Mexican Costumbrismo: Race, Society, and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Art 9780271081540

Citation preview

Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 1

11/17/17 3:28 PM

Moriuchi book.indb 2

11/17/17 3:28 PM

Mexican

Costumbrismo Race, Society, and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Art / Mey-Yen Moriuchi

The Pennsylvania State University Press / University Park,Pennsylvania

Moriuchi book.indb 3

11/17/17 3:28 PM

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Moriuchi, Mey-Yen, 1974– , author. Title: Mexican costumbrismo : race, society, and identity in nineteenth-century art / Mey-Yen Moriuchi. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “Focuses on costumbrismo, a cultural trend in Latin America and Spain toward representing local customs, types, and scenes of everyday life in the visual arts and literature, to examine the shifting terms of Mexican identity in the nineteenth century”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2017030927 | ISBN 9780271079073 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Art, Mexican—19th century. | National characteristics, Mexican, in art— History—19th century. | Mexicans in art—History—19th century. | Mexico— In art—History—19th century. | Mexican literature—19th century—History and criticism. | National characteristics, Mexican, in literature—History—19th century. | Mexicans in literature—History—19th century. Classification: LCC N6554 .M67 2018 | DDC 709.72/09034—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc .gov/2017030927

Moriuchi book.indb 4

Copyright © 2018 Mey-Yen Moriuchi All rights reserved Printed in Korea Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802–1003 The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ANSI Z39.48–1992. Additional credits: frontispiece, detail, Edouard Pingret, Interior de cocina poblana, ca. 1852–55 (fig. 24), reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia; p. v, detail, Carl Nebel, Poblanas, from Viaje pintoresco y arqueolójico sobre la parte más interesante de la República Mejicana, 1840 (fig. 18); p. vi, detail, Claudio Linati, (Lépero) Vagabond, 1828 (fig. 14); p. 10, detail, Claudio Linati, Ecrivain public, sur la grand’place à Mexico, 1828 (fig. 7); p. 30, detail, Carl Nebel, Tortilleras, 1840 (fig. 19); p. 60, detail, Hesiquio Iriarte, La china, 1854–55 (fig. 33); p. 80, José Agustín Arrieta, detail, El chinaco y la china, ca. 1850 (fig. 37); p. 114, detail, Cruces y Campa, Aguador, ca. 1870 (fig. 59), reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.

11/17/17 3:28 PM

To the late

Felix Manuel Wong

Moriuchi book.indb 5

11/17/17 3:28 PM

Moriuchi book.indb 6

11/17/17 3:28 PM

viii List of Illustrations xii Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 11

chapter 1

Racialized Social Spaces in Casta and Costumbrista Painting 31

chapter 2

Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Contents

61

chapter 3

Literary Costumbrismo: Celebration and Satire of los tipos populares 81

chapter 4

Local Perspectives: Mexican Costumbrista Artists 115

chapter 5

Costumbrista Photography 129

Conclusion

132 Notes 141

Bibliography

155 Index

Moriuchi book.indb 7

11/17/17 3:29 PM

illustrations

Figure 1 Frontispiece of Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos: Tipos y costumbres nacionales, por varios autores (Mexico City: M. Murguía, 1854–55). Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.   xiv Figure 2 Andrés de Islas, No. 11. De chino e india, nace cambujo, 1774. Museo de América, Madrid.   15 Figure 3 Claudio Linati, Aguador. Porteur d’eau, from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828). Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.   15 Figure 4 Édouard Pingret, Aguador, ca. 1852–55. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   17 Figure 5 Andrés de Islas, No. 15. De barcino y cambuja, nace calpamulato, 1774. Museo de América, Madrid.   19

permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   22 Figure 10 Andrés de Islas, No. 4. De español y negra, nace mulata, 1774. Museo de América, Madrid.   23 Figure 11 José Agustín Arrieta, Cocina poblana, 1865. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   25 Figure 12 Unknown, De albina y español, nace tornatrás, ca. 1785–90. Private collection, on loan with Fomento Cultural Banamex, A.C. Photo: Rafael Doniz.   27 Figure 13 Claudio Linati, Dispute de deux Indiennes, from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828). Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.   36

Figure 6 Andrés de Islas, No. 6. De español y morisca, nace albino, 1774. Museo de América, Madrid.   19

Figure 14 Claudio Linati, Tortilleras, from Costumes civils, militaires et religieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828). Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.   37

Figure 7 Claudio Linati, Ecrivain public, sur la grand’place à Mexico, from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828). Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.   19

Figure 15 Claudio Linati, (Hacendado) Propiétaire (Hacendado: Criollo propietario), from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828). Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.   37

Figure 8 Hesiquio Iriarte, El evangelista, from Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos: Tipos y costumbres nacionales, por varios autores (Mexico City: M. Murguía, 1854–55), 64. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.   20

Figure 16 Claudio Linati, (Lépero) Vagabond, from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828). Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.   38

Figure 9 José Agustín Arrieta, La sorpreza, 1850. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by

Moriuchi book.indb 8

Figure 17 Carl Nebel, La mantilla, from Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la partie la plus intéressante du

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Mexique (Paris: M. Moench, 1836). John Hay Library, Brown University Library.   41

Figure 26 Édouard Pingret, Tlachiquero, ca. 1850. Colección Banco Nacional de México.   56

Figure 18 Carl Nebel, Poblanas, from Viaje pintoresco y arqueolójico sobre la parte más interesante de la República Mejicana (Paris and Mexico City: Paul Renouard, 1840). American Museum of Natural History Library.   42

Figure 27 Édouard Pingret, China poblana, ca. 1850. Colección Banco Nacional de México.   58

Figure 19 Carl Nebel, Tortilleras, from Viaje pintoresco y arqueolójico sobre la parte más interesante de la República Mejicana (Paris and Mexico City: Paul Renouard, 1840). American Museum of Natural History Library.   45

Figure 28 Joaquín Heredia, Puesto de chía en Semana Santa, from El Museo Mexicano, o Miscelánea pintoresca de amenidades curiosas e instructivas, 5 vols. (Mexico City: Ignacio Cumplido, 1843–45), 3:428. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.   65

Figure 20 Carl Nebel, Gente de tierra caliente entre Papantla y Misantla, from Viaje pintoresco y arqueolójico sobre la parte más interesante de la República Mejicana (Paris and Mexico City: Paul Renouard, 1840). American Museum of Natural History Library.   45

Figure 29 Joaquín Heredia, Rancheros, in El Museo Mexicano, o Miscelánea pintoresca de amenidades curiosas e instructivas, 5 vols. (Mexico City: Ignacio Cumplido, 1843– 45), 3:551. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.   66

Figure 21 Johann Moritz Rugendas, Fuente de la Alameda central, ca. 1831. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   48

Figure 30 J. Vallejo, La maja, from Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (Madrid: I Boix Editor, 1843–44), 2:57. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.   69

Figure 22 Johann Moritz Rugendas, Procesión de la Virgen del Rosario en la Ciudad de México, ca. 1831–34. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.   49

Figure 31 Alenza, El aguador, from Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (Madrid: I Boix Editor, 1843–44), 1:138. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.   72

Figure 23 Johann Moritz Rugendas, La reina del mercado, 1833. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile.   50 Figure 24 Édouard Pingret, Interior de cocina poblana, ca. 1852–55. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   55 Figure 25 Édouard Pingret, Músico de Veracruz, ca. 1850. Colección Banco Nacional de México.   56

Moriuchi book.indb 9

Figure 32 Hesiquio Iriarte, El aguador, from Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos: Tipos y costumbres nacionales, por varios autores (Mexico City: M. Murguía, 1854–55), 1. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.   73 Figure 33 Hesiquio Iriarte, La china, from Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos: Tipos y costumbres nacionales, por varios autores (Mexico City: M. Murguía, 1854–55), 88.

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.   77 Figure 34 José Agustín Arrieta, El mendigo, ca. 1840. Museo José Luis Bello y González. Secretaría de Cultura del Gobierno del Estado de Puebla. Photo from Efraín Castro Morales, Homenaje nacional: José Agustín Arrieta (1803–1874); Su tiempo, vida y obra (Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte, 1994), 229.   86 Figure 35 José Agustín Arrieta, China poblana, ca. 1840. Private collection. Photo from Efraín Castro Morales, Homenaje nacional: José Agustín Arrieta (1803–1874); Su tiempo, vida y obra (Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte, 1994), 223.   86

60. Private collection. Photo from Gustavo Curiel et al., Pintura y vida cotidiana en México, 1650–1950 (Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1999), 182.   95 Figure 43 Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Cargador, hombre y mujer de pueblo, 1851. Museo Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez. Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno del Estado de México.   99 Figure 44 Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Personajes costumbristas, 1849–51. Museo Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno del Estado de México.   99 Figure 45 Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Mujer indígena con cempasúchil, 1876. Photo courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art, http://www.lacma.org.   100

Figure 36 José Agustín Arrieta, Escena popular de mercado con soldado, ca. 1850. Colección Banco Nacional de México.   87

Figure 46 Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Indias de Oaxaca, ca. 1877. Colección de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia.   101

Figure 37 José Agustín Arrieta, El chinaco y la china, ca. 1850. Private collection. Photo from Efraín Castro Morales, Homenaje nacional: José Agustín Arrieta (1803– 1874); Su tiempo, vida y obra (Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte, 1994), 34.   89

Figure 47 Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Mendigo, 1891. Colección Museo Nacional de Colombia. Photo © Museo Nacional de Colombia / Ernesto Monsalve Pino.   102

Figure 38 José Agustín Arrieta, Interior de una pulquería, 1850. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   91 Figure 39 José Agustín Arrieta, Tertulia en una pulquería, 1851. Colección Fundación Andrés Blaisten.   91 Figure 40 Manuel Serrano, Vendedor de buñuelos, ca. 1850–60. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   93 Figure 41 Manuel Serrano, El jarabe, ca. 1850–60. Private collection. Photo from Gustavo Curiel et al., Pintura y vida cotidiana en México, 1650–1950 (Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1999), 178.   95

Figure 48 Juliana Sanromán, Sala de música, ca. 1850. Colección de la Fundación Cultural Antonio Haghenbeck y de la Lama, I.A.P. Museo Casa de la Bola.   107 Figure 49 Josefa Sanromán, Interior del estudio de una artista, ca. 1849. Colección de la Fundación Cultural Antonio Haghenbeck y de la Lama, I.A.P. Museo Casa de la Bola.   109 Figure 50 Josefa Sanromán, La convalecencia, ca. 1854. Colección de la Fundación Cultural Antonio Haghenbeck y de la Lama, I.A.P. Museo Casa de la Bola.   110 Figure 51 Claude Désiré Charnay, Vendedor de ollas, 1858. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   118 Figure 52 Claude Désiré Charnay, Vendedor de canastas, 1858. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced

Figure 42 Manuel Serrano, El juego de rayuela, ca. 1850–

x / illustrations

Moriuchi book.indb 10

11/17/17 3:29 PM

by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   119

Figure 57 François Aubert, Tortilleras, ca. 1865. © Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History.   123

Figure 53 Claude Désiré Charnay, Escríbano, 1858. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   119

Figure 58 François Aubert, China poblana, ca. 1865. © Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History.   124

Figure 54 Claude Désiré Charnay, Aguador, 1858. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   119

Figure 59 Cruces y Campa, Aguador, ca. 1870. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   126

Figure 55 François Aubert, Vendedor, ca. 1865. © Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History.   121

Figure 60 Cruces y Campa, Mujer moliendo nixtamal, ca. 1870. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Reproduced by permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.   126

Figure 56 François Aubert, Cargador de cazuelas, ca. 1865. © Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History.   122

xi / illustrations

Moriuchi book.indb 11

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Acknowledgments

A fortuitous exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Arts in Latin America, 1492–1820 (2006), exposed me for the first time to the breadth and richness of colonial Latin American art. The largescale casta paintings included in the exhibition instantaneously captured my attention, leading to a decade-long research project on representations of racial mixing and socioracial identity formation in Mexican art. I began this research while a graduate student at Bryn Mawr College and have been fortunate to work with several people and institutions to bring it to publication. I am especially grateful to the late Gridley McKim-Smith for her mentorship and friendship. Her critical eye and mind helped advance this project in innumerable ways. In addition, I appreciate the advice and guidance of other Bryn Mawr College faculty members, namely, David Cast, Christiane Hertel, Steven Z. Levine, Lisa Saltzman, and Alicia Walker. A Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities and several Bryn Mawr College grants funded travel to Mexico and Spain, which allowed me to conduct primary research. I owe much gratitude to my fellow Bryn Mawrters, Marie Gasper-Hulvat, Amy Haavik-­ Mackinnon, Lesley Shipley, Rebecca Dubay, and Mark Castro. Marie and Amy carefully reviewed drafts of the manuscript and lent their superb editing skills to improving it. Lesley, Rebecca, and Mark provided numerous hours of counsel and insight over many reunions and conversations. I wish to thank the faculty and staff at La Salle University who have supported this project from its inception, especially Susan Dixon, Siobhan Conaty, and Catherine Holochwost. Two research grants and

