Mexican art, term for the art in what is now Mexico.
19th century
After independence from Spain in 1810, numerous European artists traveled to Mexico to depict geography, people, everyday life, architecture and archaeological sites, including. Claudio Linati (* 1790, † 1832) from Italy, who introduced lithography, Frédéric Waldeck (* 1766, † 1875) from France, Daniel Thomas Egerton (* 1800, † 1842) from Great Britain and J. M. Rugendas from Germany. With their drawings, watercolors and paintings, which were often used as lithographs, they created an awareness of the uniqueness and beauty of the country and stimulated local art. The classicist painter Pelegrín Clavé (* 1810, † 1880) from Spain, the v. a. as a portraitist and with historical pictures (e.g. “La demencia de Isabel de Portugal”, German “The madness of Isabel of Portugal”, 1855; Mexico City, Museo de San Carlos), was an influential academy teacher. His students mostly took on religious topics, e.g. B. Rafael Flores (* 1832, † 1889), José Salomé Pina (* 1830, † 1909) and Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez (* 1824, † 1904), who with »La Amazona de los Andes« (»The Amazon of the Andes«, around 1891; Mexico City, Museo Nacional de Arte) created the only academic nudes of the 19th century. Other artists preferred history painting, some of them dealt with themes from national history: Santiago Rebull (* 1829, † 1902) painted “La muerte de Marat” (“The Death of Marat”, 1875; private property), José María Obregón (* 1832, † 1902) “El descubrimiento del pulque” (“The discovery of agave brandy”, 1869; Mexico City, Museo Nacional de Arte) and Rodrigo Gutiérrez (* 1848, † 1903) “El Senado de Tlaxcala” (“The Senate of Tlaxcala”, 1875; Mexico City, ibid). Next to Clavé, the most important Mexican painter of the 19th century Juan Cordero (* 1824, † 1884) designed v. a. religious mural. Landscape painting was introduced by the Italian Eugenio Landesio (* 1810, † 1879). It had its peak in José María Velasco (* 1840, † 1912), which in panoramic views v. a. represented the high valley of Mexico, and in Gerardo Murillo (* 1875, † 1964), called Dr. Atl, with pictures of the volcanoes. Outside the capital, mostly autodidactic painters worked in the 19th century. as portraitist Hermenegildo Bustos (* 1832, † 1907) in Guanajuato and José María Estrada (* 1811, † around 1862) in Guadalajara and as still life painter José Agustín Arrieta (* 1802, † 1879) in Puebla.
The sculpture was influenced by the Spanish academy teacher Manuel Vilar (* 1812, † 1860). Among his students were Felipe Sojo (* 1833, † 1869) and others. with a bust of Emperor Maximilian (1865; Mexico City, Museo Nacional de Historia) and Miguel Noreña (* 1843, † 1894) and others. with a statue of the Aztec ruler Cuauhtémoc (1887; Mexico City, Paseo de la Reforma). With Manuel Ocaranza (* 1841, † 1882), Félix Parra (* 1845, † 1919) and Leandro Izaguirre (* 1867, † 1941) late romantic-realistic movements found their way into painting, with Joaquín Clausell (* 1866, † 1935) impressionism. Julio Ruelas (* 1870, † 1907), employee of the magazine “Revista Moderna”, was the most important symbolist, similar to Jesús Fructuoso Contreras (* 1886, † 1902) in sculpture.
Politics and everyday life determined the graphics of the 19th century, which were mostly used as caricatures (Gabriel Vicente Gahona, * 1828, † 1899, called Picheta; Constantino Escalante, * 1836, † 1868). In the work of J. G. Posada a national identity developed in form and content. In addition to occasional graphics, he created v. a. satirical illustrations for the daily press and leaflets. Of Saturnino Herrán (* 1887, † 1918) the design for the mural “Nuestros Dioses” comes (“Our gods”, 1914-18, not executed), the first attempt at a synthesis of the cultural roots of Mexico. According to simplyyellowpages, Mexico is a country in North America.
