Art of mexico

The following periodization of Mexican art is accepted:

• Dokolumbova America (1500 BC - the beginning of the XVI century.)
• Colonial era (early 16th century - 1821)
• The art of modern times (from 1821 to the present).

The indicated periodization is rather approximate due to the constant replenishment of materials in the world of science. The main stages of the pre-Columbian period are partly taken according to archaeological finds and attempts to decipher the writing of the Mayan peoples in the 20th century.

Pre-Columbian art of Mexico belongs to the region known as Mesoamerica , which roughly corresponds to the current central Mexico and Central America , ^[2] and covers the time from three thousand years BC. e. up to 1500 n e.

Forms of art such as cave art date from earlier dates. Mexican art begins with the Mesoamerican art of sedentary cultures whose representatives built settlements.

Unlike modern Western art, almost all Mesoamerican art was created to serve religious or political needs, and not art for the sake of art. Such needs for art are largely dependent on the nature of the people around them, political reality and faith.

The art of Mesoamerica has come down to us on different media. These are ceramics, paper, wood and architectural structures. Ceramics originates from the need to prepare and store food, gradually it adapted for ritual and decorative purposes. Ceramic products were decorated with ornaments and drawings, different methods of firing products were used ^[3] .

The earliest ceramics found were small ceramic figures that were made in Teuacan around 1500 BC. e., in Veracruz , in the valley of Mexico City, Guerrero , Oaxaca , Chiapas and on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. Pottery was made in the form of female figures, which was probably associated with fertility rites. Women in figures have bulky hips, often with babies in their arms or breast-feeding babies. In male figures, warriors are more often depicted ^[4] . At the beginning of Olmec culture, most of the ceramic figures were small ^{[5] [6]} .

Olmec Culture

See also: Olmecs

The main examples of Olmec culture were found in the states of Tabasco (La Venta) and Veracruz (Tres Zapotes, Cerro de Las Mesas, San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan). Olmec culture is considered the oldest among those found in the pre-Columbian era. Olmecs mastered hieroglyphic writing, mathematics and the calendar. Olmec culture also belongs to the oldest, recorded, written date found in America - 21 years BC. e.

Olmec culture includes the largest stone sculptures of the pre-Columbian era. The Olmecs carved monolithic altars, whose weight reached 30 tons or more. Nowadays, stone heads with magnificent Native American faces are also achievements of the Olmec culture. The largest of the heads has a diameter of more than three meters and weighs eighteen tons. Pottery, household items and sacred items made of bones, wood, jasper, quartz, rock crystal, jade testify to the considerable skill and ingenuity of Olmec craftsmen. Most researchers take into account the influence of the Olmec culture on neighboring peoples and consider the Olmec culture to be the progenitor of the Zapotec, Teotihuacan, and Mayan cultures ^[7] .

Teotihuacan culture

Teotihuacan culture is considered unusually developed among the diversity of Native American cultures on the Central Plateau. Teotihuacan was associated with the culture of the city of Cuikuilco, destroyed by a volcanic eruption ^[8] . The majority of researchers attribute the first heyday of the Teotihuacan culture to the migration of Kuikuilko residents who survived and left in the Teotihuacan Valley. This valley was convenient enough to establish a new settlement there. There is little information about the Teotihuacan culture, scientists consider it to be a “pyramid civilization” ^[9] . The name Teotihuacan itself is translated as "a place where people turn into gods." Conditionally Teotihuacan culture is also divided into four periods. The emergence of politotemism in the region ^{[9] is} associated with this culture, and the then social order was called theocracy.

The art of Teotihuacan developed in two opposite directions. The first developed in the direction of simplification and frank conciseness; the second was overly complex and magnificent with in-depth and embossed details giving a play of chiaroscuro. The first period did not leave significant architectural structures, his art was schematized. Famous examples of Teotihuacan architecture are associated with the second period. A further period is associated with the flourishing of all varieties of art. Among the sculptures of the Teotihuacan culture, huge stone figures and funerary masks with an open mouth stand out. The architecture was remarkable for its monumentality and emphasized severity of silhouette. The facades of the buildings were covered with colored mosaics made of natural stones, which softened the austere appearance of the sacred structures. The capital, the city of Teotihuacan, for a long time maintained the status of the sacred. The cultural influence of Teotihuacan culture is confirmed by archaeological finds in Sinaloa, Guerrero, Sonora, Michoacan, on the Gulf of Mexico in Panuco, Oaxaca and modern Guatemala.

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  Wall painting

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  The Great Goddess Teotihuacan (mural)

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  Mask

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  Monolith sculpture

Toltec Culture

See also: Toltecs

In the field of culture, the Toltecs followed the traditions of Teotihuacan and Shochikalko . Their culture influenced the formation of the Aztecs .

The surviving architectural monuments and sculptures of the Toltecs are characterized by monumentality and severe grandeur. So the step pyramid in Tula de Allende was decorated with reliefs (warriors, eagles, jaguars), and the roof of the temple above was supported by four colossal, 4.6 meters high, massive stone figures of warriors. In the art of the Toltecs, the main topics were military; figures of a reclining god with a bowl for sacrifices are also common ^[10] .

Totonakov Culture

See also: Totonaki

Archaeological remains of this culture are found in the central part of the modern state of Veracruz . Formally, it belongs to the coastal cultures that developed in the 7th-12th centuries AD. e. The culture of the Totonaks was influenced by the cultures of the Olmecs, Teotihuacan and Maya. The idea of ​​the architecture of the Totonaks is given by the destroyed remains of the pyramid of Los Nichos in El Tahina. Among the achievements of Totonak sculpture are the so-called “Yugos” and “Palmas” (Spanish names). These items were important for the sacred ball game. The game was of a ritual character and symbolized the magical rotation of the earth and the sun in its fight against darkness, a rubber ball personified the sun.

The stone “Palmas” had a shape similar to palm leaves, but with a profile image of people or gods. They can be viewed from both sides. From black volcanic stone and onyx, Totonak artisans made pots in the form of tropical fruits or animals. Against the background of severe and rather cruel images of the Indian gods, the “smiling masks” of the Totonaks and the joyful figures of the gods of music, dance, flowers, poetry are unusual. The Sapotek god Shochipilli (which Totonaki recognized) is an example of contentment and joy against the background of other strict Native American gods ^[7] .

The main theme of the art of Veracruz culture was human sacrifice, in particular, after playing the ball. A characteristic element of art is the spiral curls found on monumental architecture and on small products, including ceramics and bone carvings.

To date, archaeologists have discovered thousands of ceramic figures and ceramic fragments of this culture. Most of them are found in archaeological sites such as Remojadas , Los Serros, Dieca Tuerta and Tenenespan . Figures were made manually in the style of Remojadas and decorated with patchwork.

Aztec Culture

See also: Aztecs

The history of the Aztecs, as well as the history of their art, is interpreted as an alternation of ups and downs. The Aztecs initially called themselves "Mesiks" by the name of the tribal leader Meshitla, and then they were called "Tenochki". The name "Aztecs" comes from the name Astlan, an island in the middle of a large lake, which the people considered their ancestral home.

The "Aztec empires," as the Spanish conquerors called their state, never existed. An empire is a conglomeration of foreign lands and peoples alien in culture and language, united for a certain period by military coercion and aggression under the chairmanship of a people-lord, a people-conqueror. The Aztecs did not create an empire, although they constantly fought, but not for the seizure of foreign lands and tribes, but for the sake of capturing new people for sacrifices and taxing residents of new settlements. The Aztecs were never in a hurry to assimilate the captured peoples, who had a kind of autonomy, their own gods and their own language. In the captured settlement, the Aztecs left a military garrison to observe and collect taxes every six months, to suppress uprisings and riots.

Aztec ceramics quite fully clarify the evolution of styles from the period of nomadism to the period of settled life in the Valley of Mexico. There are four periods in this evolution:

• Kuluakan - realistic zoomorphic figures with floral patterns;
• Tenayuke - ceramics with geometric patterns;
• Meander - ceramics with parallel tapes, created by clumsy tools;
• Texcoco - ceramics with parallel tapes, but made diligently and carefully.