Moriuchi book.indb 12

a research leave generously sponsored by La Salle University enabled me to travel to Mexico, further my archival research, and complete the manuscript. I could not have conducted this research without the assistance of various individuals at libraries and museums around the world. I am much obliged to staff members at the New York Public Library, American Museum of National History Special Collections Library, Library of Congress, Brown University Library, University of Texas at Austin Library, Biblioteca Nacional in Mexico City, Banco Nacional de México, and Banco Nacional de Bogotá, and to museum professionals at the Museo Casa de la Bola, Museo Nacional de Historia (Mexico City), Museo Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Museo José Luis Bello y González, Museo José Luis Bello y Zetina, Fototeca Nacional de México, Museo Nacional de Bogotá, Museo Nacional de Chile, Museo de América (Madrid), Museo del Prado, Museo del Romanticismo (Madrid), and the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History (Brussels). A series of productive interdisciplinary conferences on panoramic literature shaped this project. Much appreciation is given to Christiane Schwab, Ana Peñas Ruiz, and Leonoor Kuijk for inviting me to participate in their respective symposia and for sharing their research and ideas with me. These conferences brought together scholars from multiple disciplines and many countries, fostering rich, thought-provoking discussions and proving that social observation and the tracing of national types are enduring topics of interest worldwide. I extend my gratitude to Brill Publishers for granting me permission to reprint sections of

11/17/17 3:29 PM

chapter 1 that first appeared in modified form in “From Casta to Costumbrismo: Representations of Racialized Social Spaces,” in Envisioning Others: Race, Color, and the Visual in Iberia and Latin America, edited by Pamela Patton (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 213–40. Similarly, I am indebted to the editors at Ninteenth-Century Art Worldwide for their permission to reproduce sections of chapter 3 in modified form from the article “From ‘les types populaires’ to ‘los tipos populares’: Nineteenth-Century Mexican Costumbrismo,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 12, no. 1 (2013): 1–24. My thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful critiques and editorial suggestions, which have improved this manuscript tremendously. I appreciate the interest Eleanor Goodman expressed in the project from the beginning and her continued guidance throughout the editorial process. Likewise, I am grateful to Hannah Hebert, who assisted me in navigating the logistics of copyright and image reproduction, and to Suzanne Wolk for her skillful and thoughtful attention to editing the manuscript. A Mellon-funded Art History Publication Initiative grant generously covered image and permission costs. This book would not have come to fruition without the enthusiasm and counsel of a core group of family and friends. Gordon “El Chino” Lee, I am indebted to you for encouraging me to take Art History 102 at the University of Pennsylvania. That course took me on an academic journey and career path that neither of us would have predicted back in our college days. I am fortunate for the continued friendship of “las chicas de 3920 Delancey”, Marcela Raskosky, Caroline Waldmann, Courtney Piccone,

Moriuchi book.indb 13

Amy Nahmad, and Claudia Contreras. To my good friends and neighbors Mindy and Ted O‘Connor, Maia and Brett Cucchiara, Ah Young Kim and Wilson Joe, Chumi Khurana, Carol Williams, Rhona Pearson, and Muriel Jara Lee, I thank you for the many informal conversations and gatherings over food and drink that spawned and nurtured the development of this book. My sincere gratitude to my family, including Mey-Ling Wong, Mey-Ling and Peter Case, Aaron and Caroline Wong, Caroline and Fred Moriuchi, Naoji and Michelle Moriuchi, Akemi Moriuchi, and the late Seiji Moriuchi, for their constant encouragement. My deepest appreciation is reserved for my devoted husband, Takashi, and children, Kenji and Miya, who never wavered in their support and offered me daily doses of smiles, hugs, and laughs along this journey. Last, I dedicate this book to my late father, Felix Manuel Wong, who unfortunately never had the chance to hear about this project firsthand but who I know listens and nods in approval from above.

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Moriuchi book.indb 14

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Introduction

In 1854, a group of Mexican writers published an illustrated collection of essays titled Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos (Mexicans painted by themselves) that described a variety of stock figures meant to represent Mexico’s diverse populace. Inspired by European books about popular social types and trades, such as Heads of the People, or Portraits of the English (1840–41), Les français peints par eux-mêmes (1840–42), and Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (1843–44), the Mexican collection contributed to a transnational debate in the nineteenth century about what constituted a nation and who represented it. In the frontispiece of the Mexican album (fig. 1), various social and racial types gather in front of a large white sheet upon which the title of the book is printed in block letters. The sheet forms an informal screen and alludes to a magic lantern show, an early type of image projection that displayed painted pictures or photographs. The magic lantern screen, and the man who points toward the assembled characters, suggest that in the

Moriuchi book.indb 1

following pages we will find representations of the types being advertised in the frontispiece. These renderings will reveal a sense of who and what make up the nation that is imagined to be Mexico. The years following independence in 1821 were critical to the development of social, racial, and national identities in Mexico. The visual arts played a decisive role in this process of self-definition. This book seeks to reorient our understanding of this crucial yet often overlooked period in the history of Mexican art by focusing on a distinctive genre of painting and literature that emerged between approximately 1821 and 1890 called costumbrismo, of which Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos is an example. Costumbrismo designates a cultural trend in Latin America and Spain toward representing

Figure 1  Frontispiece of Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos: Tipos y costumbres nacionales, por varios autores (Mexico City: M. Murguía, 1854–55). Lithograph. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.

11/17/17 3:29 PM

local customs, types, costumes, and scenes of everyday life, and it offers a powerful statement about shifting terms of Mexican identity that had a lasting impact on Mexican history. Costumbrismo emerged in the nineteenth century as the nation’s leaders tried to stabilize the country both politically and economically. Mexico struggled to create an independent nation in the wake of Spanish colonialism, a period of approximately three hundred years; American intervention (1846–48), when the United States acquired Mexican land that now makes up the southwestern and western United States;1 and the French occupation under Emperor Maximilian (1862–67).2 Many nations formulated their national identities during the nineteenth century, but in Mexico the need for new imagery may have been truly urgent, as these political aggressions by foreign powers increased the desire for independence on the part of criollos, as people of Spanish descent born in the Americas were known. Following independence from Spain, approximately forty different political leaders ruled Mexico. The first empire, under the self-proclaimed emperor Augustín de Iturbide, lasted only eighteen months. A series of revolts and wars and their accompanying political turmoil characterized the rest of the nineteenth century. Over a nine-year period, from 1824 to 1833, there were seven presidents. Only one, Guadalupe Victoria, served a complete four-year term. One of the most famous leaders of this era was General Antonio López de Santa Anna, who towered over Mexican politics for nearly forty years and shuttled in and out of the presidency from 1833 to 1855.3 Benito Juárez led La Reforma (the reform era), bringing free-market capitalism, private property rights, and an end to the prominent role of the Roman Catholic Church in economic affairs.4 His liberal policies provoked the aforementioned French intervention in 1862 and Emperor Maximilian’s ascension in 1864. Juárez and the Liberal Party’s return to power during the Restoration (1867–76) ultimately could not secure

stability for the nation.5 Porfirio Díaz’s dictatorship rounded out the end of the century. His reign over Mexico from 1877 to 1910, known as the Porfiriato, was characterized by its pursuit of “order and progress” and positivist policies.6 While this political turmoil plagued the nation, costumbrista artists captured the ordinary and mundane in their representations of daily Mexican life. Political strife was generally not the focus of their everyday scenes, yet undercurrents of social negotiation and identity construction permeate their compositions. Costumbrismo’s quotidian subject matter has contributed heavily to its relative obscurity in Mexican art history and subsequent scholarship. It has largely been dismissed as picturesque and inconsequential. The nineteenth-century Mexican academy favored neoclassical ideals and conservative artistic training. According to tradition, costumbrista and genre painting were surpassed in prestige by the more intellectually stimulating genres of history painting, portraiture, and even landscape. Like seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish genre artists or nineteenth-century French realist painters, costumbrista artists sought to portray the everyday lives of the lower and middle classes: their clothes, food, dwellings, and occupations. Costumbrista artists endeavored to represent what they saw rather than cater to traditional academic standards. I argue that their work contributed to the documentation and reification of social and racial types—reinforcing and reimagining cultural norms by pictorializing the costumes and comportment of everyday individuals in their surroundings. It should be noted that Mexican identity in this context was an elite construct dominated by men. It was an ideal in the service of maintaining an existing social and racial hierarchy, which in turn created a false sense of unity. This notion of Mexican identity suggested that “all citizens,” despite differences in class, gender, and race, supported the

2 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 2

11/17/17 3:29 PM

national project and the status quo. This positioning of identity situates itself “within, not outside representation,” as Stuart Hall observes. In constructions of cultural identity, Hall notes, ties to the historical past, language, and culture are in the process of becoming, not being. It is not so much a question of “who we are” or “where we came from,” but rather “what we might become, how we have been represented and how that bears on how we might represent ourselves.”7 These identities, though rooted in tradition and “reality,” arise in the imaginary and are also partly constructed in fantasy. Costumbrista images are based on observations of similitude, essentially constructing stereotypes of behavioral and biological traits associated with various racial and social classes. However, this classification of similarities is consciously dependent on concurrent claims of difference and isolation. The apparent paradox of similarities that depend on difference, and how this paradox affects nineteenth-century notions of representation and identity formation, are at the heart of this book. As human beings attempt to understand the vast world we inhabit, we organize objects, people, and concepts on the basis of affinities and differences. In theories of difference, difference is explained in relation to its opposite, sameness. Identity and sameness can be both synonyms and antonyms of difference. As Mark Currie points out, “the dictionary defines identity as both ‘absolute sameness’ and ‘individuality’ or ‘personality.’ The slippage here derives from an ambiguity about the points of comparison and antithesis that are in operation. ‘Identity’ can clearly mean the property of absolute sameness between separate entities, but it can also mean the unique characteristics determining the personality and difference of a single entity.”8 Or, as Hall argues, “identity is always, in that sense, a structured representation which only achieves its positive through the narrow eye of the negative. It has to go through the eye of the needle of the other

before it can construct itself.”9 Identity construction is in constant negotiation with the Other, and revolves around the process of “othering.” It entails a self-reflection of the individual with respect to a greater, differentiated society. In my examination of costumbrismo, I investigate this dialectic between individual particularism and what can be generalized about an “otherized” community. I also examine the dialectic between universality and difference. In the nineteenth century, political leaders and the cultural elite in the West assumed that what was universal was European. This perceived universalism operated as a technology of empire through its assumption of the characteristics of those in politically dominant positions. As part of the language of identity construction, costumbrista imagery engaged this dialectic of universality and difference, transforming the ways in which Mexicans saw themselves and how other nations saw them. Costumbrismo, as a cultural and artistic movement, played a significant role in the construction of racial and social types and was thus integral to the formation of modern notions of Mexican identity. I consider costumbrismo as a product of the “coloniality of power.”10 Aníbal Quijano coined this term to describe the legacies of European colonialism in postindependence Latin American societies. Racial, political, and social hierarchies that had been imposed during European rule survived in the form of social and racial discrimination that is embedded in contemporary social orders. Quijano argues that the sistema de castas (caste system) imposed during the colonial era, which was based on phenotypes and skin colors and which privileged the Spaniards over indigenous races, endures in postcolonial societies. Costumbrismo’s creation and popularity was formulated within a persistent categorical and discriminatory discourse. In this book, I investigate the images of traveler-artists who portrayed Mexican types from a foreign perspective, and I consider these as integral to the formation of a national

3 / introduction

Moriuchi book.indb 3

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Mexican identity. These works of the 1840s and ’50s were important models for the writings and images created by Mexican artists during the costumbrista movement. Mexican writers and artists sought to reclaim as their own the social and racial types that had captured the curiosity of traveler-artists. In representing their daily surroundings and the popular inhabitants of these everyday spaces, local artists and writers wanted to claim what was national and Mexican. These artists and writers were, however, from the privileged classes, and they provided the dominant perspectives of outsiders looking in, despite their attempt to disrupt a hegemonic center-periphery model.