Modern and present
The revolution from 1910 to 1920 fundamentally changed art life. The muralism promoted by the new state for decades, supplemented by so-called open-air painting schools and cultural missions, also reached broad sections of the population in the countryside. The “three greats” of wall painting, J. C. Orozco, D. Rivera and D. A. Siqueiros, depicted the history of their country from a critical-utopian perspective. In the early 1930s, they also received commissions from the USA. Other important representatives of this medium were J. O’Gorman, Pablo O’Higgins (* 1904, † 1983), Alfredo Zalce (* 1908, † 2003), José Chávez Morado (* 1909, † 2002) and Raúl Anguiano (* 1915, † 2006). The anti-fascist Taller de Gráfica Popular (workshop for folk graphics), founded in 1937, followed the tradition of Posada, Käthe Kollwitz and F. Masereel v. a. with wood and linocuts for the struggle for social rights. In addition to O’Higgins, Zalce, Chávez Morado and Anguiano, he included: Leopoldo Méndez (* 1902, † 1969), Luis Arenal (* 1909, † 1985), Angel Bracho (* 1911, † 2005), Elizabeth Catlett (* 1915, † 2012), Mariana Yampolsky (* 1917, † 2002), Arturo García Bustos (* 1926, † 2017). The figurative, magical-realistic panel painting possessed with Francisco Goitia (* 1882, † 1960), Jesús Guerrero Galván (* 1882, † 1977), Antonio Ruiz (* 1895, † 1964), called El Corzo, Carlos Orozco Romero (* 1896, † 1984), Julio Castellanos (* 1905, † 1947), María Izquierdo (* 1906, † 1995) and Frida Kahlo are their main representatives. The latter not only achieved the highest international recognition for her self-portraits. Surrealism found v. a. Spread by exiles: Wolfgang Paalen (* 1905, † 1959) from Austria, Remedios Varo Uranga (* 1908, † 1963) from Spain and Leonora Carrington (* 1917, † 2011) from Great Britain.
In sculpture, Ignacio Asúnsolo (* 1890, † 1965), Guillermo Ruiz (* 1894, † 1965), Luis Ortiz Monasterio (* 1906, † 1990) and Francisco Zúñiga (* 1912, † 1998) from Costa Rica v. a. figurative-realistic tendencies, only Germán Cueto (* 1893, † 1975)worked in the cubist-abstract tradition. The indigenism represented inter alia. Rómulo Rozo (* 1899, † 1964). The German exile M. Goeritz showed himself to be an innovator with architectural work; similar geometric-abstract works were created by Helen Escobedo (* 1934, † 2010) and Enrique Sebastián Carbajal González (* 1947), known as Sebastián. Neofigurative tendencies can be found in Adolfo Riestra (* 1944, † 1989) and Germán Venegas (* 1959).
In painting, Carlos Mérida (* 1891, † 1984) from Guatemala and R. Tamayo marked the transition to the »Generación de la Ruptura« (»Generation of the Rupture«) of the 1950s and 60s, which with Gunther Gerzso (* 1915, † 2000), Pedro Coronel (* 1923, † 1985), Manuel Felguérez (* 1928, † 2020), Alberto Gironella (* 1929, † 1999), Lilia Carrillo (* 1930, † 1974), Vicente Rojo (* 1932, † 2021), Fernando García Ponce (* 1933, † 1987), the draftsman J. L. Cuevas and Francisco Toledo (* 1940, † 2019)opposed abstraction and new forms of figuration to the previously ruling Mexican school. After the political-conceptual tendencies of the 1970s, which mostly appeared in groups (including Proceso Pentágono; Suma; Tetraedo), the ironic-postmodern »Neomexicanismo« came to the fore in the following decade (Nahúm Bernabé Zenil, * 1947; Alejandro Colunga, * 1948; Dulce María Núñez, * 1950; Rocio Maldonado, * 1951; Julio Galán, * 1958, † 2006; Enrique Guzmán, * 1952, † 1986). The work of the brothers Alberto Castro Leñero (* 1951) and Miguel Castro Leñero (* 1956) is more neo-expressive.
Installation, video art and performance, which were practiced early on by Marcos Kurtycz (* 1934, † 1996) and Felipe Ehrenberg (* 1943, † 2017), have been the focus of many artists’ works that are critical of their time and society since the 1990s, e.g. B. with Francis Alÿs (* 1959) from Belgium, Silvia Gruner (* 1959), Gabriel Orozco (* 1962), Teresa Margolles (* 1963), Santiago Sierra (* 1966) from Spain, Abraham Cruzvillegas (* 1968) and Gustavo Artigas (* 1970).