The Aztec sculpture quite fully reflected the magical world of their religion. The master sculptors transferred magical power and courageous heroics to these images. The figures either preserve the forms of the monoliths from which the gods were carved, or are oversaturated with relief signs that remind the Europeans of surreal compositions. Each sculpture was a conglomeration of realistic details and a series of symbolic images.

Aztec architecture was large, massive in appearance. The main building materials were Tesontle volcanic stone, raw brick, wood and limestone mortar. The walls of the buildings were covered with plaster and painted in red or white. The roofs on the sides of the courtyards were flat and outwardly inclined. The palaces had jagged architectural walls. Columns, cornices, decorative friezes, various steps with fences were known here. There were no wooden doors familiar to the Spaniards; instead, curtains were used instead. The architectural structures of the Aztecs are few. All of them were destroyed by the Spaniards, partially dismantled for construction materials and covered with layers of earth and garbage. Catholic ruins, monasteries and churches were built on the ruins of the former Aztec pyramids. The ruined pyramid of Cholula ^[11] , the Great Temple (in Mexico City), Teshkutsingo, Teopansolko, Tenayuke, Teposteko in Morelos, Kalistlauaca, Malinalco and others ^[12] are excavated. When creating underground metro lines in Mexico City, several foundations of former temples and broken monolithic sculptures were found, including a stone with the image of the moon goddess.

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  Drawings from the Codex Maljabekki ^[13] . Healing

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  Death of the leader

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  Title festival, in which "the Indians honored the memory of the dead"

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  Sacrifice

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  Page from the Codex Mendoza

Aztec literature accidentally turned out to be an exception in the tragic fate of the destroyed writings of the Indians. Scientists have practically nothing left of Mayan literature and other peoples, the texts were burned by the Spaniards. Everything else, hidden by the Indians from the invaders of Spain and left unattended, was destroyed by tropical nature and insects. The Aztecs created their own literature and took advantage of its achievements. Scientists know a number of Aztec lyrics and hymns miraculously reached the 20th century ^[14] . The Aztec codes ( the Borgia Code, the Boturini Code , the Bourbon Code, the Code of Waitius, etc.), which are handwritten pictographic books, have been preserved. Most of the currently known codes were created after the start of the conquest.

From the Aztec manuscript books, one can draw various information about culture and history, the political system and government, the structure of society, religious rites and mythology, astronomical and cosmological representations, economic and everyday life, the calendar system, etc. This makes the books an invaluable source for archaeologists, ethnographers and linguists. In the colonial era, even the petitions of the indigenous population to the authorities and the king of Spain were often drawn up in pictographic writing in ancient traditions.

A worthy occupation of an Aztec warrior in peacetime was poetry. So far, a small number of poetic works have been collected during the time of the Conquista. The names of some authors are known, for example, Nesaualkoyotl (ast. Nezahualcóyotl) and Kuakuatsin (ast. Cuacuatzin). Miguel Leon-Portilla was a translator from Nahuatl.

The most common theme of the surviving verses is “life - reality or dream?” And the opportunity to meet with the Creator. The largest collection of poems was compiled by Juan Bautista de Pomar. This collection has been translated into Spanish by the teacher of Leon Portilla.

The Aztecs loved drama. But the Aztec version of this art form is hardly a theater. His genres included - performances with music and acrobatic performances.

Mayan Architecture

See also: Maya

Examples of Mayan architecture include:

• Venues for religious ceremonies were usually built of limestone up to 4 meters high. Most of them were decorated on the sides with relief images of figures. Some scholars believe that the severed heads of defeated enemies were exhibited here, as well as the head of the team that lost the ball game.
• The palaces were usually large buildings with rich decoration and were closer to the city center. Most often, the palaces were one-story with a courtyard, decoration and decoration according to the status of the owner of the house. Architectural complexes usually consisted of a main structure in the form of a step pyramid, which was always located in the western part of the platform or square. There is a theory that these complexes were actually observatories, since the observation of the sun in the pyramids was always surprisingly accurate during the winter and summer solstices.
• Pyramids and temples were often the most important buildings located on the highest place in the city. Their location (closer to heaven) is explained by the religious functions that they played. Recent studies indicate that some pyramids were used as burial sites, but they never had graves. Some temples were at the top of the pyramids and were grand buildings. Often on the tops of the temples sculptural images of leaders were installed, which could be observed even from a long distance over the jungle vegetation. In one of the recently discovered caves, archaeologists found a paved road 90 meters long, which ends at the column, standing on the shore of a reservoir.
• Observatories. The Mayans had a fairly deep knowledge of astronomy. Many of their structures were in accordance with the location of celestial bodies known to them.
• Ball pitches were an integral part of the Mayan civilization. This game was distributed not only among the Mayans, but throughout Mesoamerica. Playgrounds are found almost everywhere, where the Mayans lived. Some of these structures have stairs to ceremonial platforms or small pyramids on both sides. There were religious sacrifices at the end of the games.

Ancient Mayan pottery

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  Ceramic bottle, Maya, VI-VIII century. AD

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  Mayan Dish, Cocoa History Museum, Bruges, Belgium

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  Double pot with lids and shapes. Height 30 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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  Big figure of a young leader, (Maya, Veracruz), Art Institute of Chicago , USA

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  Vessel with a cover, Maya, early classic period between 400 and 500 AD Kembal Art Museum, Texas

Masks of Indigenous Peoples

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  Mask of the leader Pakal (copy, original in the capital), found in Palenque, Museum of Mesoamerican Jade

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  Monte Alban Zapotec mask, copy. Mesoamerican Jade Museum

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  Teotihuacan culture jade mask. Museum of Mesoamerican Jade. San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico

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  Mask from Tikal. Museum of Mesoamerican Jade. San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico

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  Olmec jade products, copies. Museum of Mesoamerican Jade. San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico

The fate of archaeological sites of the Pre-Columbian era

For a long time, the fate of the archaeological sites of the Pre-Columbian era was either tragic or uncertain. Thus, the adventurous explorer of the Mayan cities of Maya, John Lloyd Stephens (1805-1852), brought to New York a large collection of Mayan artifacts (vases from the excavations in Tikal and Ueuetenango, stone sculptures, terracotta products from Santa Cruz del Quiche, carved wooden beams from the temples of Uxmal and Kabakh). Along with the panorama of the artist Frederick Catherwood, the art treasures of the Indians were shown to the New Yorkers in a wooden pavilion. But the pavilion burned down, the flame destroyed all the exhibits.

However, the destruction of gold and silver jewelry brought to Western Europe from America began much earlier. Thus, most of the gold products received by the Spanish conquistadors from Montezuma (which the Spaniards themselves estimated at 600,000 pesos), was transferred to standard bullion. Among the Spaniards there were people who considered it undesirable to destroy everything, because things were too beautiful. The diplomatic gifts of gold and silver received by the Spaniards at the beginning of their adventure in Veracruz were exported to Spain as a gift to Emperor Charles V. The ship transported jewelry to the South Netherlands. Charles V, who spent a lot of money on salaries for soldiers to crush rebellions in his own empire, ordered all gold and silver to be smelted. A real river flowed through the Spanish Empire with American gold and silver, but these flows destroyed the country's economy and caused a significant increase in prices, and then made Spain weaker. The resulting gold and silver were spent on luxury goods and were not invested either in production or in the development of Spanish industry. The country slowed down in development by almost 300 years, while Russia, Holland, Sweden, France, Great Britain, which became the main ones in European politics, collapsed industrially ^[15] .

For years, finds of Mexican archaeological sites have been plundered or settled in private and public collections in the USA and Canada, in cities of Western Europe. Many Mexican artifacts settled in the British Museum ( London ), at the University of Leiden ( Netherlands ), in Antwerp ( Belgium ) and others. International trade in archaeological finds crossed political borders and oceans and reached even Australia.

Criminal groups of black archaeologists, equipped with helicopters, have been raiding raids on the destroyed Indian cities for years, where stone bas-reliefs and steles were cut into pieces with special chisels and electric saws for the convenience of transportation and sale.