Terms and Terminology A few words need to be said regarding terms, in particular with respect to the words “costumbrismo,” “type,” and “typecasting.” Costumbrismo was essentially an instance of typecasting—a means of creating stock characters or archetypal figures (types) that could be used and reused to represent certain personality traits, behaviors, races, occupations, and social statuses. Figures could be distinguished by their dress, facial expressions, bodily gestures, accessories, and settings. As a result, acute attention to detail and an exacting realist style characterize much of the genre. Los tipos populares and les types populaires describe the results of this typecasting phenomenon in Spain and France, respectively. “Popular types,” the term’s direct translation into English, does not have the same ring, common usage, or connotations as its Spanish and French equivalents. Nevertheless, it is the most direct translation, and I use the term “popular types” to refer to the characters that became popularized and nationalized in the public’s eye. The term “costumbrismo” was not used until 1895, in an article by the Spanish novelist and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno.11 The term “cos-

tumbrista” appeared for the first time in 1915 in the Diccionario de la lengua española by José Alemany y Bolufer, in reference to those who wrote about costumbres (customs), not to an actual type of text or image.12 In the nineteenth century, essays and images of everyday life were described as cuadros de costumbres (pictures of customs) or bosquejos de costumbres (sketches of customs). Costumbrismo became very popular in the nineteenth century, sharing affinities with both romanticism and realism, though antecedents of the genre can be found in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Though costumbrismo referred to the literary or pictorial interpretation of everyday life, culture, and mannerisms in Spain and Latin America, this tendency toward social observation was prevalent throughout Europe and originated in England and France. Walter Benjamin, in The Arcades Project, coined the term “panoramic literature” to describe the essays, periodical literature, and books dedicated to observing and dissecting society. The nineteenth century saw a surge in the desire to capture one’s quotidian surroundings and to use such observations to make generalizations about behavior, identity, and nation. The use of social types to represent a nation’s identity was a transnational endeavor. Much of the scholarship on costumbrismo has focused on its literary forms. Publications on pictorial costumbrismo are few and far between; in English, there are almost none. I have thus used an interdisciplinary approach in this study that draws on resources from literary history, cultural studies, and the social sciences as well as art history. In the field of literary studies, Felipe Martínez-Pinzón, Kari Soriano Salkjelsvik, and Ana Peñas Ruiz have argued for the movement’s international scope and the need to move beyond nationalist frameworks. A series of interdisciplinary symposia on social observation and the tracing of types at New York University and Ghent University have proved that this is a topic of lasting interest to scholars world-

4 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 4

11/17/17 3:29 PM

wide.13 Though French and English panoramic literature continues to be the canonical standard to which other countries’ literature is compared, it is evident that many other nations were keen on using observations of the local to build national identity, and this canon is expanding. I am grateful to scholars who have brought new perspectives and insight to the field. Scholarship on travel writing has also been instrumental to my research and has informed my analysis of costumbrismo. When one travels, one participates unconsciously in the act of “othering.” Observations are made of people, scenery, customs, traditions, clothing, and flora and fauna. One attempts to make sense of these new observations by describing them, recording them on paper or canvas. This process entails a negotiation between alterity and identity, difference and similarity, fact and fiction. Travel writing distorts the world even as it seeks to bring it into view. Ultimately, it serves as a form of cultural capital. The authentic knowledge it strives to impart connotes power and prestige, and constructs a dichotomy of us versus them. Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of the “contact zone,” or the space of colonial encounters, has been a useful tool for thinking about the space (physical, ideological, and artistic) in which foreigners and locals (as well as criollos and castas) came into contact with each other. Transculturation—that is, how dominant modes of representation were received and appropriated on the periphery by subordinated groups—demonstrates that these shared spaces were constructed from both the inside out and the outside in.14 Pictorial costumbrismo has been examined in a general way in certain exhibition catalogues, volumes on the overall history of Mexican art, and monographs on costumbrista artists, but never in a detailed study like this one. Works on nineteenthcentury Mexican art by the Mexican art historians Justino Fernández and Fausto Ramírez have served as important starting points. The work of Esther

Acevedo, Angélica Velázquez Guadarrama, and María Esther Pérez Salas has also informed this project, especially their significant writings on cultural and artistic issues in postindependence Mexico, such as the development of portraiture, gender roles, and costumbrista lithography. Stacie Widdifield’s work has been an invaluable resource for understanding representations of the Indian and the dynamics of Mexican nationalism with regard to nineteenth-century academic painting, as has Adriana Zavala’s work on gender and representation in Mexican art. My research on casta painting is largely indebted to the scholarship of Ilona Katzew and Magali Carrera. Katzew’s important study of the cultural and artistic development of casta painting and how it established a socioracial hierarchy has greatly informed my analysis, as has Carrera’s work on the physical, economic, and social spaces of casta paintings. My initial research on socioracial and sociofamilial relationships in casta painting led me to this greater project on nineteenth-century costumbrismo. Another entry point into costumbrismo was Mexican modernism. Twentieth-century Mexican modernists, including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, María Izquierdo, Roberto Montenegro, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, José Chávez Morado, and many others, were inspired by their everyday surroundings and sought to represent social differentiation in their paintings. As my knowledge of these revolutionary artists expanded, I began to wonder about their historical context, political ideology, and formal aesthetic precedents. I realized that nineteenth-century costumbrismo was an important precursor to Mexican modernism, and one of my objectives in this study is to emphasize costumbrismo’s contribution to postrevolutionary Mexican art. The characteristics of nineteenth-century costumbrismo—nationalist ideology, the construction of social, racial, gender, and national identities, typecasting through recurring portrayals of racial

5 / introduction

Moriuchi book.indb 5

11/17/17 3:29 PM

and social types—were foundational and persisted into the twentieth century. This book is not a comprehensive account of costumbrismo, nor does it examine all of the artists and writers who created costumbrista art and literature. My focus is on select writers and artists who produced costumbrista literature, lithographs, painting, and photography. The mapping projects of Antonio García Cubas, or the popular wax figurines, for example, are outside the scope of this project and have been examined in depth by other scholars.15 The artists and work I have chosen to analyze have enabled me to consider the range and positioning of costumbrismo, that is, how it permeated diverse media and how its varied representations were constantly evolving, even as they were rooted in the historical past. I strive to present a more globally situated perspective that takes into account the broader cultural context and addresses relevant influences, such as casta paintings, Dutch genre paintings, European physiologies, popular lithography, romanticism, realism, and the universal interest in typecasting.

Intertextuality I argue that costumbrista painting shares many similarities with an eighteenth-century genre known as casta painting, despite many obvious differences. In colonial Spanish America, castas were the various mixed races that had appeared in the postconquest period; casta also described a unique genre of painting that represented racially mixed families on a series of canvases. These paintings often depict a father and mother of different racial backgrounds (Spanish, Indian, or African, or some combination thereof) and one or two of their mixed-race offspring. Accompanying the visual portrait, text clarifies the subjects’ casta, that is, lineage, breed, or race. Twelve to sixteen panels often make up a casta series, with the purest—that

is, the “whitest”—races occupying the first place in the series. The production of casta paintings diminished to almost nothing by the end of the eighteenth century. In 1810, the Mexican priest and revolutionary leader Miguel Hidalgo led a group of indigenous and mestizo peasants in a revolt against the Spanish colonialist regime, under the banner of the darkskinned Virgin of Guadalupe. Consequently, the use of casta nomenclature, associated with the reviled Spanish authorities, was quashed and invalidated. The granting of independence in 1821 brought challenges to traditional power structures, and casta designations were banned in legal records in September 1822. By 1824, the national constitution declared all citizens equal before the law. But the demise of casta painting at the end of the eighteenth century and the denunciation of casta nomenclature at the beginning of the nineteenth did not extinguish the demand for images that provided a window onto different social, racial, and gender groups. Market scenes, religious processions, and park settings gave artists an opportunity to represent the various castas in one scene and to depict their commingling for a newly independent populace. Although the portrayal of mixed racial types might not be restricted to family groups or separate canvases, or classified with specific labels, as in casta painting, the various castas were still present, but now often depicted in harmonious engagement with one another. In fact, many of the popular types commonly shown in costumbrista images had their precedents in casta paintings, urban landscapes, biombos (decorative folding screens of Japanese origin), and the decorative arts. But only in costumbrismo did the popular types proliferate and become national symbols. As Ilona Katzew has shown, casta paintings (cuadros de casta) gave systematic and hierarchical form to the miscegenation of the Spanish, Indian, and African groups that populated the New World.16 My own project begins with the recognition that the

6 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 6

11/17/17 3:29 PM

end of casta nomenclature and the demise of casta imagery in the late eighteenth century did not signify the end of castas as social and racial signifiers. I examine the intriguing but little discussed links between the two influential genres, and argue for a meaningful relationship between casta paintings and costumbrismo. The continuity between casta and costumbrista imagery can be seen in holdover elements like the familial groupings of father-mother-child and in the focus on descriptive details of class and profession. For example, the family of fruit and vegetable vendors in Andrés de Islas’s 1774 No. 15. De barcino y cambuja, nace calpamulato (From barcino and cambuja, a calpamulato is born) (fig. 5) shares an affinity with the family group at the center of the composition in José Agustín Arrieta’s Escena popular de mercado con soldado (Popular market scene with soldier) of circa 1850 (fig. 36), despite the new setting. In addition, the common figure of the water carrier in Édouard Pingret’s Aguador of circa 1852–55 (fig. 4) and Claudio Linati’s Aguador of 1828 (fig. 3) can also be seen a century earlier in the anonymous eighteenthcentury casta painting De indio y tornaatrás, lobo (From Indian and throwback, wolf), located at the Museo Nacional de Historia in Mexico City, or in Andrés de Islas’s 1774 No. 11. De chino e india, nace cambujo (From chino and Indian woman, a cambujo is born) (fig. 2). Costumbrismo was an interdisciplinary genre that used various modes of expression. Its multiple formats, whether literary periodicals, novels, lithographs, paintings, or photographs, informed, reflected, and shaped one another. The very concept of costumbrismo is intertextual, as it relies on correspondences of similarity and difference between one visual image or written text and the next. This intertextuality, a term taken from the Latin word intertexto, meaning to intermingle while weaving, aptly describes how costumbrista images were both created and consumed. This kind of

weaving or intermingling renders pictorial images and written texts inseparable from one another.17 The images of types permeated one another and inflected the consumption and understanding of the visual and textual material. Julia Kristeva argues that “any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another. The notion of intertextuality replaces that of intersubjectivity, and poetic language is read as at least double.”18 This notion of texts as a “mosaic of quotations” applies as well to how we comprehend the visual arts. Wendy Steiner stresses that paintings (and here we can substitute various artistic media) are always connected to one another, which destabilizes the prevailing notion of pictorial self-sufficiency. In other words, because paintings or sculptures are temporally finite, when compared to a novel or symphony that unfolds over time, they have a higher tendency to be viewed in isolation. But they do not exist in isolation from one another. As Steiner argues, “It is only by viewing paintings in light of other paintings or works of literature, music, and so forth that the ‘missing’ semiotic power of pictorial art can be augmented— which is to say that that power is not missing at all, but merely absent in the conventional account of the structure of the art.”19 The ways in which paintings are consumed enables them to be read in relation to other works. Paintings and photographs are almost always seen in the context of other pictorial imagery—they are exhibited in groups in museums and galleries or reproduced in catalogues and magazines; they can be organized formally or thematically by period, genre, style, or subject. The context and grouping inform how the viewer interprets the images. Analyzing costumbrismo thus requires a consideration of its various forms, media, and configurations. Considering the wider costumbrista genre in its various media allows for a fuller understanding of the extent to which capturing everyday people and their lives

7 / introduction

Moriuchi book.indb 7

11/17/17 3:29 PM

became a mechanism of social affirmation. Popular types were mythologized and romanticized in various media, from lithographs and novels to paintings and photographs. Costumbrista imagery was inseparable from the literary texts produced by nineteenth-century writers, both traveler-writers and local authors alike. Their representations should be recognized and reimagined as a “mosaic of quotations” that captured and reified social and racial types, reinforcing cultural norms by portraying the everyday costumes and comportment of individuals in their natural surroundings.

From Casta to Costumbrismo After examining the relationship between casta and costumbrista painting in chapter 1, I analyze various modes of costumbrismo to understand how it functioned socially and aesthetically and how it affected nineteenth-century Mexican nationalism and identity. Chapter 2 explores the output of traveler-­ artists, mainly European artists who traveled to the New World and documented and illustrated their observations for audiences back home. In the wake of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), the Prussian geographer and naturalist who traveled extensively in Latin America from 1799 to 1804, these artists are largely, and often falsely, interpreted as providing faithful, scientific accounts of their experiences. I challenge this notion of authenticity in favor of a more nuanced reading of these accounts as imaginary constructs of desire and idealism, however solidly anchored in local tradition. For example, Édouard Pingret portrays the noble, industrious nature of china poblana20 women in Interior de cocina poblana (Interior of Poblana kitchen) of circa 1852–55 (fig. 24), while Carl Nebel presents a highly eroticized image of mestiza women in Tortilleras (Tortilla makers) (fig. 19).

