, and Arnold Spitta, eds. ''Hugo Brehme y la Revolución Mexicana/Und die Mexikanische Revolution''. Mexico City and Germany: DAAD, INAH, and SINAFO 2009.
* Casanova, Rosa and Adriana Konzevik. ''Mexico: A Photographic History: A Selective Catalogue of the Fototeca Nacional of the INAH''. Mexico City: INAH/RM 2007.
* Casasola, Gustavo. ''Historia gráfica de la Revolución Mexicana''. 4 volumes. Mexico City: Trillas 1960.
*
* Debroise, Olivier. ''Mexican Suite: A History of Photography in Mexico''. Translated by Stella de Sá Rego. Austin: University of Texas Press 2001.
* Ferrer, Elizabeth. ''A Shadow Born of Earth: Mexican Photography''. New York: Universe Publishing 1993.
* Figarella, Mariana. ''Edward Weston y Tina Modotti en México. Su inserción dentro de las estrategias estéticas del arte posrevolucionario''. Mexico City: UNAM 2002.
* Folgarait, Leonard. ''Seeing Mexico Photographed: The work of Horne, Casasola, Modotti, and Álvarez Bravo''. New Haven: Yale University Press 2008.
*Frost, Susan Toomey. ''Timeless Mexico: The Photographs of Hugo Brehme''. Austin: University of Texas Press 2011.
* Lerner, Jesse. ''The Shock of Modernity: Crime Photography in Mexico City''. Madrid: Turner 2007.
* John Mraz, Mraz, John. "Photography". ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 1085–1090.
* Mraz, John. ''Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity''. Durham: Duke University Press 2009.
* Mraz, John. ''Photographing the Mexican Revolution: Commitments, Testimonies, Icons''. Austin: University of Texas Press 2012.
* Oles, James, ed. ''Lola Alvarez Bravo and the Photography of an Era''. Mexico City: RM 2012.
* Ortiz Monasterio, Pablo. ''Mexico: The Revolution and Beyond: Photographs by Agustín Victor Casasola, 1900–1940''. New York: Aperture 2003.
* ''Tierra y Libertad! Photographs of Mexico 1900–1935 from the Casasola Archive''. Oxford: Museum of Modern Art 1985.
* Yampolsky, Mariana. ''The Edge of Time: Photographs of Mexico''. Austin: University of Texas Press 1998.
* Ziff, Trisha, ed. ''Between Worlds: Contemporary Mexican Photography''. New York: Impressions 1990.
Cinema
* de los Reyes, Aurelio. "Motion Pictures: 1896-1930." ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 957–964.
* Fein, Seth. "Motion Pictures: 1930-60". ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 964–970.
* Mistron, Deborah. "The Role of Pancho Villa in the Mexican and American Cinema." ''Studies in Latin American Popular Culture'' 2:1-13 (1983).
* Mora, Carl J. ''The Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896–1988''. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1989.
* Mora, Carl J. "Motion Pictures: 1960-96." ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pp. 970–972.
* Noriega, Chon A. and Steven Ricci, eds. ''The Mexican Cinema Project''. Los Angeles: UCLA Film and Television Archives 1994.
* Pick, Zuzana M. ''Constructing the Image of the Mexican Revolution: Cinema and the Archive''. Austin: University of Texas Press 2010.
* Ramírez Berg. Charles. ''Cinema of Solitude: A Critical Study of Mexican Film, 1967–1983''. Austin: University of Texas Press 1992.
*
Popular arts and artisanry
* López, Rick. ''Crafting Mexico: Intellectuals, Artisans, and the State after the Revolution''. Durham: Duke University Press 2010.
* McQuade, Margaret Connors. ''Talavera Poblana: Four Centuries of a Mexican Ceramic Tradition''. New York 1999.
References
External links
Viceroyal art of the New Spain periodNational Museum of ViceroyaltyThe Pinacoteca Profesa
* [http://www.alberto-peralta.com/objetariocdmex/invisible_mil_ventanas.html Una Ciudad Invisible II. La Casa de las Mil Ventanas] a study of Joaquín Clausell
The Mexican Muralist Movement
Viviane Bigot.
Gunther Gerzso: Defining Mexican Abstraccionism
Academy of San CarlosNew Spanish art in Soumaya museumCollection: "Arts of Mexico"from the University of Michigan Museum of Art
{{Authority control
Mexican art,
Art by country, Mexico
Western art
Latin American art
Mexican culture
Cultural history of Mexico
Mexican Baroque,