More fortunate were the archaeological artifacts, the weight and size of which interfered with their transportation, and the artifacts found and transferred to state museums (giant Olmec stone heads, the Stone of the Sun - a disk with a diameter of 3.5 meters and weighing 24.5 tons, “The Leader’s Stone” with scenes of his victories, 2.5 meters in diameter, “Mother of the Gods” Coatlicue, Stone of Koyolshauki, moon goddess, etc.).

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  A fragment of a jade relief with a plot. British Museum, London

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  Stone bust of the god Quetzalcoatl, London, British Museum

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  Stela B in Copan

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  “Mother of the Gods” Coatlicue, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City

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  Stone Koyolshauki, goddess of the moon

The tragic history of the clash of two civilizations (Spanish Catholic and Mayan) was reflected both in the destruction of the human resources of the Mayans and the Aztecs, and in the targeted destruction of the objects of art of these peoples. According to incomplete estimates, the Spanish conquerors exterminated about 70 million Indians during the conquest (the war of aggression in America).

The Catholic counter-reformation policy , widespread both in Europe and then America, prompted the Spanish Catholics to almost completely destroy the literary sources of the captured and extermination of the people. That is why the descendants have so few documentary sources on paper.

After large-scale battles in America, the majority of Spanish illiterate warriors massively destroyed Native American codes. Spanish Catholic priests convinced the warriors of demonology and heretical books. Warriors received permission for the uncontrolled extermination of all Mayan or Aztec books. Thus, information about a significant death of the Aztec codes during the destruction of the city of Tenochtitlan in 1521 was preserved. The Mayan manuscripts suffered the same thing.

Mexican Baroque

See also: Mexican Baroque

In the art of Mexico, no artistic system (academism, realism, classicism, abstractionism , surrealism ) appeared in finished forms ^[16] . This concerns baroque and, above all, baroque architecture.

The formation of the Baroque style in Italy began in the middle of the 16th century. In the art of Mexico in the 16th century there was a mixture of styles artificially introduced by the conquerors, which consisted of provincial versions of the Spanish Renaissance, mannerism and later examples of the Spanish Middle Ages. This mixture became the source of the formation of the local version of Baroque. Classical examples of baroque architecture, known for the construction of Jesuit missions in Brazil and Italian models, did not take root in Mexico, although Jesuits, the main carriers of sacred Baroque style, arrived here at that time. Mexican Baroque gradually switched to the construction of original versions of cornices, columns, luxurious ornaments. Widespread here are the so-called "natural" - conical versions of columns and pilasters, set narrow part down ^[17] . Mexican architecture has taken the path of decorations in interiors, which splashed onto the main western facades of sacred structures, which was called "ultra baroque." Among the majestic temples of the colonial era in the local Baroque style: cathedrals in the states of Oaxaca, Chihuahua, Morelia, Sasatecas The huge cathedral in Mexico City was built and decorated for several decades, which is why it became the embodiment of several style stages of local architecture.

Famous examples of local baroque include the Church of San Domingo, the Church of Regina and the Metropolitan Sagrerio in Mexico City, the chapel del Rosario of the San Domingo Temple in Puebla , built in 1690 ^[17] . Gilded altars became a striking example of local baroque, among which there is a real masterpiece - a gilded altar from a former Jesuit monastery in the city of Tepotsotlan . The architectural niche with the sculpture of the Virgin in the monastery of Tepotsotlan had no analogues either in the art of Spain itself or in the local art. Sculpture, a provincial portrait genre, wood carvings, plaster products, costumes of the Creole elite and the like were also drawn into the whirlpool of the local baroque. Elements of Native American cosmography and details, known since the pre-Columbian era, made their way into the ornamentation of sacred Catholic structures. It is difficult to name another country on the American continent where the Baroque style was so widespread and would give similar examples of grandeur and original solutions.

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  Church and Monastery of Santiago de Queretaro, Mexico City

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  Baroque Church of St. Francis, Mexico City. Main facade

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  Aguascalientes Cathedral, Mexico City

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  Holy Trinity on the facade of the church of La Santisima, Mexico

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  Oaxaca Cathedral, West Facade, Mexico City

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  Gilded decor. Church and Monastery of Santiago de Queretaro, Mexico City

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  Cathedral of San Luis de Potosi, Mexico City

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  Mission de Landa de Matamoros

Baroque Altars of Catholic Churches of Mexico

Altars in the Catholic churches of Mexico were made using wood carvings, followed by gilding.

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  Chapel of the perfect word, altar.

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  Church of San Bartolo (next to the Tenauca pyramid).

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  Wood Carving in Chihuahua Cathedral

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  Church of Santo Domingo, altar.

Baroque painting of Mexico

Baroque painting in Mexico did not have the favorable conditions for development, as Mexican architecture. Therefore, her achievements are modest, she developed in the style of Spanish painting, which is why she quickly lost the freshness of her decisions and was largely provincialized. As in Spain, religious painting was used in Mexico to decorate Catholic churches, and a portrait was distributed among secular genres. Originals from Francisco de Zurbaran or Murillo were occasionally brought to Mexico. Local artists were mostly introduced to copies of paintings from the workshops of third-row artists. Nevertheless, the general level of painting in Mexico was slightly higher compared to the provincialism of other Latin American art centers. Here, creativity of Creole artists is usually distinguished, among which in the 17th century were Alonso Lope de Herrera (1579–1648) and Balthasar Echave Ibia (1632–1682), an anatomical master of landscape painting.

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  The Evangelist Luke. Church of St. Apostle Bartholomew, Zelaya, Guanajuato

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  "Christmas". Church of Virgin del Carmen, Zelaya, Guanajuato.

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  The Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception, an anonym of the 18th century

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  18th century mural in the church of Atotonilko

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  Religious painting. Sanctuary in Atotonilco

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  Hood. Josep Antonio de Ayala. “Madonna of Loreto and the noble family of Valle”

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  Hood. Miguel Cabrera Manuel Jose Rubio and Salines, Archbishop of Mexico

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  Hood. Cristobal de Villalpando. “The Betrothal of St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary”

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  Hood. Cristobal de Villalpando. "Annunciation"

In the 17th century, Mexican religious painting felt the influence of Spanish painting (works by Zurbaran and Murillo), Flanders painting (reproduction prints of Peter Paul Rubens workshop were brought here). In the second half of the 17th century, the artist Cristobal de Villalpando (1645-1714) stood out for his mastery. It was he who commissioned large paintings for decorating the cathedral in Mexico City, where the influence of the Flemish Baroque and the ecstasy of the compositions of the Spaniard Valdez Leal (1622–1690) is noticeable.

Mexican Baroque portraiture was widely used in Mexico. However, it is difficult to evaluate by European standards of the portrait genre. These were naive, flat, semi-professional, very colorful images of people. In the countries of Western Europe they painted like that in the 15th century. The low professionalism and lack of skill of the master were compensated by the accurate reproduction of fancy costumes, unusual jewelry and hairstyles with fresh tropical flowers on rich women in shapeless clothes. The pompous Spanish and Creole gentlemen, children, their descendants, noble ladies from wealthy families in strange clothes convey to the audience the local flavor and originality of the colonial culture that developed in the territories captured from the Indians.

Baroque stylistics borrowed from mannerism and retained a craving for the unusual, exotic, strange and ugly (portrait of a baby born without both hands). So horse portraits appeared, where the noble horseman realistically painted only the face and hands, and the torso and the horse itself were presented with a calligraphic, transparent lace pattern, nonexistent in reality (portrait of the Duke de Galves on horseback, XVIII century, canvas, oil).

In general, Mexican Baroque painting retained a conservative character and isolation from the Mexican reality, whose problems were not reflected in it. Among the first religious aliens in Mexico were twelve Franciscan monks. They were greeted by Cortes himself. The fact of the arrival of the first twelve monks of the Franciscans was reflected in the early murals. In the monastery of Michael the Archangel (Uehotsingo) this real event was translated into a schematic, legendary version and was not perceived as historically close. Other portrayals of the Franciscan salute by Cortes resemble faint costumed paintings from the era of academism, although artists made efforts to reproduce this event.