A parallel literary movement arose alongside visual manifestations of costumbrismo, and chapter 3 examines the lithographs that accompanied costumbrista literature. Literary publications enabled the expansion of the visual costumbrista movement by commissioning illustrations to adorn costumbrista essays. With the advent of lithography, costumbrista images reached a larger and more diverse audience, as we see in Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, the collection of essays and illustrations mentioned above. As noted, this collection was modeled on English, French, and Spanish antecedents and demonstrated the Mexican literary elite’s desire to be seen in relation to these Old World powers. Although the various descriptions in Los Mexicanos exhibit a degree of satire, they also evince a concern with rescuing local culture from foreign condescension and establishing a sense of national pride by presenting some figures as admirable and ideal. The album pointedly included several types that were unique to Mexico, but many more could easily be found elsewhere. This was an assertion of Mexico’s authenticity as well as its cosmopolitanism. Chapter 4 considers the work of local artists, frequently trained academically, who rejected other genres in favor of costumbrismo, notably José Agustín Arrieta, Manuel Serrano, Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, and the sisters Juliana and Josefa Sanromán. I examine their relationship to the academy, which ignored costumbrismo in favor of neoclassicism and historical or biblical narratives. Mexico’s Academy of San Carlos, founded in 1781, was heavily modeled on its Spanish, Italian, and French counterparts, and was highly influential in the conservative development of the arts in the nineteenth century. I also consider issues of gender identity—in particular, the social construction of gender relations and the role of the female artist in nineteenth-century Mexico. Chapter 5 analyzes photography’s role in representing racial and social types, most commonly

8 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 8

11/17/17 3:29 PM

produced as cartes de visite, or small paper prints pasted to cardboard mounts. Known in Mexico as tarjetas de visita, they were widely collected by the upper and middle classes. Placed in albums, these photographs of distinguished family members and friends demonstrated their social power and created a sense of family identity. Though the most commonly known tarjetas de visita portray the privileged upper classes, several photographers, both foreign and local, also represented the lower rungs of society. As with lithographs and paintings, they focused on types who engaged in the various trades and occupations that were enmeshed in the urban fabric. These photographs of lower-class types also contributed to the proliferation of stock characters that emblematized national identity and reaffirmed hegemonic structures in the nineteenth century. By describing these facets of costumbrismo, I wish to place the Mexican costumbrista movement within a larger social, racial, and art-historical context. Looking to integrate both visual and literary forms of costumbrismo, I uncover the wider reach of costumbrismo and the connection between these texts and images. This intertextuality contrib-

uted to costumbrismo’s success and popularity. I resituate costumbrismo in the sociohistorical and political moment in which it developed and emphasize the intersections between literature and the arts as parallel modes of imaginative thought. In addition, I argue that works by foreign and local artists must be seen together as part of a cross-cultural exchange of ideas and stereotypes that informed and clarified one another. My objective is to look more deeply at how stereotypes and identities are constructed, how resemblance evolves into claims of difference, and how costumbrismo influenced modern views of the ethnic and cultural diversity of Mexico. I stress that costumbrista imagery did not faithfully depict reality but presented an idealized fictive world that subtly pointed to racial and social tensions, particularly in the areas of class and gender. Costumbrista artists recognized and tried to come to terms with the miscegenation and hybridization common in Mexico. Ultimately, costumbrismo visualized the process of a nation grappling with its complex identity and navigated its social and racial discourses in multiple visual and literary forms.

9 / introduction

Moriuchi book.indb 9

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Moriuchi book.indb 10

11/17/17 3:29 PM

chapter 1

Racialized Social Spaces in Casta and Costumbrista Painting

In colonial Mexico, the miscegenation of indigenous, African, and European populations resulted in numerous diverse genetic mixings that challenged the concept of racial and ethnic purity and disrupted social stability.1 The visual arts played a critical role in illustrating to contemporary viewers how to understand race scientifically and culturally. They also fostered racial stereotypes that proliferated into the nineteenth century. These stereotypes are most apparent in secular paintings, such as the casta and costumbrista genres, where depictions of ordinary people and their daily lives are the primary subject matter. This chapter explores the resonances between eighteenth-century casta and nineteenthcentury costumbrista imagery. In the same way that a string on a musical instrument will begin to vibrate, or “resonate,” when a string tuned to the same frequency on another instrument is played, there are important indirect resonances beyond the direct interactions of these two genres. Both the direct interactions and the indirect resonances

Moriuchi book.indb 11

convey both the visibility and the invisibility of race and miscegenation. This chapter examines the racialized social spaces, that is, the spatial representations of racial and social relationships, in eighteenth-century casta and nineteenth-century costumbrista painting. We can see a continuity of aesthetic and stylistic conventions between the two genres, along with their underlying preoccupations with socioracial and sociofamilial relationships, a subject that has largely gone unexamined thus far in scholarship of Mexican visual culture.

Terminology and Typecasting I use the word “casta” in two ways. As a noun, casta, of Iberian origin, signifies “lineage” or “breed.” In colonial Spanish America, casta referred to the various mixed races that had appeared in the postconquest period. For example, castas include mestizos (people of Spanish and Indian parentage), mulattos (people of Spanish and black parentage),

11/17/17 3:29 PM

castizos (people of Spanish and mestizo parentage), and moriscos (people of Spanish and mulatto parentage), to name a few of the most common. More unusual names, such as lobo, barcino, or calpamulato, were used to label mixes between Indians and Africans, though they did not consistently mark the same racial mixtures.2 As an adjective, as in “casta painting,” the term refers to the unique genre of painting that represented families of various racial mixtures (castas). In the mid-eighteenth century in Mexico, casta painting, which portrayed racially mixed families in a hierarchical manner on a series of canvases, became popular, evident in the multiple series in this genre produced during this period.3 As noted in the introduction, casta paintings traditionally portrayed a father and mother of different races and one or two of their mixed-race offspring. A casta series included twelve to sixteen panels, with the privileged races occupying pride of place at the beginning of the series. The physical appearance, clothing, attributes, and settings of the families indicated their position on the social hierarchical ladder. The individuals at the beginning of a series are typically well dressed, many wearing fashionable European styles; as one moves further down the series, the clothing becomes simpler, loose-fitting, and even tattered, with the subjects of the last panel, often unconverted Indians, depicted partially nude. The same can be said of the attributes that allude to their activities and occupations. In Miguel Cabrera’s casta series of 1763, stacks of textiles or racks of shoes in the first two panels refer to the husband’s trade and implied wealth, while the twelfth panel, From albarazado and mestiza, barcino, depicts a mother checking her child’s hair for lice, suggesting that the lower classes were dirty and unkempt.4 Text clarifying the subjects’ racial makeup accompanied the visual portrait. The written captions were an essential means of demystifying visual markers of identity, such as skin color and clothing,

which at times could be ambiguous. Since several Mexican casta series were exported to Spain, art historians believe that casta paintings were produced to meet an elite Spanish demand for depictions of exotic types found in the New World.5 Owing to the large scale of a casta series, it is likely that the paintings were exhibited in large rooms accessible to the guests, such as salas de recepción, or drawing rooms, or the cabinets of curiosities so popular among the European upper classes in the eighteenth century. Many sets were also found in Mexico. Thanks to the colonial preoccupation with social and racial hierarchy, an equal demand must have existed locally. As Ilona Katzew argues, the casta genre shifted over the course of the eighteenth century from more sympathetic and indiscriminate depictions of types in the earlier decades to greater social and racial stratification in the latter part of the century.6 The generic typologies produced in the later series were deeply influenced by the Enlightenment preoccupation with natural philosophy, with its mania for the empirical observation and categorization of life, culture, people, and objects. As noted in the introduction, the production of casta paintings fell out of favor and dried up around the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. Mexico had achieved independence from Spain in 1821, and a law passed in 1822 decreed that Mexican citizens could not be classified in official documents according to racial origin.7 By 1824, the national constitution declared all citizens equal in the eyes of the law. The use of casta nomenclature and the paintings that pictured racial hierarchies were no longer desirable. In addition, the guild system had been abolished in 1813, and artists who once worked in the workshop tradition now sought entry to the Academy of San Carlos (established in 1781), where new artistic demands were being made. But people of mixed race continued to be represented in costumbrista paintings, only now, instead of being stratified and classified into

12 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 12

11/17/17 3:29 PM

separate family units on distinct canvases, they were shown intermingling within the same scenes. Patrons of costumbrista images included hombres letrados, Mexico’s cultured literary elite, who sought to elevate the status of the arts in Mexico and establish a Mexican school of painting. Though the smaller size and scale of costumbrista paintings suggest that they were displayed in smaller, more intimate rooms, the patrons of both casta and costumbrista paintings valued their vernacular quality and the idealized representation of popular racial and social types. Despite differences in patronage and display, both casta and costumbrista genres were secular movements in which quotidian scenes and people were visualized artistically, providing a unique opportunity to analyze the ways in which depictions of racial and social types changed from the colonial to the postindependence period. These genres provide useful source material for thinking about the construction of the colonial and postcolonial subject.8 On the surface, casta paintings attempted to reflect the social hierarchy of colonial New Spain. Yet they did not mirror reality or depict actual individuals. They represented archetypes and depicted careful constructions of racial, social, and gendered identities. Casta paintings represented mixed-race colonial subjects for Spanish patrons that were representative of “otherness.”9 Superficially, costumbrista paintings portrayed postcolonial subjects who were now outside the control of the Spanish monarchy. But the stereotypes that informed the stock characters persisted into the postindependence period. The colonial gaze was still present in images made after independence, although the center-periphery dynamic had been disrupted. The representations in casta and costumbrista genres hover between what Stuart Hall has called the “two vectors of cultural identity: the vector of similarity and continuity; and the vector of difference

and rupture.” Identities, according to Hall, must be “thought of in terms of a dialogic relationship between these two axes.”10 This dialogical relationship between the two vectors is what Homi Bhabha calls ambivalence. Bhabha’s notion of ambivalence is the centerpiece of colonial mimicry, described as “a desire for a reformed recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite.”11 And it is within this ambivalence, which is critical to the stereotype, that Bhabha places the “processes of subjectification.” “It is the force of ambivalence,” Bhabha writes, “that gives the colonial stereotype its currency: ensures its repeatability in changing historical and discursive conjunctures.”12 If stereotypes are to be successful, they must be represented continually, which is what we see in the casta and costumbrista genres, which use archetypal figures to represent certain personality traits, behaviors, races, occupations, and social classes. Figures were distinguishable by their dress, facial expressions, bodily gestures and poses, accessories and setting, and, to a lesser degree, skin color. Racial and social popular types were constructed through a dialectic of similarity and difference. By drawing on similarities and universalizing certain characteristics that emblematized particular personality traits, these popular types were created. Yet this very grouping of similarities also depended on difference and isolation from the norm. European types were seen as models to emulate, but they had to be kept at a distance. If there are resonances between the casta and costumbrista genres, what implications does this have for the practice of typecasting in the eighteenth century (preindependence) as opposed to the nineteenth (postindependence)?

Occupations as Markers of Identity The continuity between casta paintings and costumbrista imagery can be seen in such elements as the

13 / Racialized Social Spaces

Moriuchi book.indb 13

11/17/17 3:29 PM

naturalistic focus on descriptive details of class and profession and familial groupings of father, mother, and child. For example, occupations such as aguador, or water carrier, were portrayed in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In Andrés de Islas’s 1774 casta painting No. 11. De chino e india, nace cambujo (fig. 2), the dark-skinned chino father (a mixture of black and Indian) visits his wife and child in an outdoor public space as they gather for a simple meal. He is identified as a water carrier by the large barrel that he carries on his back. His clothing consists of a simple white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and calf-length brown pants. Another jug is placed next to his notably bare feet. He leans forward with a small bowl as his Indian wife prepares to serve him the meal. She wears traditional Indian dress consisting of a loose-fitting striped huipil and a white kerchief around her head. Her coral necklace and earrings emphasize her medium brown complexion, which is noticeably lighter than her husband’s and son’s. The boy leans charmingly across his mother’s lap as he reaches toward the food. The dark skin and loose clothing of this mixed-race family, and the simplicity of their setting, state clearly that they occupy the lower rungs of colonial Mexico’s social hierarchy. The water carrier was also commonly represented in the nineteenth century. Claudio Linati, an Italian traveler-artist credited with bringing lithography to Mexico in 1826, chose the water carrier as one of the types in his book Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (fig. 3). His book, which drew on the European costume book tradition, was published in Brussels in 1828 (see chapter 2); a Spanish translation was published in 1956. Like costume books, Linati’s volume drew on the notion that dress could be rationally classified. Appearances could be standardized and interpreted as fixed and quantifiable psychological or behavioral attributes.13 Both seemed to present a comprehensive view of a nation’s culture, classes, and occupations, though

Linati’s firsthand experience of living and traveling throughout Mexico gave his work a certain authenticity lacking in earlier costume books based on thirdhand accounts. For each of the forty-eight types in his book, Linati included a hand-colored lithograph accompanied by descriptive text on the facing page; text and image were to be read together. For the lithograph of the water carrier, Linati noted that all countries have services that seem illogical for either their rarity or their discomfort. For example, the water carrier carried two clay barrels often weighing up to fifty pounds. Although this was insufficient to satisfy the needs of a family, it was the most a water carrier could carry at one time. To counter the weight of the large barrel of water on his back, the water carrier carried a smaller container in front that hung from a long strap over the top of his head. To balance these two objects, the water carrier had to lean forward without moving his head. As a result, he walked in a straight line but could never look up without disturbing the equilibrium.14 In Linati’s lithograph, the water carrier is depicted as an unkempt figure, with long hair and torn pants. As in Islas’s casta painting, the sleeves of his white shirt are rolled above the elbows, the pants are calflength, and he is barefoot. He occupies the foreground of the composition, while in the background another water carrier of similar dress can be seen filling his barrels at a well. Contemporary traveler-writers like Brantz Mayer also commented on the perfect equilibrium that was required of the water carrier. Mayer, a historian from Baltimore, Maryland, lived in Mexico from 1841 to 1844 as the secretary of the U.S. legation in Mexico. His book Mexico as It Was and as It Is, published in 1844, documented his travels and experiences there. Mayer recalled a day when the president of the republic exited the palace and drew a large crowd in the plaza. “First, there is the Aguador or water-carrier, with his two earthen

14 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 14

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 2  Andrés de Islas, No. 11. De chino e india, nace cambujo (No. 11. From chino and Indian woman, a cambujo is born), 1774. Oil on canvas, 75 × 54 cm. Museo de América, Madrid.

jars—one suspended by a leathern belt thrown around his forehead and resting on his back, and the other suspended from the back of his head in front of him, preserving the equilibrium.” In a footnote, Mayer recounted a cruel practical joke played on a water carrier: “An Englishman passing an aguador in the street, struck the jar on the fellow’s back with his cane. It broke—and the weight of the other jar immediately brought the poor carrier on his nose. He arose in a rage. The offender, however, immediately calmed him with a couple of dollars. ‘I only

Figure 3  Claudio Linati, Aguador. Porteur d’eau (Water carrier), from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828), plate 7. Lithograph. Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.

15 / Racialized Social Spaces

Moriuchi book.indb 15

11/17/17 3:29 PM

wanted to see whether you were exactly balanced, my dear fellow, and the experiment is worth the money!’”15 Clearly, Mayer shared the Englishman’s amusement, and his disdain for what he must have viewed as a primitive or uncivilized occupation. Édouard Pingret’s portrayal of a water carrier in Aguador (ca. 1852–55) (fig. 4) shows more respect for the occupation, which Pingret depicts with some dignity. The water carrier wears full-length pants composed of two layers of fabric; a dark blue outer layer with buttons is cut diagonally to reveal white fabric beneath. He wears brown shoes. His position, as he bends forward slightly to balance the weight of the barrels, suggests subservience and humility. He empties the smaller of his jugs into a large receptacle on the household’s patio. Instead of being surrounded by a wife and child, he is accompanied by two women—young servants who clean plates and peel carrots, respectively. The well-kept plants that adorn a low wall and the thatched awning that abuts the cement wall suggest that this is the patio of a well-to-do household. Above the door on the right is an etched cross that reflects the household’s devout Christianity. This picturesque scene of domestic activity evokes a harmonious, tranquil mood. Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos (1854–55), the album of articles and images by Mexican artists mentioned in the introduction, also portrays a water carrier as one of the common Mexican stock figures.16 Although, compositionally, the image recalls Linati’s lithograph, this water carrier’s costume shares a closer affinity with Pingret’s. The water carrier wears full-length, double-layered trousers and black shoes. Instead of leaning forward, he stands notably erect and poised, undisturbed by the weight of his wares. He appears more dignified and confident than the water carriers depicted by Linati and Mayer. The author of the accompanying text in Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Hilarión Frías y Soto, describes a direct encounter with the water

carrier who delivers water to his house. He asks the aguador to tell him about his daily life, to which the man replies, “Why tell you about my life, I don’t know for what that would serve, sir.” Why, in other words, would anyone of the author’s profession and class want to know about his life? The author responds, “Imagine, son, that today Mexicans are now painting ourselves, do you understand?”17 This dialogue demonstrates costumbrista writers’ motivation for writing about their own people. Mexican intellectuals were reclaiming certain racial and social types as emblematic of their country, even those of the lower classes such as the water carrier, whom they depicted with dignity. The water carrier type was portrayed in eighteenth-century casta paintings as a mixed-race lower-class individual, often barefoot and dressed in loose or tattered clothing. His signature water barrels denoted his profession. In the nineteenth century, traveler-writers like Linati and Mayer drew on this tradition and elaborated in prose on what they perceived as the “uncivilized” nature of the occupation. By the end of the nineteenth century, costumbrista writers and artists, like those who contributed to Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, sought to position the water carrier as a dignified and contributing member of society. Although some aspects of his costume and appearance changed, the distinguishing characteristics of his persona were already established. The interweaving of text and image and the interconnection between representations by travelers and local artists demonstrate the intertextual nature of these two genres. The intertextuality of the casta and costumbrista genres is a critical factor in the perpetuation of typecasting and the persistent colonial gaze.18 Food vendors selling products as varied as buñuelos, or fritters, soup, fruit, and vegetables were also commonly depicted in both the casta and costumbrista genres. For example, in two of Andrés de Islas’s casta paintings from the same 1774 series,

16 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 16

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 4  Édouard Pingret, Aguador (Water carrier), ca. 1852–55. Oil on canvas, 59 × 48 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex.

Moriuchi book.indb 17

11/17/17 3:29 PM

No. 13. De tente en el aire y mulata, nace albarazado (From hold yourself in midair and mulatta, an albarazado is born) and No. 15. De barcino y cambuja, nace calpamulato (From barcino and cambuja, a calpamulato is born) (fig. 5), families are portrayed selling prepared foods and fresh fruits and vegetables. Both families are pictured outside, in nondescript public places, further locating them on the lower rungs of the social hierarchy.19 Costumbrista paintings like Manuel Serrano’s Vendedor de buñuelos (Fritter seller, ca. 1850–60) (fig. 40) similarly position such figures in generic public places, portraying different popular types in relaxed interactions. Though Serrano’s imagery tends to group together individuals of similar social status, another costumbrista artist, José Agustín Arrieta (discussed in detail below), often placed members of the upper and lower classes in the same scene. Another character depicted in both casta and costumbrista paintings was the scribe. In the Andrés de Islas 1774 casta panel No. 6. De español y morisca, nace albino (From Spaniard and morisca, an albino is born) (fig. 6), a bespectacled Spanish father is seated at his desk engrossed in the act of writing with a feathered quill. He is wearing a dressing robe and a kerchief on his head, indicating that he is in the intimacy of his own home. Beside him, his morisca wife (the progeny of black and mulatto parents), wearing a fashionable, corseted European dress, attends to their albino toddler, who is dressed like a little man in a jacket and breeches. The study is decorated with several gilt-framed paintings, suggesting the family’s material wealth and comfort. The act of writing indicates the father’s intellect, education, and affluence. In contrast to portraying writing as a leisurely activity, Linati, Mayer, and subsequent costumbrista writers and artists represented “writers for hire,” otherwise known as escríbanos públicos, public scribes, or evangelistas. In Linati’s Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique, the escríbano is

placed outdoors and assumes working-class status (fig. 7). According to Linati, the public scribe was often a Spaniard who had had bad fortune and was now reduced to working as a writer for money.20 Depicted seated in the Plaza Mayor, or Central Square, in Mexico City beneath a makeshift tarp, the escríbano addresses a young woman seated at his feet. The woman confesses the secrets and desires of her heart while the escríbano documents them in prose or verse for the recipient of the young woman’s affections. Her index finger, which points toward the heavens, emphasizes her religious convictions, or perhaps is a request for religious intervention in her plight. Brantz Mayer also described the escríbano in Mexico as It Was. In the southwestern corner of the square is the Parian, an unsightly building . . . which greatly mars the effect of the plaza. It is a useful establishment, however, as it affords a large revenue to the municipality and is the great bazaar where every article requisite for the dress of Mexicans, male or female, may be purchased at reasonable prices. . . . Not the least curious, however, among the multitude, with which this side-walk is generally thronged, are about a dozen “evangelistas” or “letterwriters,” whose post is always on the curbstones of the eastern front of the Parian. A huge jug of ink is placed beside them; a board rests across their knees; a pile of different colored paper . . . and, on a stool before them, sits some disconsolate looking damsel or heart-broken lover, pouring out a passion which the scribe puts into becoming phraseology. It is an important trade; and more money is earned in Mexico by this proxy-making love, than perhaps anywhere else. You can have a “declaration” for one real; a scolding letter for a medio; and an upbraiding epistle, full of daggers, jealousy, love, tenderness (leaving the unfortunate recipient in a very distracted state of mind) done upon azure paper be-sprinkled with hearts and doves, for the ridiculous price of twenty-five cents!21

18 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 18

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 5  Andrés de Islas, No. 15. De barcino y cambuja, nace calpamulato (No. 15. From barcino and cambuja, a calpamulato is born), 1774. Oil on canvas, 75 × 54 cm. Museo de América, Madrid. Figure 6  Andrés de Islas, No. 6. De español y morisca, nace albino (No. 6. From Spaniard and morisca, an albino is born), 1774. Oil on canvas, 75 × 54 cm. Museo de América, Madrid. Figure 7  Claudio Linati, Ecrivain public, sur la grand’place à Mexico (Escríbano público o Evangelista / Scribe), from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828), plate 9. Lithograph. Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.

19 / Racialized Social Spaces

Moriuchi book.indb 19

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 8  Hesiquio Iriarte, El evangelista (Scribe), from Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos: Tipos y costumbres nacionales, por varios autores (Mexico City: M. Murguía, 1854–55), 64. Lithograph. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.

Mayer marveled at the success of this type of exploitive business and the economic exchange that made it viable. In addition, both he and Linati depicted a type of Mexican man who embodied unscrupulous morals and a type of Mexican woman who was gullible, romantic, and whimsical. This is quite different from the sophisticated intellectual

presented in Islas’s casta painting, an ideal that was reclaimed somewhat by later nineteenth-century costumbrista writers. For example, Hesiquio Iriarte’s illustration of the escríbano, or evangelista, in Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos takes on a more somber, even nostalgic tone (fig. 8). Though this scribe recalls the restrained elegance of Islas’s writer, it is evident that writing is his occupation, not simply evidence of his intellect and affluence. He is placed indoors, perhaps in the doorway of a building or patio, as suggested by the faint archway in the background. Dressed in a three-piece suit, the evangelista has a full beard and wears glasses. He is seated at a small desk in the act of writing, not unlike the scribe in Islas’s painting, though he is alone. In the accompanying essay in Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, written by Juan de Dios Arias, the evangelista is compared to the true evangelists, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, Saint John, and Saint Matthew. “Our evangelist knows nothing about evangelism and is not an evangelist,” says Arias, “yet we have an evangelist who shares some of the attributes of the true evangelists.” He is humble and nimble with words. He also wishes for his independence; thus he dismisses the occupations of schoolteacher or journalist, careers that involve reporting to others. Arias describes the various clients who visit the evangelista during the day: a wife whose husband just got out of jail, a servant in love, a street vendor in need of a birthday greeting, an old lady who has lost her daughter, and so on. The evangelista spends the entire day writing and rewriting, for his clients are rarely satisfied with the first attempt. It is a fruitless, thankless profession, yet one the evangelista takes on willingly in exchange for his independence. He is a man, Arias aptly concludes, “who is always poor, who writes, sleeps, and eats, and eats only when he writes.”22 From the casta to the costumbrista genres, we see the act of writing change from an act of leisure to an act of labor—in contrast to representations of water carriers and food vendors, whose wares and

20 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 20

11/17/17 3:29 PM

costumes vary but whose roles remain generally consistent. Over the course of the nineteenth century, Mexican costumbrista writers attempted to dignify an occupation that foreign traveler-writers trivialized. The public scribe became a national type, worthy of inclusion in the Mexican album of types. Yet his affinities with the writer in casta paintings suggest a more complicated reclamation, one not completely free of the vestiges of colonialization. Occupations and leisurely pastimes were important markers of identity that artists of casta and costumbrista imagery represented within a carefully orchestrated racial and gender hierarchy. Through costume, setting, occupation, and props, artists intimated the moral and social character of each of the castas by pointing to their ethnicity and social status. The water carrier, food vendor, and scribe were only three of the numerous types constructed on this basis. These and many other types, although visualized pictorially in casta paintings, evolved and developed in the imaginations of travelers and costumbrista artists. Representations by European and Mexican artists circulated simultaneously and functioned as what Benedict Anderson has called “print capitalism,” the publication and spread of indigenous newspapers, journals, periodicals, and, I would add, visual imagery, to create unified fields of exchange and communication that contributed to the development of nationalism and national identity.23