Conservative Mexican Baroque for almost three centuries maintained its position in the culture of Mexico. Only in this does it stand comparison with the art of Baroque Italy, which also stretched for almost three centuries. But a comparison of the achievements of Baroque painting in Italy and Mexico in no genre is not in favor of painting in Mexico.

The end of the Mexican Baroque era fell on the difficult years of the formation of local neoclassicism and Mexico's state independence. The cold, temperate, unemotional in its forms, doom to repetition stylistics of late classicism broke with the lush and emotional nature of baroque. The Creole elite, which linked the decisive changes in the state with classicism and Europeanism, as well as with the desired progress, negatively reacted to the Baroque monuments that resembled the Spanish colonial past. They began to be destroyed, because the state did not have a historical consciousness and idea of ​​the value of the national past. This led to the destruction of baroque altars, utensils of chapels, a number of baroque monastery buildings. The ideological struggle was transferred to concrete and defenseless monuments of Baroque, which is why the art of Mexico lost its colonial inheritance. Wars, natural disasters (volcanic eruptions, floods, indifference of illiterate and destitute people to monuments) and the extremes of the Mexican revolution of the first half of the 20th century made a dramatic contribution to the destruction of the national Baroque heritage.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Mexico gained political independence. Independence from Spain was declared on September 15, 1821. According to the first constitution, the Federal Republic of Central America was created on a narrow strip between the two oceans, which also included Salvador , Guatemala , Costa Rica , Nicaragua , Guatemala and Honduras . Artists from the time of the struggle for independence in Mexico showed the heroes of this struggle in their works. This is the portrait of a Roman Catholic priest, a national hero who led the Mexican people's uprising for independence, Jose Maria Morelosa in military uniform, painted by an unknown artist.

With independence, the post-colonial period in the history of Mexico began. However, the political situation in the country has deteriorated significantly. In 1847, a Maya Kiche revolt took place in the country against the official Creole government, which was called the War of Castes (actually - the civil war). The Mayan revolt was finally crushed only by 1901.

The country continued to develop mainly as a bourgeois, with agrarian-antimony economy. Officially, the country was declared an empire with its own emperor. Late classicism (neoclassicism), eclecticism, academicism in its provincial versions came to this period in official art.

Neoclassicism

Late classicism (or neoclassicism) has spread in Mexico since the last years of the colonial period. Its development took place during the years of struggle for national independence (1810-1821). It was a fashion-limited pathos of assimilation of the ideas of the French Revolution and active assimilation of the culture of Western European countries. Neoclassicism in Mexico came from fashion to everything European, which the Mexicans carefully assimilated. But in Europe and Russia, neoclassicism at that time was dying and coexisting along with sentimentalism, romanticism, and newborn eclecticism. Therefore, neoclassicism quickly developed in Mexico and resulted in academicism. Neoclassicism was also supported as a contrast to the Baroque style, which then still reminded the Mexicans of the colonial period and was not perceived as a significant achievement of its own history. With a neoclassical style built the church of San Jose and the church of Sagrado Corazon in Guanajuato, the altar in the chapel of the Virgin in Zacatecas.

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  Church of San Jose, Guanajuato

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  Sagrado Corazon Church, Guanajuato

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  Neoclassical altar, chapel of the Virgin, Zacatecas

Along with the spread of the landscape genre, the development of a direction free of the scholasticism of religious painting of the 17th-18th centuries began. This direction was born in the southern regions remote from the capital - Veracruz, Puebla, Guanajuato, Jalisco. Academism in the country gradually degenerated into salon art and eclecticism. Mexican art in the second half of the 19th century developed within the framework of bourgeois art.

In the first half of the 19th century, a romantic painting style appeared in Mexico, brought into the country by foreign artists interested in the life of an independent country. One of them was a Bavarian artist Johann Moritz Rugendas , who lived in the country from 1831 to 1834. The artist painted scenes with a dynamic composition, bright colors in accordance with the romantic style. In Mexico and other parts of Latin America, he sought out vivid and sublime images. However, most of his work, such as sketches for large paintings, were not completed. Another artist in this direction was the Englishman Daniel Egerton, who painted landscapes in the English romantic tradition. A German by birth, Karl Nebel created lithographs of various social and ethnic groups of the country's population ^[18] .

A number of local artists of the time followed the European Romantic Art School in their quest to display the various cultures of Mexico. These artists were called costumbristas (costumbristas), from the word costumbre (customs). The style of work of these artists was not strictly romantic. Most of these artists came from wealthy families. The difference between their works and the works of European artists working in the country was that for foreigners, Mexico was exotic, for the artist costumbristas, the environment was their homeland.

One of these artists was Agustin Arrieta of Puebla, who applied realistic methods, depicting paintings of his hometown with its brightly colored tiles and ceramics. In his paintings you can see scenes of everyday life of citizens, women working in the kitchen, Afro-Mexican merchants, etc.

From the middle of the 19th century, artists from the Latin American Academy began a shift from strict classicism to "academic realism." Idealized and simplified images in their paintings become more realistic, with an emphasis on detail. Artists painted portraits of rich people, Bible scenes and battles, especially during the struggle for independence.

One of the most famous artists of Mexico in the mid-19th century was the Catalan artist Pelegrin Clave . Pelegrin Clave was a representative of the Nazarene school of painting in Spain. He lived and worked in Mexico for a long time. Here he created numerous portraits, landscapes and historical canvases ^[19] . Realist artists tried to portray the Aztec culture. These artists included Felix Parra, who depicted the hardships of the indigenous peoples of the country.

Painting of the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries

Since the second half of the XIX century in Mexico, the heyday of historical painting. The main forces of artists in this period were aimed at establishing the continuity of Mexican culture from the great civilizations of both the Old and the New Worlds. This idea penetrates the canvas of H. Cordero "Columbus before the Catholic Kings" (1850) ^[20] . Under the influence of national-patriotic ideas, works of a religious genre appeared. Thus, the artist H. Ramirez gives one of the seated characters of the painting “In Noah's Ark” a typical Native American appearance ^[21] , thereby confirming the idea of ​​America's involvement in world history.

Among the landscape painters of this time, the first place belongs to the classic of the Mexican landscape, H. M. Velasco. The pinnacle of H. Fernandez's work was Mexico (1877) with a panorama of the Mexican Valley ^[22] .

Until the first decades of the 20th century. Mexican painting is dominated by idealizing academic aesthetics. Elements of realism are represented in the genre compositions of costumbrists (from the Spanish “costumbra” - custom), who worked mainly in the province and reflected its life. By the beginning of the 20th century, Mexican academicism had evolved towards symbolism and modernism. With these trends, it is noted in the work, subsequently will be associated the search for the "big style" in Mexican painting and the first experiments of muralism of the XX century.

The changes taking place in Mexican art in the 1900s - 1910 find themselves in the works of artists H. Ruelas and S. Erran. H. Ruelas develops in his work the theme of "aristocracy of the spirit." This theme is presented in a series of portraits of his contemporaries. In the work of the artist S. Erran, there is an interaction of academic indigenousism and costumbrists. In his monumental panels "Labor" (1910) and "Our Gods" (1916-1918). In the last picture, the artist, combining the images of Christ and the Aztec goddess of death, conveys the peculiarities of the Mexican attitude ^[23] .

The political situation in Mexico influenced her art. The border period for the country was the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century. In 1876, General Porfirio Díaz (1830–1915) decided on a military coup, defeated the army of the re-elected President Lerdo, captured Mexico City and took over state power. In 1877, under pressure, Congress elected him president of the country. In 1881, Porfirio Diaz lost the presidency for one term, but in 1884 he again took power into his own hands, which he held by force twenty-seven years until his defeat in 1911. This period in Mexico was called porphyry. General Diaz introduced the slogan “less politics, more control”, but in reality he pursued a policy of military administration. The country was intolerant of any manifestations of independence in public life, individualism or criticism of its regime. The propaganda represented the absolute power of the dictator as a guarantee of stability in the country, justice of the device and progress. Under him, the Mexican economy gained a chance of rapid development through the paramilitary management and exploitation of cheap labor and natural resources. The accelerated construction of railways and telegraph lines began, new enterprises and banks arose in the country agrarian by that time. Mexico finally became an economically wealthy state, received foreign loans. But all these economic advantages concerned only the privileged sections of the population, the urban bourgeois and landowners. The official theorists of the dictator announced that Mexico would be ruled by the Creole elite, and the Mestizos and Indians could only obey. General Porfirio Diaz inadvertently admitted the opposition parties to the next elections, having temporarily lost and then again taking power into their own hands, repressions began in the country. The main political opponent of Diaz was Madero, the son of a wealthy landowner. Madero, having emigrated to the USA, used the discontent in the country with the ruling dictatorship and the ongoing repressions, and on November 20, 1910 raised a rebellion in the country. The dictatorship remained in power until May 1911. Diaz lost the support of the government and the military and secretly emigrated from the country ^[24] .

In November 1911, Madero was elected president. In Mexico, the bourgeois-democratic revolution gained strength. The reorganization of the army and the ruling party was carried out. President Lazaro Cardenas (1895-1970) significantly accelerated the implementation of agrarian reform and distributed more land to the peasants than all the predecessor presidents combined. Unions were revived at the enterprises. Literacy was being eradicated, which is especially common among Indians. Reforms reached their peak in 1938, when President Cardenas nationalized the property of the US and UK oil campaigns in the country.

Indechinism

See also: Indigenism

Indigenism in painting arose in the 1910s. Indechinism reflected a new wave of interest in the national past (especially the pre-Columbian period). In Mexico, he was vividly reflected in the work of Mexican monumentalists. Artists Diego Rivera , Amado de la Cueva, Juan O'Gorman, Arturo Garcías Bustos and artists of the Workshop of Folk Graphic Art adhered to indigenism.

In Mexican music, Indigenism manifested itself in the works of the composer and conductor Carlos Chavez : in the ballets New Fire and Four Suns, the orchestra play Hochipilly McQuillhochittl and Indian Symphony. Mexican composers Daniel Ayala Perez, Candelario Uisar, Luis Sandy Meneses, Carlos Jimenez Mabarak also worked in this direction.

In Mexican literature, indigenous writers include Grigorio Lopez y Fuentes and poetess Rosario Castellanos .

Muralism

See also: Mexican monumental painting

The term Muralism refers to monumental Mexican painting. The Muralism movement in painting originated in the 1920s. This trend flourished in the middle of the 20th century, but even today it is popular in the country. Initially, muralism in monumental art was characteristic of Mexico and the countries of South America, but during its heyday it was borrowed by other countries, where it acquired its own shade characteristic of a particular culture.

The most famous muralists were the artists: Diego Rivera , Jose Clemente Orozco , David Alfaro Siqueiros , Rufino Tamayo , Jesus Guerrero Galvan, Miguel Covarrubias . Artists Thomas Hart Benton, John Stuart Carrie and Grant Wood also glorified the art of muralism, only already combined with other trends and trends in art, in particular, with North American regionalism.

Muralism arose at the peak of the emergence of patriotic ideas in Mexico. After the Mexican revolution (1910-1917), during which a civil war was fought against the dictatorship, the main goal of which was the struggle for freedom. These ideas formed the basis for the formation of muralism. Muralist artists believed that their art should not only be beautiful and enjoyable, but also useful to society. Art should evoke a sense of justice in the hearts of the audience, raise them to the fight. Muralists tried to reach the hearts of the audience, to show the scale of the tragedy of people, they created huge paintings, monumental paintings ^[25] .

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  Jose Clemente Orozco , Miguel Hidalgo

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  Jose Clemente Orozco , Trench, College of San Ildefon, Mexico City

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  Diego Rivera , Tenochtitlan , Mexico City

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  Diego Rivera , a picture in the main entrance of the National Palace

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  David Alfaro Siqueiros

Mexican muralism is very similar to socialist realism in the USSR . Socialist realism also took shape after the revolution, the main idea of ​​Soviet painting was the opposition of ordinary people and tsarist power. However, there is a big significant difference between these areas. Socialist painting was as realistic as possible, and Mexican monumental painting was a mixture of images, symbols, allegories and surrealistic things. Muralism was an avant-garde movement in painting, based on the art of the native Indians of South America.

Graphics

The graphic works of the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists are interesting not only as pages of the history of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917, but also as examples of national graphic art, especially monumental Mexican engraving and lithography, similar to a poster. League artists created large-scale prints. These products rejected the laborious reproductive means of printing, color. The graphics of the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists include political themes and a demonstration of popular uprising, poverty, the horrors of the war against the peoples of Mexico, scenes of partisan life, executions, victims and hopes for the future.

Arts and crafts

Crafts and Mexican folk art developed over four thousand and went a parallel path alongside official art. The parallel path of folk art has been especially pronounced in the last 500 years, when Creole art of New Spain and folk art coexisted, each striding its own way. In the arts and crafts, such directions as academicism and Baroque did not develop. Fueled by the finds of Indian artisans in centers separated from each other, folk art has not lost its functionality in manufactured things, while maintaining the imagination of images and tropical colorfulness. Masters of folk art use straw and sedge leaves, wood, stone, paper, cardboard, bird feathers, clay, copper and even sugar as raw materials. Woven hats - sombrero (a kind of substitute for umbrellas from the hot sun) have become one of the signs of national folk art on the continent.

Under the influence of Chinese lacquer products in Mexico, local simplified lacquer products (utensils, boxes) appeared in Mexico. They were brightly and colorful painted and did not resemble Asian patterns.

The millennial tradition of Native American pottery art has not been interrupted to this day. Among these products are dishes, children's toys, candlesticks, decorative figures or small sculptures. The range of shapes and coloring is from primitive and simplified to the most complex in silhouettes and drawings, painted or polished.

In Mesoamerica, metalworking was developed, especially from silver, gold and copper. Gold inlaid copper products. The Spaniards brought to Mexico new processing methods, such as filigree work, in which jewelry is made from thin strands of metal. In the colonial period, indigenous peoples were forbidden to work with precious metals. Currently, Mexico has resumed handicrafts using metalworking. Silverware is one of Mexico's main exports. Every year in August in Santa Clara del Cobre, festivals of copper products are held in the country ^[26] .

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  Shop with sombrero

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  Holiday Sombrero

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  Carnival clothing, sombrero and masks.

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  Armchairs from Mexico

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  Ceramic tubs from Puebla. Museum of Folk Art, Mexico City.

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  Metal pot with a bird. Museum of Folk Art, Mexico City.

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  Ceramic jug of 1713.

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  Pottery from the settlement of Mata Ortiz. Chihuahua State, Mexico

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  Pottery with Mata Ortiz. FONART exhibition in Mexico City, 2010.

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  Pottery with Mata Ortiz. FONART exhibition in Mexico City, 2010.

20th Century Fine Art

In the 20th century, the art of Mexico was in a complex development. Conventionally, it can be divided into a camp of supporters of bourgeois-democratic reforms and a camp of supporters of bourgeois individualism. The art of Mexico was slowly moving away from national isolation and academism. It discovered a complex and tragic reality, everyday themes. Understanding the cultural heritage of the pre-Columbian period was used for self-identification and for displaying events of reality. Cultural figures of Mexico (artists, architects, sculptors, writers and filmmakers) turned to the folk sources of culture, creatively using national traditions and the achievements of world culture.