Racialized Social Spaces Casta and costumbrista paintings depicted racialized social spaces, settings in which racial, social, and gender relationships were imagined and visualized. These spaces placed the represented types in a hierarchical order. The orchestrated scenes in which the various popular types acted out dramatic narratives were meant to convey social placement, gender roles, and racial status. For

example, the provincial and popular portrayals in the costumbrista paintings by the Poblano artist José Agustín Arrieta constructed racialized social spaces that drew on the casta painting tradition while imagining a more contemporary narrative. In other words, during the postindependence period, although casta nomenclature was no longer legally valid, its classifications still resonated for individuals of mixed races who continued to intermingle on a daily basis. Arrieta captured these daily interactions in his costumbrista paintings. In Arrieta’s painting La sorpreza of 1850 (The surprise) (fig. 9), we see acknowledgment and displacement of the racial and social tensions typical of casta paintings. The title of this painting of an open-air market takes its name from the establishment in the background and refers not only to the store’s diverse offerings but also to the painting’s entertainment value. Unlike the detailed inscriptions in casta paintings, La sorpreza provides an ambiguous, playful text designed to entice the viewer. Perhaps Arrieta is cleverly alluding to the unexpected racial mixtures present. No longer told what to think by a caption, as in the earlier casta tradition, the viewer is left to speculate and be “surprised” by the possible racial types.24 At the center of the composition is a group of three people; a woman functions as the focal point and receives the attention of both a small boy who tugs at her dress and a man who pulls her toward him. She is dressed simply in a white cotton dress; the blue rebozo draped over her head draws attention to her face, which is shown in profile as she looks over her right shoulder. Her large bare feet identify her as someone of the lower classes: perhaps a mestiza—or a cambuja, or a loba? Scholars have often interpreted this painting as displaying gender tension, emphasizing the woman’s struggle against an unwanted suitor.25 I would argue to the contrary that the central grouping is akin to the family unit seen in casta paintings. The

21 / Racialized Social Spaces

Moriuchi book.indb 21

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 9  José Agustín Arrieta, La sorpreza (The surprise), 1850. Oil on canvas, 69.5 × 93 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex.

family, composed of man, woman, and child, is set within a larger outdoor public space. No longer guided by text, the viewer can only guess the races of the individuals, which downplays the importance of identifying the appropriate casta. Instead, the emphasis is on an interaction external to the family group: the central female figure in the blue rebozo is engaged in a heated discussion with the higher-class woman in an elegant black dress and parasol (presumably a criolla), who strides swiftly along the

left-hand side of the composition. Subtle yet important clues, such as the way in which the women’s heads lean toward one another while their arms move in the opposite direction (the curve of their bodies almost form parentheses around the action) and the placement of the small boy tugging at his mother’s skirt, indicate a minor altercation between the women. As such, the mustached beau is not the cause of the woman’s distress but is, rather, assisting in defusing a racial or social dispute.

22 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 22

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 10  Andrés de Islas, No. 4. De español y negra, nace mulata (From Spaniard and black, a mulatta is born), 1774. Oil on canvas, 75 × 54 cm. Museo de América, Madrid.

The two small dogs playing in the left foreground near the criolla’s demure feet add a playful yet poignant touch, perhaps referring to the outcome of the tiff between the two women. Here, presumptions about racial differences are displaced from human beings to animals; the black dog asserts its dominance over the weaker, submissive white dog, reminding the viewer that the black and Indian races were thought to be subject to hostile passions that could not be controlled.26 Casta paintings occasionally featured racial mixtures of supposedly degenerate or sordid Africans and Indians, which encouraged the belief that Africans had hot tempers and were prone to acting aggressively. For example,

in the fourth panel in Andrés de Islas’s 1774 casta series, No. 4. De español y negra, nace mulata (From Spaniard and black, a mulatta is born) (fig. 10), a combative black mother is portrayed attacking her Spanish husband with a wooden cooking implement, while her mulatta daughter, not unlike the small boy in Arrieta’s painting, tugs on her mother’s skirt, pleading with her to stop. Another plausible reading is that the rather small, delicate dogs both belong to the criolla, and that they symbolize the criolla and mestiza, as reinforced by the color of their dresses.27 The dominant position of the black dog slyly indicates the victory of the criolla. Either way, both readings

23 / Racialized Social Spaces

Moriuchi book.indb 23

11/17/17 3:29 PM

support an interpretation of the image as illustrating a racial or social dispute, and not merely an analysis of gender relations. Another racialized social space represented in casta and costumbrista compositions is the kitchen. In casta paintings, the kitchen is typically the setting for a Spanish father and an African mother, as in Islas’s De español y negra, nace mulata, as the shelf of plates and counter covered with pots and pans make clear. Despite this violent scene of domestic abuse, Islas simultaneously emphasizes the fertility and abundant natural resources of the New World. In the right foreground is a large container of exotic fruits and vegetables, including sugarcane, jicama, and mango, which are also identified in the detailed key at the top of the painting. Thus the produce, like the figures, is classified and exoticized. In costumbrista painting, by contrast, the kitchen is associated primarily with the domestic, private realm of the female, especially the indigenous and mestiza women who cooked for the household. As Jenny Ramírez notes, Arrieta’s images of the provincial and popular are preoccupied with representing gender relations, and his paintings confirm the gendered separation of the masculine from the feminine world. Many of Arrieta’s paintings accentuate the role of the woman as a virtuous wife and devoted mother. The settings of kitchen, marketplace, and banquet, and such decorative objects as ceramic jars, clay pots, and copper pans, are tied to nourishment and female fecundity.28 Arrieta’s painting Cocina poblana (Poblana kitchen, 1865) (fig. 11) depicts a light-filled kitchen of rich terracotta colors, its walls adorned with copper and clay pots. Sun streams in through the open door and window in the background, illuminating the scene. Arrieta divides the composition into two pairs of figures. On the left, two darkerskinned women are busy preparing food. On the right, two women of lighter complexion, one

significantly younger than the other, stand next to a guajalote, or turkey. The focus is on these two women who are not engaged in household chores: the unusually fair-skinned blond woman who draws our gaze, known as a china poblana, and the older, white-haired lady draped in a blue rebozo, identified as a celestina, a procuress or matchmaker.29 The china poblana in the nineteenth century generally connoted a dark-complexioned mestiza who came to the city from the provinces and wore a traditional colorful costume. She became emblematic of the ideal Mexican woman in costumbrista literature.30 However, the china poblana was a highly mythologized figure whose indeterminate origin interwove various legends. A poblana, in the costumbrista paintings mentioned above, was someone from the state of Puebla, about eighty-five miles southeast of Mexico City, but the term could also refer to someone from the pueblo, or countryside. It is believed that the term “china poblana” originated somewhat obscurely from a pious nun named Catarina de San Juan who came to Mexico as a slave from India in the seventeenth century and dedicated her life to the poor and needy.31 Scholars have speculated that Catarina’s colorful Indian dress may have given the association some credence, although in Mexico she was described as dressing very simply, in keeping with her pious lifestyle. The connection of the china poblana costume to Catarina de San Juan seems to have arisen from a semantic error, since “china” did not signify Chinese but was the Quechua word for slave or servant.32 Despite Quechua’s South American origins, the language’s influence could have migrated north. First used to describe a virtuous religious woman in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the term “china poblana” came over time to mean an independent and patriotic woman in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Arrieta’s painting, it appears that the elderly celestina is attempting to marry off the china

24 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 24

11/17/17 3:29 PM

poblana to a smitten suitor.33 Thus the turkey is both a sign of what may be for lunch, mole poblano, a specialty dish from Puebla that has a complicated sauce composed of chocolate and chili peppers, and a symbol of the china poblana’s sexuality. In early modern European tradition, the turkey and rooster symbolized sexuality, virility, and lost virginity. It is highly likely that Arrieta was familiar with Dutch genre painting, in which young maidens are wittily portrayed alongside fowl. We see this in paintings by Dutch Golden Age painters like Gerrit Dou, in which young housewives are depicted holding roosters or other birds.34 The citation of the Dutch tradition is not accidental and would have played a part in a sophisticated viewer’s response to Arrieta’s work.

Figure 11  José Agustín Arrieta, Cocina poblana (Poblana kitchen), 1865. Oil on canvas, 70 × 93 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex.

25 / Racialized Social Spaces

Moriuchi book.indb 25

11/17/17 3:29 PM

In fact, Mexican artists had enjoyed direct access to European prints and paintings since the colonial period. In particular, scholars have noted the significant impact of Flemish religious prints on Mexican painting, though work remains to be done on the influence of secular prints.35 During Arrieta’s time, Flemish genre prints occupied prominent places in nineteenth-century collectors’ homes. The wealthy Bello family lived not far from Arrieta’s home in Puebla. José Luis Bello y González (1822– 1907), his son José Mariano Bello y Acedo (1869– 1938), and his grandson José Luis Bello y Zetina (1889–1968) were wealthy merchants in Puebla.36 Several generations of the family had collected passionately and amassed a wide variety of paintings, prints, decorative objects, and furniture. Today, two of the family’s homes have been converted into art museums—the Museo José Luis Bello y González and the Museo José Luis Bello y Zetina, located blocks from each other in Puebla. Here, interspersed among seventeenth-century bone- and ivory-inlaid marquetry furniture, eighteenth-century Chinese, French, and English porcelain, biblical and secular paintings by the Spanish masters Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and Francisco de Zurbarán, and genre prints by Francisco Goya and David Teniers the Younger, are costumbrista and still-life paintings by Arrieta. Arrieta’s painting Cocina poblana is more intriguing for its notable departure from traditional costumbrista representations of the china poblana than for the possible sexual connotations or the gesture toward general feminine domesticity. Chinas poblanas were customarily portrayed with black hair and a medium-brown complexion, characteristics of a mestiza. Arrieta’s blond, fair-skinned china poblana is both unusual and enigmatic, and she preoccupied him in other paintings as well. For example, in Vendedora de frutas y vieja (Fruit vendor and old woman, mid-nineteenth century), he also painted the pale, blond china poblana and the

elderly procuress, this time removing the female figures from the kitchen and isolating them in close proximity in a more compressed composition.37 The turkey and the lush, tropical fruits and vegetables (some even cut open to reveal their ripe flesh) once again suggest that there is more available for purchase here than fresh produce. In his depictions of the fair-skinned china poblana, Arrieta subverted what had become a stylistic and social convention in order to convey a message about the spread of miscegenation and the further blurring of racial categories in the nineteenth century, an extension and rewriting of the earlier casta tradition. Arrieta’s blond china poblana makes visually manifest a particular, if not surprising, outcome of the constant mixing of Spanish blood with that of mixed-race individuals. The blond china fuses her specific Mexican spirit with a Europeanized essence; this is an image about mestizaje, racial mixing. By drawing attention to the china poblana’s racial mixing, Arrieta does not detract from her unique Mexicanness but rather underscores the complexity and diversity of national identity. Arrieta’s costumbrista paintings richly interweave contemporary social, racial, and national discourses in postindependence Mexico. Perhaps a similar understanding about miscegenation is conveyed in the casta painting De albina y español, nace tornatrás (From albino and Spaniard, a throwback is born, ca. 1785–90) (fig. 12), by an unknown Mexican artist. This painting also includes a blond female protagonist. Identified as an albino by the text in the painting, she is the progeny of Spanish and morisca (that is, Spanish and mulatto) parentage. During the colonial period, it was believed that repeated mixing with Spanish blood could make a person physically “white”—thus the use of the term “albino.” Here, however, the term does not mean the medical condition associated with the hereditary inability to produce the pigment melanin, but is used to describe the blond and very fair-skinned types of

26 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 26

11/17/17 3:29 PM

mixed morisco and Spanish parentage. Those who engaged in this process, known as “blood mending,” assumed that Indian and African blood was by nature tainted, but that mixing that blood with pure Spanish blood could result in whiteness and thus salvation for later generations.38 This and similar theories sought to reinforce the superiority of “white” European blood and the detrimental consequences of mixing pure and impure blood.39 This unique casta painting provides a glimpse into an unusual setting, the artist’s studio. The scene depicts the Spanish father, dressed as one of the elite, painting his light-skinned wife, while their

Figure 12 Unknown, De albina y español, nace tornatrás (From albina and Spaniard, a throwback is born), ca. 1785–90. Oil on canvas, 62.6 × 83.2 cm. Private collection, on loan with Fomento Cultural Banamex, A.C.

27 / Racialized Social Spaces

Moriuchi book.indb 27

11/17/17 3:29 PM

dark-skinned tornatrás son stands nearby holding a brush and a picture. Tornatrás referred to mixtures of “albino” and Spanish blood that resulted in the unexpected birth of a dark-skinned child. Its use demonstrated that the darker attributes associated with the black race could reappear at any moment (even when the mother was “white”). Thus blood mending was not always considered “successful.” However, although the tornatrás son would never have the white skin of his parents, he would inherit their social status. The presence of the servant who grinds the pigments in the background highlights the greater social position held by the son, who reinforces his status by displaying his artistic tools and thus his more leisurely pursuits. The artist conveys a sense of how social mobility challenged racial hierarchy in colonial Mexico. As Douglas Cope has shown in his research on plebeian society in colonial Mexico City, upward mobility was not impossible for lower-class castas and Indians.40 The mother is seated, wearing a red dress and lace mantilla and holding a fan in her right hand, an attribute customary in portraits of women. While she looks toward her husband/artist, her portrait, shown freshly painted on the easel, stares directly out at the viewer, following traditional viceregal portrait conventions.41 The painted wife is the one who captures our attention with her gaze. Their son also looks out at the beholder as he gestures with the brush in his left hand, while the servant in the background grinds colors. The back wall of the studio displays a variety of landscapes, portraits, and engravings. This woman—mother, albino, and sitter—is the subject of a separate portrait within a casta painting. The artist has creatively collapsed genre and portraiture into one and further blurs the boundaries between subject and object, nature and artifice, reality and representation. The artist seems to suggest that appearances are deceiving, that these figures do not reveal the lineage that they supposedly represent.