In the camp of supporters of bourgeois-democratic reforms (muralists, members of the workshop of folk graphics), a circle of purely bourgeois artists stood out, radically inclined, with excellent artistic manners and attitudes, extremely individualistic, supported by bourgeois governments. Among them are Angel Sarraga , Jesus Guerrero Galvan, Frida Calo ^[27] , Carlos Merida, Manuel Rodriguez Lozano, Rufino Tamayo and others. The range of their creativity expanded from realism (through a series of transitional forms) to abstract art, a complete rejection of the plot and humanistic traditions . In the 20th century Mexican art, all genres of fine art that were not previously present inherent in world art culture ( landscape , still life , portrait , everyday genre, animal genre, etc.) were developed. Most of the country's artists turned to graphics and all of its modern technology (lithography, combined printing technique). The monumental murals of the initial period were made not for museums, but for the public, to explain the objectives of the reforms and their support.

Bourgeois reality has made adjustments to the work of artists. A number of galleries and museums were opened in the country, collecting in their funds the whole variety of works of art, any technique and any style.

Along with national cadres, a group of emigrants from other countries is successfully working in the country. Among them are Jean Charlot, Pablo O'Higgins, Marianna Jampolskaya, Wolfgang Paalen, Leonora Carrington, Alice Raon, Remedios Varo ^[28] and others. At the same time, a number of Mexican artists work abroad, in the United States, Chile , France, Contributing to the popularization of Mexico art.

Towards the end of the 20th century and later, as in many other countries, in Mexico, fine art takes on new forms associated with the existence of street artists working in the style of Street art and depicting paintings in Mexico on the walls of buildings and sidewalks. This direction has an urban character. The country hosts street art festivals to paint buildings ^[29] .

Cinema

See also: Cinema of Mexico

National cinema came to Mexico from France. In the country in 1940, the Frenchman Louis Bunuel worked. The cinema of the initial period was documentary and propaganda in nature, so it covered the events of the revolution and civil war. It was a silent movie period. The first sound film in Mexico was created in 1931, its name is "Desde Santa".

At the origins of Mexican cinema was Salvador Toscano Barragan . He was carried away only by the cinema that was born in the country and dedicated his life to it. Other cinematic pioneers include Enrique Rosas, brothers Alba and Manuel Becerril. Cinema in the country gradually developed, it was divided into genres. The leading place in the cinema was taken by melodramas, films with fatal women. Some of the films exploited themes of the life of Indians, mestizos or rural themes. The period of the 1940-1950s, critics tend to call the golden period of national cinema. Mexico took a limited part in the events of World War II. Among Mexican film figures: film director Emilio El Indio Fernandez, cameraman Gabriel Figueroa, film actors Pedro Infante, Cantinflas, Maria Felix, Armendaris Pedro Jorge Negrete. Cast fatal women earned the popularity of actress Dolores del Rio and Maria Felix. The cinema of Mexico has now reached an international level and has become popular in the southern United States, where the Hispanic population lives, his films were presented at the Cannes Film Festival .

The bourgeois governments of Mexico drew attention to the film industry. Film production in the 1930s and 1950s was funded by public and private funds. There was even a national Cinema Bank. The wide participation of government structures in financing Mexican cinema entailed the demand for political loyalty of cinematographers and censorship.

In the future, the artistic level of films in the country constantly fell. In the 1960s, unpretentious westerns and domestic comedy films were mostly shot in the country. In 1970, Paul Leduc came to the cinema ^[30] , who specialized in films without dialogue. His films focused on the visual and musical components of film language, sometimes with a rejection of the text. Among his works: the film about rebel Mexico (1971), the biographical film "Frida" (1984) and others. The Mexican series 248, shot in 1979, was very popular in Russia - the rich also cry . The series premiered on Soviet central television in 1991.

In the 1990s, the country began a “new wave" and the dawn of Mexican cinema ^[31] .

Photography

The photo appeared in Mexico as a daguerreotype six months after its discovery and quickly spread throughout the country. Daguerreotype was originally used to create portraits of wealthy (due to the high cost) people, for taking landscapes and pre-Hispanic ruins ^[32] . A common type of early photographic portraiture was photographs of recently deceased children called angels, which survived until the first half of the 20th century. This custom stems from the Catholic tradition of celebrating adoption in paradise, bypassing the purgatory of a dead child ^[33] . Official portraits were the most common form of commercial photography until the end of the 19th century.

One of the pioneers of Mexican photography was Agustin Victor Casasola. His career began with the creation of photographs for periodicals. Casasol's works before the Mexican Revolution spoke about the life of the Mexican elite. The outbreak of civil war changed the choice of Casasol. He focused on creating portraits of war heroes (such as Francisco Villa ) and portraying battle scenes, shootings, etc. He showed people whose faces reflected pain, kindness, etc. After the war in the 1920s and 1930s, Casasola photographed ordinary people migrants in Mexico City. The archive of his photographs amounted to about half a million images. Many of his works are kept in a former monastery in San Francisco - Pachuca de Soto . Photographer Guillermo Calo rented buildings, equipment and other objects of the country.

Photographers of Calo and Casasola are considered the main photographers who have reflected different aspects of Mexico's life.

Photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo experimented with abstraction in photography, formed his own style, removing Mexican customs and rituals. He worked from the 1920s until his death in the 1990s. His photographic methods turned ordinary into fantastic. From the late 1930s to the 1970s his photograph evolved along with new technologies such as the use of color. In the 1970s, he experimented with a female nude ^[34] .

Gallery

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  Porfirio Diaz with Piedra del Sol, photographer not known

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  General Emiliano Zapata, leader of the revolutionary movement in Morelos

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  The iconic image of Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution

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  Mexican Boy Soldier

Campus Ensemble in Mexico City

All the achievements and all the shortcomings of the political, economic and artistic history of Mexico in the 20th century are reflected in the ensemble built in the second half of the 20th century at the National University of Mexico. About a hundred artists from various industries, different backgrounds, and artistic manners were involved in creating the concept and design of the building (among the invited were Diego Rivera , Juan O'Gorman, Chavez Morado, Siqueiros , Eppens, etc. ^[35] ) The team was led by architect Kaplos Lasso. The general construction plan was created by E. del Moral. Architects included the natural features of the area in the architectural ensemble of the university. The territory of the campus of seven hundred thirty (730) hectares was divided into four main zones: educational, residential, sports with a stadium, a recreation area and public buildings.

All areas were built at different levels, as if strung on the Pan American Highway, which crosses the town. The builders took care of creating lawns and parks, which covered the entire territory free from development ^[36] .

In the construction of the complex were used reinforced concrete structures, glass, steel. The landscape architecture was complemented by natural stone cladding and huge mosaics. But the modern architecture of the campus and its parks is in stark contrast to the nearby chaotic buildings of Mexico City with slums on the outskirts. In June 2007, the university’s main campus was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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  Library entry

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  National University Complex Buildings

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  University library building

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  View of the university complex

Music among the peoples living in Mexico occupied a large place in public life. She was associated with religious rituals and cult ceremonies. Music was considered as part of the cult, was strictly regulated and was under the control of the caste of priests-musicians.

Already in antiquity, the Aztecs and Mayans had a musical vocational education system. Young men of a noble family studied science and music in schools (calmekak). There were special music schools (quickicalls). There, young people studied singing, dancing and playing musical instruments. The Aztecs had many varieties of musical instruments. They believed that some instruments were of divine origin. The teponazzli drums and waewtl were worshiped by them as real gods living on earth ^[37] .

In the colonial period, much attention was paid to church music. The main centers of musical life during this period were the cathedrals. By the end of the 18th century, secular theater music was greatly developed.

In the 18th century, in Mexico City, the Coliseo Theater gave Spanish musical comedies tonadillas, and in the 19th century Italian operas replaced them. In 1824, the Philharmonic Society was created in the country, and in 1866 a conservatory was opened under it, transformed in 1877 into the National Conservatory. In the composer's work of the 19th century, opera and salon piano music developed. The first Mexican opera was "Catalina Giz" by Senobio Paniagua Vezquez (Zenobio Paniagua Vezquez, 1821-1882). It was staged in 1859. The composer Melecio Morales (Melecio Morales, 1838-1908) wrote the operas Romeo and Juliet (1863), Ildegonda (1866), Gino Corsini (1877), Cleopatra (1891). Aniceto Ortega del Villar (Anicieto Ortega del, Villar, 1823-1875). He also created the first Mexican opera Guatimotzin (1871) on the plot of national history. The operas were created according to the canons of Italian art. In their piano works, composers also focused on European music. Nevertheless, the composer Aniceto Ortega used folk melodies in Waltz-Harabe for piano, and Mexican flavor was present in his opera Guatimotzin.

Jose Rolon Alcaraz (1877 or 1878-1945) (Feast of the Dwarfs, Three Native American Dances), Candellario Uisar Garcia de la Cadena (Huizar Garcia de la Cadena, 1883-1970) became the guides of the national trend in Mexican music. ) and Manuel Maria Ponce Cuellar (Miguel Maria Ponce Cuellar, 1882-1948). In their work, they turned to legends, the history of the country, and used folklore.

Modern Mexican music has absorbed the musical traditions of the indigenous people of the country and Spanish culture; it is distinguished by a variety of musical genres and performance styles characteristic of different regions of the country. In the northeastern regions of Mexico there is the traditional music of wapango, in the northern regions - norteno, in the north-west of the country - tambora, in Yucatan - harana.

The Mexican song repertoire is varied - from great songs (Alabados), church hymns, serenades. Often performed to the accompaniment of a guitar. Songs in the form of a ballad are popular in the country, traditional Mexican songs “Bésame mucho”, written in 1940 by Mexican Consuelo Velazquez Torres and “Cucaracha”. These songs are now known all over the world. Maryachi ensembles performing songs of different styles and using musical instruments: guitar, violin, trumpet, and viola are popular in the country.

Popular in Mexico are the Harabe Tapatio dances, which are based on the idea of ​​courtship and flirting, and the Harocho dream.

Mexican music continues to develop traditions, coupled with modern musical styles: rock, pop, jazz, electronic music and others. Mexican musicians often perform Mexican folk tunes.

Popular representatives of Mexican music include: Alejandro Fernandez, Talia, Luis Miguel, Paulina Rubio, Carlos Santana, Lila Downs, the Cafe Takuba group. The ensemble of mariachi is known - “Vargas de Tecatitlan”. Club music flourishes in all cities of the country ^[38] .

Mexicans can get an academic musical education at the National Conservatory in Mexico City. The Conservatory was founded in 1866 on the model of the Paris and Madrid Conservatories. Since 1949 , it has been housed in a building designed by architect Mario Pani . The Mexico City Opera House is housed in the Palace of Fine Arts , built of Carrara marble and characterized by splendid decor in the styles of Beaux Arts and Art Deco.

Mexican art is kept in many museums around the world, including the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and others. The Academy of San Carlos was the first art museum in America. Currently, works of art in Mexico can be seen in the National Palace in Mexico City, the Cabanas Cultural Institute in Guadalajara, the museum of the artist Frida Calo in Mexico City, and others.

The Mexican Museum of Jose Guadalupe Posada is dedicated to the famous Mexican engraver, illustrator and cartoonist Jose Guadalupe Posada. The artist is known for illustrations of satirical, political and domestic content.

In the Coyoacan district of Mexico City , the world's first National Museum of Watercolor named after Alfredo Guati Rojo . The museum was founded in 1964 by Mexican artist Alfredo Guati Rojo .

The Soumaya Museum of Art in Mexico City was founded in 1994. He moved to a new six-story building in 2011. The building was erected at the expense of billionaire Carlos Slim for the exposure of his personal collection of works of art, numbering more than 66,000 exhibits. The cost of all exhibits is about 700 million dollars. The construction of the museum cost Slim about $ 34 million. The museum was named for the wife of Slim who died in 1999 ^[39] .

The Soumaya Museum presents paintings by Mexican and European artists. Among them are paintings by French impressionists Camille Pissarro , Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The museum also features one of the world's largest collections of sculptures by Rodin , consisting of 380 exhibits.

The National Museum of Anthropology , located in Chapultepec Park (Mexico City), presents a unique collection of archaeological and anthropological artifacts from the pre-Columbian era found in Mexico. The museum houses world-famous exhibits: the Stone of the Sun, called the Aztec calendar, the huge Olmec stone heads found in the jungles of Tabasco and Veracruz, the treasures of the Mayan civilization from Chichen Itza and Palenque, etc. The Oaxaca Institute of Graphic Arts in Oaxaca has a large collection of works Latin American art ^[40] .

See also: Literature of Mexico

Before the Spanish conquered Mexico, its peoples created literary works that have come down to us mainly in later writings. These include: the sacred texts "Chilam-Balam" of the Yucatan Mayans, Aztec poetry. Of the Aztec poets, Nesaualcoiotl, the author of works with philosophical lyrics, is known ^[41] . The Aztec codes were handwritten pictographic books created by the Aztecs.

The pre-colonial literature of the indigenous peoples of Mexico also largely existed in folklore. Spanish missionaries in central Mexico at one time were engaged in the preservation of oral works of the peoples of Mexico, writing them on Latin paper. In this way, the lyric works of the ruler of Nesaualcootl (1402-1472) from Texcoco, who was given the title of poetic king, were preserved.

The following genres prevailed in pre-Columbian literature in Mexico:

• Epic poetry with life chronicles of famous people;
• Lyric poetry of religious, military or philosophical meaning;
• Dramatic poetry with elements of music and dance (Tescatlipoca festival) ^[42] ;
• Historical prose and pedigrees.

The first literary works here were the chronicles of the conquest of Hernan Cortes (1485-1547), Bernal Diaz del Castillo (c. 1492-1582), Bernardino de Sahaguna (1550-1590), Toribio Motolinia (1495-1569), etc.

The first major work of Mexican fiction was the poem "Magnificent Mexico" (Spanish: Grandeza Mexicana) by Bernardo de Balbuena (1568-1627).

In the 17th century, Baroque style reigned in Mexican literature. The largest authors of works in this style were: Carlos Sigüenza y Gongora (1645–1700), Juan Ines de la Cruz (1648–1695), and Juan Ruiz de Alarcon (1580–1639) ^[43] .

After Mexico gained independence in 1821, two directions dominated Mexican poetry. The landmarks of the classicists José Joaquin Pesado, Manuel Carpio, José María Roa Barsena were the historical and aesthetic past of Mexico. Romantics Fernando Calderon, Ignacio Rodriguez Galvan preferred free expression, transmission in works of national origin. 19th-century Mexican prose was dominated by costumbrianism and historical prose. The former included Illario Frias y Soto, Manuel Payno, Maria Florencio del Castillo, Juan Diaz Covarrubias, Luis Gonsaga Inclan, Jose Thomas de Cuellar and others. The first historical novel in Latin America "Hitotencal" (1821) was written by an anonymous Mexican author.

The authors of modern Mexican literature stand out: Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928) - author of the novels “The Death of Artemio Cruz” (La muerte de Artemio Cruz, 1962), “Change of Skin” (Cambio de piel, 1967), “Terra Nostra” (Terra Nostra, 1975), “Christopher the Unborn” (Cristobal Nonato, 1987), and Fernando del Paso (b. 1935), author of the novels “Jose Trigo” (Jose Trigo, 1966), “Palinuro de Mexico” (Palinuro de Mexico, 1975) and “News from the Empire” (Noticias del imperio, 1987).

Essayistics in the literature of the country in the XX century was engaged in the search for Mexican identity. In this genre worked Jose Vasconcelos (1881-1959), Alfonso Reyes (1889-1959), Antonio Caso (1883-1956), Samuel Ramos (1897-1959), Octavio Paz (1914-1998) and Leopoldo Cea (1912-2004 ) The writer Octavio Paz in 1990 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his impressive comprehensive works, marked by sensory intelligence and humanistic integrity" ^[44] .

Folk Dances

Modern Mexican folk dance is a mixture of elements of the indigenous (Aztec and Mayan culture), African and European heritage. In pre-Columbian times, dances were accompanied by singing, performed during religious holidays, hundreds of dancers took part in the dances. Dance technique required special training. Later, pantomime subject dances appeared on the themes of mythology, history, everyday life. Subsequently, a text was introduced in them. Over time, a new dance genre emerged - the play-dance (in the Mayan language, "Rabinal-Achi" has been preserved). The dance heritage of the pre-Hispanic era is present in the folklore Indian groups of the regions of Mexico (pantomime dance “Flying People”).