Though I am not implying that Arrieta’s blond china poblana is a direct descendant of the albinos seen in casta painting, we see a persistent interest after independence in representing miscegenation and in acknowledging the resulting diversity of Mexico’s population. The kitchen, the marketplace, and even the artist’s studio were locations in which racial and social relationships could be visualized and documented. These racialized social spaces can be viewed as theatrical settings in which various stock characters acted out their prescribed roles. In the endurance of these pictorial representations in the postcolonial period, one can see the continuity of stereotypes and the lingering legacy of miscegenation.

From Casta to Costumbrista Both casta and costumbrista paintings offered a constructed artistic vision of Mexican people and culture, albeit in diverse ways. Casta paintings’ more rigid structure included only one family per scene and, as a series, employed a hierarchical order based on the various outcomes of miscegenation and the biases toward this process. In casta paintings, different racial types were also classified and reified by an inscribed text that instructed the viewer in the types portrayed. Costumbrista paintings rejected this classificatory structure, as the desire to blend, and in a sense dissipate, the different castas displaced the desire to accentuate their individuality. Costumbrista paintings differed from casta paintings in other important ways. For one thing, the mixed-race individuals and families in costumbrista paintings were meant to be seen in relation to other classes and types, thus downplaying their uniqueness and integrating them into, and presenting them as, a unified community. People of mixed race were not depicted as exotic Others but rather were normalized as typical nineteenth-century Mexicans. In addition, racial tension was down-

28 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 28

11/17/17 3:29 PM

played. As we can see in La sorpreza, potential racial conflict was transferred from humans to animals, while other works suggest no discordance at all. As a result of the deepening acceptance of Mexico as a nation of mixed-race people, casta paintings that emphasized social hierarchy and taxonomical nomenclature dwindled in popularity after independence. Even so, there are continuities between the two genres—namely, the focus on descriptive details of class and profession, the familial groupings of man-woman-child, and the depiction of mixed racial types. The persistence of these features complicates the process of identity formation in Mexican art, as pictures and politics moved forward under the pretense that the old colonial order had been destroyed. This continuity is apparent even as the depiction of gender, social, and racial relationships changed. It suggests the persistence of the colonial gaze in the construction of racial and social types after independence, even as Mexicans trying to construct a national identity sought to renounce the colonial legacy. Through typecasting, artists visualized an imagined subjectivity formed via a dialectic of similarity and difference. Popular types were created on the basis of markers of similarity. Costumes that could be simplified and repeated, like those of the water carrier and china poblana, came to identify those types and were seen as “typical.” Their physical features became standardized and identifying markers. And yet, in order to assume these elements of sameness, they had to be based on their difference from a norm. The water carrier became a Mexican type, as long as he was distinguishable from other types. The juxtaposition of opposing or contradictory ideas explains in part the continuities between casta and costumbrista imagery.

What began as representations of “otherness” were appropriated and implicated in the discourse of identity once independence was achieved from Spain. Inspirational models of dignity and desire, popular types like the water carrier and china poblana developed in the collective imagination. Such types were, as Bhabha put it, “at once an object of desire and derision, an articulation of difference contained within the fantasy of origin and identity.”42 These figures shared affinities with European types even as they were unique to Mexico. For example, Spain had its own water carrier type. And the china poblana shared affinities with the Spanish maja and the French grisette (see chapter 3). Their settings, domestic scenes, and public interactions evoked a harmonious mood and embodied a picturesque quality that rendered them appealing and manipulable. It is easy to see how such romanticized figures would take hold as emblematic figures of national unity and identity. And it was through repeated representation that these stock figures achieved success in popular culture.43 Both casta and costumbrista artworks tended to idealize social and political circumstances. In a sense, casta paintings represented the indeterminable. They attempted to identify and classify the complex outcomes of miscegenation, which fundamentally defied categorization. Costumbrista paintings, by contrast, depicted the implausible. The quasi-peaceful commingling of distinct classes and races was optimistic even in the best of political and economic circumstances. The complexities of race and class continued to preoccupy artists and their patrons with the rise of costumbrismo in the nineteenth century. Despite its formal and historical differences, costumbrista imagery wove together aspects of casta painting in order to construct racialized social spaces that fused the real with the imaginary.

29 / Racialized Social Spaces

Moriuchi book.indb 29

11/17/17 3:29 PM

02 Chapter 02.indd 30

11/21/17 1:41 PM

chapter 2

Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

In nineteenth-century Mexico, the opening of borders enabled more visitors, scientists, explorers, diplomats, and artists to visit. Europeans were aware of Spanish America and its abundance of natural resources and luxury products, such as the silver, chocolate, and tobacco that had been exported and consumed in Europe since the sixteenth century. But the Spanish government’s strict laws governing trade and travel had made it difficult for firsthand exploration and scientific study of the New World. In the late eighteenth century, the Spanish king Charles IV granted unprecedented permission to the German scientist Alexander von Humboldt and the French botanist Aimé Bonpland to explore, map, and scientifically document the Americas in the interest of obtaining extensive cartographic, geographic, and statistical information about the territory, including detailed plans of mines and military positions.1 Humboldt traveled in the Americas for five years, from 1799 to 1804, and lived in Mexico during

Moriuchi book.indb 31

the final year. His expansive and well-documented voyage to the Americas for Charles IV paved the way for numerous other scientists, businessmen, writers, and artists. Humboldt held a unitary conception of nature, believing that general laws explained natural phenomena and that these laws could be discovered solely through empirical data based on measurement and experiment. In Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, Humboldt described his principal ambition as “the earnest endeavour to comprehend the phenomena of physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces.” Humboldt understood the impossibility of uniting all that was unknown by means of rational principles, but he felt that even a partial solution to the problem should be the ultimate aim of every investigation of nature. As he passionately put it, “It is by a separation and classification of phenomena, by an intuitive insight into the play of obscure forces and by animated

11/17/17 3:29 PM

expressions, in which the perceptible spectacle is reflected with vivid truthfulness, that we may hope to comprehend and describe the universal all in a manner worthy of the dignity of the word Cosmos in its signification of universe, order of the world and adornment of this universal order. May the immeasurable diversity of phenomena which crowd into the picture of nature in no way detract from that harmonious impression of rest and unity, which is the ultimate object of every literary or purely artistical composition.”2 Humboldt’s extensive writings and universal concept of nature reimagined and redefined Spanish America. Humboldt’s commitment to scientific discovery and the faithful representation of the flora, fauna, geography, and inhabitants of the Americas influenced the manner in which the many images produced by traveler-artists of the early nineteenth century were viewed and interpreted. Travelerartists’ representations were generally understood as authentic and objective documentation of what the artists saw and experienced. I would argue, however, that these “scientific illustrations” reveal the subjectivity, bias, and even romantic sensibility of their creators. My interest in this chapter lies in interrogating the paradoxical coexistence of truthful verisimilitude and constructed idealization, as it pertains to the representation of the people and customs of Mexico. In my view, despite Humboldt’s praise for the scientific objectivity of artists like Carl Nebel and Johann Moritz Rugendas, these men and others like them were above all artists. And they worked within the traditions of art history, aware of the currents of neoclassicism, romanticism, and realism, and were keen to represent “ideas,” in the Aristotelian sense of the word.3 Furthermore, I am interested in understanding how these foreign artists contributed to the formation of Mexican stereotypes. The artists I consider in this chapter worked in a “contact zone,” a term that Mary Louise Pratt has used to describe “social

spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other.”4 These traveler-artist accounts provide an outsider’s, often an imperialist, perspective, though we will see nuances in their observations and output. How did the “outsider” perspective, in this case predominantly European, contribute to the creation of Mexican identity after independence? Can their images be considered nationalistic because they reinforced local types, or are they denied this role because European artists produced them? These images are traditionally read as nineteenth-century traveler art, that is, art produced by European artists of non-European subjects for a European audience. They can be understood in the postcolonialist context as images of dominance that served to exoticize and subordinate the lands across the Atlantic. However, these images had exposure beyond European eyes; some of them, for example, were exhibited at the Mexican academy and had local patrons. In addition, many of the foreign depictions of popular types were echoed by Mexican artists working in various media, from lithography to photography. As Pratt would argue, transculturation, a phenomenon of the contact zone, occurred.5 This term describes how subordinated or marginal groups receive, absorb, and appropriate metropolitan modes of representation.6 Though the subordinate groups cannot control the content disseminated by the dominant culture, they can determine to some degree what is absorbed into the local culture and how it is used. In short, foreign artists’ views contributed to constructions of Mexican identity. Their representations of Mexican customs and traditions informed local artists’ portrayals, complicating our understanding of national identity construction, often understood as a solely nationalistic endeavor within the borders of the country in question. Although many European artists traveled in Mexico in the nineteenth century, I focus on four

32 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 32

11/17/17 3:29 PM

who vary widely in artistic training, career objectives, and pictorial output. Claudio Linati and Carl Nebel produced album books and lithographs that incorporated text and image to illustrate Mexican types for predominantly European audiences. Johann Moritz Rugendas and Édouard Pingret created stand-alone costumbrista drawings and paintings for both local and European patrons. These four men shared a fascination with Mexico and the drive to represent Mexico’s traditions, customs, and people. All travel requires that one negotiate a complicated dialogue between alterity and identity, difference and similarity. The self is implicated in the process, just as “othering,” the process by which another culture is constructed as different from one’s own, is enacted. Wonder and curiosity stimulate the traveler-artist’s endeavor, and he presents a distortion of the world even as he brings the world closer, making it more visible and understandable. The interplay between fact and fiction is negotiated distinctly by each observer and what is being observed.

Costume Books and the Legacy of Claudio Linati Claudio Linati (1790–1832) is credited with bringing the technology and expertise associated with lithography to Mexico. Born to a noble family in Parma, Italy, Linati became an expert in engraving as a young man and soon mastered lithography.7 In 1809, he departed for Paris, where he joined the studio of Jacques-Louis David and was exposed to both revolutionary politics and academic drawing and neoclassicist representation. He joined Napoleon’s army in 1810, and by 1814 he was living in Spain, where he married doña Isabel de Bacardi, a wealthy woman from a distinguished family. Linati’s adventurous spirit and liberal political tendencies led to his revolutionary activity in Spain, where in

1824 he was imprisoned for siding with the liberal forces. Fleeing to France and then Belgium, Linati became acquainted with Mexican officials, who granted him and his friend, Gaspar Franchini, permission to establish the first lithographic workshop in Mexico City in February 1826. In Mexico City, Linati taught the craft of lithography, while also writing and illustrating a weekly periodical called El Iris (February to August 1826) in which he featured lithographs of European fashion models, musical scores, and portraits of political figures such as José María Morelos and Guadalupe Victoria.8 In a publication intended for a female audience, he and his collaborators expressed their revolutionary political views, including their demand for freedom of the press, and created the first political caricatures denouncing dictatorship and tyranny.9 Linati lived in Mexico during the reign of Guadalupe Victoria, Mexico’s first president after the demise of Mexico’s first empire, led by the emperor Agustín de Iturbide. Although Victoria served a complete four-year presidential term and became known for establishing diplomatic relations with several foreign nations, the political climate was rife with instability, fear, and paranoia. Victoria faced several attempted coups d’état, the first within seven months of taking office. El Iris’s political commentary led to its closure, and Linati was forced to leave Mexico in September 1826. As we shall see, Linati was not the only traveler-artist to get expelled from the country for his political activities. Despite its short existence, El Iris provided a lasting model for future journals that published satirical political and social content. Shortly after his arrival in Mexico, Linati conceived of a project that would illustrate typical Mexican costumes. Eventually published in Brussels in 1828, Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique included forty-eight colored lithographs of Mexican types.10 Linati’s album provided a panoramic view of the Mexican population. The litho-