To attract parishioners to the temples in the 16th century, the Catholic Church organized dramatic sermons in the Nahua language, which before Spanish was a means of intertribal communication, folk dances and comedy dialogues.

In the colonial period, the dance developed under the influence of the Spanish dance culture. Along with the Spanish dances of fandango, sandunga, sapateado in the XVII – XVIII centuries, there were dancing forms of Creole folklore: sleep, wapango, harabe. These forms combined dance with singing and instrumental music. At the end of the 18th century, dance appeared on the stage. They have a large place occupied by Spanish-Portuguese vocal, musical and dance performances - tonadilla and folia. In the 19th century, the influence of Italian and French dances that prevailed until the 20th century spread in Mexico. Waltz and Habanera, similar to the rhythm of tango, gained popularity. After the revolution of 1910-1917, dance forms brought to Mexico by the Spaniards lost their significance ^[45] .

Modern dance arose in the 1930s under the influence of the American modern dance ^[46] . In dance, Mexicans use a variety of costumes, mirrors, maxi. Masks are used to emphasize the metaphorical or religious nature of the dance, in order to hide the identity of the dancer at the carnivals. The masked dancer can afford the liberties, which will then be discussed by the audience. A masked dancer may protest socially (a masked farmer in police uniform stresses a protest against corrupt policemen).

At present, a folk dance development fund has been set up in Mexico (led by Lavallier), which is engaged in the study of folk groups in different parts of the country. Mexican dance festivals are regularly held in the country.

Ritual dances

Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the dances of the indigenous people of Mexico were mostly ritual, religious in nature ^[47] . The Aztecs had two types of dance, one for ordinary people, the dance was often associated with the agricultural cycle of work, the other dance was intended for the elite ^[48] . Up to 3-4 thousand people took part in the dances. Costumes for dancers were made taking into account the purpose of the dance. They used images of eagles, leopards, monkeys, dogs, hunters, warriors. For decoration, artificial and natural flowers, feathers, precious stones, gold and silver products were used ^[49] .

After conquering the territory of Mexico, the Spaniards made efforts to destroy local dances, considering them “too pagan”. However, they were unable to destroy popular forms of dancing, especially in rural areas and remote areas of New Spain. The preachers tried to adapt local dances to the Christian culture, giving them a new meaning ^[50] .

Dance art developed in the years 1520-1750 mainly among the low class of indigenous peoples, mestizos and African-American descendants. They began to dance for religious reasons, in honor of the Virgin Mary and Catholic saints.

Ballet

In 1786, an unsuccessful attempt to create a professional ballet was made by the choreographer Jeronimo Marani. However, despite the efforts of enthusiasts, ballet and theater dance did not succeed in Mexico, since in Mexican society, dance was not a decent art. Andre Potre (Andres Pautret) in 1825-1840 had his dance school in Mexico City in Mexico City. In the ballet “Vain Precaution”, which he posed in 1827, the Mexican ballerina Maria de Jesus Moctezyma danced. In 1919, Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova visited Mexico with her troupe.

Attempts to create Mexican ballets were undertaken in 1932 by the Campobello sisters. They opened a school of classical dance and organized the ballet troupe of the city of Mexico City. The foundations of Mexican ballets were laid in the late 30s by American choreographers - representatives of the modern dance A. Sokolova and M. Valdin. In 1940, A. Sokolova created the Blue Dove troupe; it included G. Bravo, X. Lavalle, A. Merida, R. Gutierrez, G. Case and others. In 1940, Waldin organized a school and a troupe.

In 1947, the composer C. Chavez opened the Academy of Mexican Dance, the Ballet of Fine Arts and the National Ballet arose in the country.

The development of national ballet was facilitated by ballet music written by composers S. Revueltas and C. Chavez. The themes of the ballets to the music of C. Chavez “The Four Elements” (1926), “Daughter of Colchis” (1946), Revueltas - “Traveling Tadpole” (1936) were a description of folk life and the history of Mexico. The same theme was present in the ballets of D. Ayala Perez - "The Mayan Man" (1940), L. Sandy - "Bonampak" (1948) and H.P. Moncayo - "Zapata" (1953). ,

In 1952, the Folklore Ballet was created under the direction of A. Hernandez. The troupe performed folk dances, ballet performances include national folklore.

In the 50–70s of the XX century, the following people worked in the country: Mexico Concert Ballet (1952. choreographed by S. Unger), Mexican Folk Ballet (founded in 1958, choreographer G. Arriaga), Choreography Workshop of the National University of Mexico (1970, choreographed . Contreras). Currently, the most popular in the country is the ballet troupe Ballet Folkorico de Mexico, which was founded by dancer Amalia Hernandez in 1952. Her grandson, Salvador Lopez, is now the director of the troupe. The troupe gives about 250 performances per year. The troupe performs folk dances (Tapatio Jarabe, Concheros and others) in the processing of Lopez, "new" dances (Adelitas), dedicated to the Mexican revolution ^[51] .

According to eyewitnesses of the first years of Spanish colonization, the Native American theater of the pre-Columbian era was in its infancy. The origins of the Indian theater had a dance, gradually supplemented by elements of dramatic action ^{[52] [53]} . With the development of theatrical performances, two main directions were determined: some performances were solemn, serious in character with divine or heroic subjects; others were peculiar farces of humorous, comic content with a more "earthly" theme. "

Theatrical art was developed among the Mayan Quiche and Nahua peoples of ancient Mexico. Until now, the description of the monument of the ancient Indian drama "Rabin Achi" has reached. In the middle of the XIX century, the French abbot Charles Etienne Brasser saw this performance, transmitted by the Mayan Indians from ancient ancestors orally. Brasser recorded his presentation text in Quiche and translated it into French. The play “Rabinale Achi” was a historical drama from the life of the Indians with music and dancing. In the play, up to one hundred characters were employed.

With the onset of colonization, Spanish missionaries staged biblical stories in order to convert indigenous people to Christianity. The Indians participated in them as performers. The attributes of the theater of pre-Columbian times were used as props - fresh flowers, bright feathers. The modern professional theater in Mexico has been developing since the 40-60s of the XX century. Previously, this type of art was supported by traveling big tops with troupes of traveling artists. In the middle of the 20th century, famous playwrights appeared in the country who developed new principles of theatrical mastery.

The first theater "House of Comedy" was opened in Mexico City in 1597. It produced plays of a religious and secular nature. The leading Mexican playwrights of the sixteenth century were Juan Perez Ramirez (1545-?) And Fernán González de Eslava (c. 1535-c. - 1600). Ramirez was the author of the first play written in the New World, the comedy "Spiritual Engagement of Pastor Pedro with the Mexican Church" (1574). In the 17th century, the leading role was played by the religious theater, but the secular theater began to form gradually. The flowering of the 17th-century Mexican theater is associated more with the work of the Spanish-born playwright Juan Ruiz de Alarcon-y- Mendoza (Juan Ruiz de Alarcon-y-Mendoza, 1581–1639) and the Mexican poetess Juana Ine de la Cruz (Juana Ines de la Cruz, 1648 or 1651-1695). Juan Ruiz de Alarcon belonged to the cultures of Spain and Mexico ^[54] .

Currently, the largest theaters in Mexico are located in the capital. There are opera and drama theaters, a puppet theater "Guignol". The neoclassical architecture attracts viewers of the Degollado Theater, located in the center of Guadalajara. Mexican folk dance groups perform on the stage of the theater, opera performances are given ^[55] . In 2005, the Diana Theater was opened in Guadalajara with 2345 seats ^[56] .

• Pre-Columbian civilizations
• Mexico architecture
• Mexican Literature
• Pre-Columbian ruins of Mexico

• Mexican art. Art of Mexico.
• The art of ancient Mexico, the art of the Indians
• Mexican painting of the first half of the XX century
• Muralism. Mexican painting
• Mexican Theater of the 20th century