33 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 33

11/17/17 3:29 PM

graphs comprise individual figures and small groups and are accompanied by descriptive text on the facing page. Each figure is isolated from the others, making it the primary focus; any background landscape or setting is minimal. The text for each image includes observations on Mexican costumes, customs, and traditions, underscored by moralistic political and social commentary. The forty-eight images can be loosely characterized as idealized in form, simple in line and color. Linati was a romantic—an adventurous, politically liberal artist who described his world critically in the language of art and aesthetics. His book of Mexican types was received favorably in Europe, and Linati got positive reviews for both the color and simplicity of his designs and the descriptive text, which informed European readers of the faraway land and people of Mexico. A review in La Gazette des Pays Bas on March 13, 1828, said that Linati had performed a great service by familiarizing Belgians with Mexican culture and people.11 Linati’s book provided a Eurocentric view of a previously colonized culture to which European audiences could relate. Although Linati aspired to produce a comprehensive study of that culture and its people, it was unrealistic to expect that he could achieve such an ambitious goal on the basis of a few months’ worth of observations. Linati relied on the rhetorical trope of synecdoche, in which a part is made to represent the whole.12 The inevitable reduction of Linati’s experiences in Mexico into a digestible text with illustrations reflected his perspective and subjective viewpoint. His inclusion of both text and image suggested his desire to “show” as well as “tell.” I have grouped Linati’s forty-eight images into four main areas: depictions of occupations, depictions of social and racial classes, depictions of religious figures, and depictions of military or political characters. The first category contains types like the aguador (fig. 3) and tortilleras (tortilla

makers) (fig. 14). The second, social and racial classes, includes types identifiable by their social or racial status—for example, the cacique (Indian chief). This category also comprises the lithographs that depict small groups of figures, such as the Dispute de deux Indiennes (Pleito entre dos indias, or Argument between two Indian women) (fig. 13) and litera (litter), a means of transportation for the upper classes. Religious figures consist of a seminarian and a nun. Military and political characters include the civic guard of Veracruz and some well-known political leaders. Although most of the lithographs are of ordinary, anonymous individuals, a few depict actual historical figures, including Miguel Hidalgo, José María Morelos, and President Guadalupe Victoria. The inclusion of these liberal heroes reflects Linati’s affinity for the insurgent movement that had led to Mexico’s independence from Spain. The types are numbered, but they do not follow the order of the categories I have listed above. In fact, the arrangement of types does not adhere to an orderly system of classification at all. Linati’s decision not to group them by category enables the viewer to encounter them as one might when walking the streets of nineteenth-century Mexico. Despite this lack of a clear taxonomical order, a departure from casta painting, Linati’s accompanying text clearly reinforces a socioracial hierarchy that places the criollo elite at the top of the ladder and the mixed-race populace below. Although he did represent a few famous individuals, Linati was concerned for the most part with illustrating types—figures who generally embodied particular characteristics and demeanors and represented certain occupations and specific class backgrounds. In the case of those characterized by occupation, the principal work or business defines the person and is entirely described by costume and attributes. For example, a chicken seller wears simple, tattered clothes and holds a cage of chickens

34 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 34

11/17/17 3:29 PM

en route to market, while the soldier is easily recognizable by his uniform. The equivalent today might be a judge, implied by long black robes and the gavel in his hand, or a teacher, represented as a bespectacled woman holding a ruler or a piece of chalk, her hair in a bun. These images do more than simply define a role, for the accompanying written commentary reveals the underlying moral judgment of the author and illustrator. Linati was working within a tradition of costume books, as demonstrated by the title of his book, Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique. As in costume books of the sixteenth century, Linati used dress to differentiate his figures, thus placing much more emphasis on the costumes than on the individuals’ facial features. He also isolated the figures in indeterminate settings, forcing the reader to home in on the differences among them, which are primarily found in their dress. Costume books were similar to encyclopedias and books of maps, and so Linati’s work seemed to present a comprehensive view of a nation’s culture, regions, classes, and occupations. It also conveyed the impression that dress could be rationally classified and appearances standardized and interpreted as such.13 As Margaret Rosenthal and Ann Rosalind Jones point out, in early modern Europe, clothing was not considered an expression of style or fashion but a marker of gender, age, marital status, rank, and regional identity.14 If a reader were to encounter a girl from Tehuantepec, for example, the expectation would be that her clothes would represent her social status and region. This supposition reinforced the notion that costume books contained figures from “life.” The notion that standard dress as portrayed in costume books reflected social reality was, of course, an idealization. Linati’s text reinforced the idea that dress was a semiotic system that functioned only in a limited local area.15 Beyond this local setting, the costumes could not be read clearly, and the text was

required to effectively communicate to a larger, foreign public. Costume books fascinated readers because clothing varied so widely from place to place and served as a marker of regional and national differences. In addition, costume books provided quicker and cheaper access to this kind of knowledge, freeing readers from the need to travel themselves.16 Like a cabinet of curiosities, the costume book provided a taste of the exotic to those who couldn’t undertake a difficult, expensive, and time-consuming journey across the ocean. The costumes of Mexico had been represented previously in costume books, such as Cesare Vecellio’s Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo, first published in 1590. But Vecellio’s costume book, though it purported to encompass the entire world, focused primarily on Italy and other European countries, devoting only three pages to Mexico. Moreover, in representing countries outside Italy, Vecellio relied primarily on secondhand reports. Linati’s innovation was to focus solely on Mexico, and he claimed authenticity for his representations by virtue of his firsthand knowledge and travels throughout the country. His choice of only one nation allowed Linati to isolate Mexico and treat it independently of the rest of the Americas and the world. Linati thus provided an eager European audience with “accurate” and timely information about Mexico. Although Vecellio had also included explanatory text about the costumes he featured, Linati went beyond mere description, delving into historical and cultural remarks that often disclosed his racial and social biases. His book provided European readers with a cheaper, more “comprehensive” view of Mexico than most of them would ever have the opportunity to see. And, unlike most of the travel journals and diaries that were also popular in nineteenth-century Europe, Linati’s book offered an important visual component. As discussed in the previous chapter, Linati depicted the popular types of the aguador (water

35 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 35

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 13  Claudio Linati, Dispute de deux Indiennes (Pleito entre dos indias / Argument between two Indian women), from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828), plate 14. Lithograph. Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.

carrier) and evangelista (scribe) in his album, and these images reveal his biases about the “uncivilized” nature of the men in these occupations. Linati also made assumptions about the character of Mexican and Indian women and about Indians’ unfortunate predilection for alcohol. Dispute de deux Indiennes (fig. 13) depicts two Indian women with flushed faces. They have babies tied to their backs

and are engaged in a physical struggle, while three spectators in the background look on. The mothers grasp each other’s arms, trying to push each other back, while their babies cry and flail their arms. The women’s loose clothing, dark skin, and bare feet indicate their lower-class status, in contrast with the better-dressed, light-skinned spectators. In the accompanying text, Linati attributes this unruly degenerate behavior to the country’s native liquors. Even the women, he points out, drink what was called chinguirito (aguardiente, or hard liquor, made from sugar cane), and the smallest quantity could transform sweet, docile women into hot-tempered fighters. Linati comments specifically on the poor infants, whose presence the mothers have forgotten and who are left wailing behind them. The three observers represent the villagers, who, Linati notes, were accustomed to this type of scene. They view the women indifferently, as a form of entertainment, exhibiting prejudices against the “inferior” Indian race.17 This unusual scene of several figures differs from Linati’s images of single types in its sense of immediate action and movement. Its inclusion in the album promoted stereotypes of the lower indigenous classes, spreading these biases to European audiences eager to hear about barbaric, uncivilized Others. In other representations of women, such as Tortilleras (fig. 14), Linati implies their sexual availability. Linati describes the manner of making corn into tortillas by indigenous women using the metate (mealing stone) and comal (griddle). The romanticized and sensualized scene portrays a bare-breasted woman rolling dough on the metate, her blouse having fallen down during the performance of this physical task. Her head is wrapped in a shawl, her eyes are closed, and her lips are erotically pursed. Her dark-skinned female companion watches her as she pats the dough, preparing to toss it on the comal. The accoutrements of their trade occupy the foreground, while in the background a

36 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 36

11/17/17 3:29 PM

triangular structure composed of wooden beams and tarp frames the scene. These two women seem to offer more than the tortillas they prepare, particularly to the presumably white heterosexual male viewer. Cartoonish in its flattened delineation of the figures and its simplistic color palette, the lithograph has the appearance of a nineteenth-century exotic pinup. In Linati’s Hacendado: Criollo propietario (Criollo landowner) (fig. 15), a confident young man stands frontally in contrapposto. His outstretched left hand points toward the ground, indicating his own landholdings. His elaborate rancher costume includes leather riding pants and a large blue and red embroidered manto (cape) draped casually over his right arm. The many components of his dress

Figure 14  Claudio Linati, Tortilleras (Tortilla makers), from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828), plate 5. Lithograph. Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library. Figure 15  Claudio Linati, (Hacendado) Propriétaire (Hacendado: Criollo propietario / Criollo landowner), from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828), plate 4. Lithograph. Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.

37 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 37

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 16  Claudio Linati, (Lépero) Vagabond (Lépero: Vagabondo / Vagabond), from Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828), plate 2. Lithograph. Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.

and the excess of fabric that is shown by the manto and leather boots demonstrate his wealth and social position. Although Linati notes in the accompanying text the reputation of this type for ostentation and idleness, he supports the criollo elite, who he argues were treated badly by the Spanish, fought for independence, and proclaimed liberty and equality for all.18 To Linati’s mind, the criollos deserved admiration. Siding with the criollos (individuals of

Spanish descent born and raised in the Americas) against the peninsulares (individuals born in Spain living in the Americas) aligned neatly with Linati’s liberal political views. The elegance and abundance of the criollo’s costume contrast sharply with the torn, shabby clothes of the lépero, or vagabond (fig. 16). The vagabond wears only ripped pants, while his bare upper torso is exposed but for a worn manto draped over his shoulder, which, Linati notes in the text, also served as his blanket at night. He leans against a wall, slightly hunched over. A stray dog looks up at him forlornly, as if wondering what his and the vagabond’s next meal will be. Linati describes the vagabond as someone who lives in a heavily populated city in an almost naked state. His home is in the street, where he begs for food, which might consist simply of some tortillas with chili and water. He lives, according to Linati, hand to mouth and day to day, occupied only with his needs of the moment. His simple heart and lazy spirit are worsened by alcohol. Linati remarks that this lowest class of people in Mexico is of mixed Indian and Spanish blood, drawing for the reader a clear connection between miscegenation, poverty, and degenerate behavior.19 Linati’s Costumes civils bears a close relationship to Carl Nebel’s lithographic album; both artists used the book format to present images and text. Nebel, however, was more interested in the visual images as an art form, as we can deduce from the oversize format of his book and plates, the minimal amount of text, and his assortment of landscapes, pre-Columbian figures, and popular types. Linati, by contrast, working in the tradition of costume books, was interested in using textual as well as visual information to convey an allegedly standardized and comprehensive social reality. Linati’s verbal commentary, with its moralistic and liberal political underpinnings, appealed to a European audience that craved information about this exotic foreign nation and contributed to negative stereo-

38 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 38

11/17/17 3:29 PM

types about Mexican people, especially the uncivilized and unkempt lower classes of mixed race. Linati’s texts imbued the images with social, racial, and political meaning.

A Taste of the Exotic: Groups of Types by Carl Nebel Carl Nebel (1805–1855), a German architect, engineer, and draftsman, is best known for his detailed paintings of the Mexican landscape, architecture, and people. His book Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la partie la plus intéressante du Mexique, based on his travels in Mexico, was published in Paris in 1836 and contained fifty lithographs.20 It included an introduction by Alexander van Humboldt, which would have assisted in its sales and notoriety. Nebel was born in Hamburg in 1805 and traveled in Mexico from 1829 to 1834.21 Humboldt ’s Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain and his study of the American Cordillera and the monuments of New Spain probably served as Nebel’s first guides to the region. It is also likely that Nebel was aware of primary accounts, such as the memoirs and letters of Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Hernán Cortés. Nebel’s book, he makes clear at the outset, was not intended to be solely a scientific work, despite Humboldt’s backing, but rather was meant to entertain. “I have never had the pretense of instructing the reader,” he proclaimed; “this must only serve as a work of diversion and leisure.”22 Wonder and curiosity were a recurrent trope in Nebel’s book, for confrontation with the unknown caused a mixture of awe and amazement. In order to comprehend and communicate, the traveler-artist must attach the unknown to the known, in what Anthony Pagden has called the “principle of attachment.”23 Nebel achieved this by drawing on the work of Linati and on the tradition of artistic representation, seen for example in the contrapposto position of his Indian woman in Gente de tierra caliente entre Papantla y

Misantla (People from hot lands between Papantla and Misantla) (fig. 20). He also portrayed groups of male and female figures within the same scene, enabling relationships and narratives to be more readily conceived and imagined on the part of his viewers, aiding in their “comprehension.” The intermingling of men and women within a single composition also served to highlight socially prescribed gender roles. As noted above, Nebel focused on the images and provided very little text explaining them. He boasted of the modern quality of his project, claiming that his art depicted the newest, most important, and most interesting sights in Mexico. Nebel’s album was at once entertaining, fashionable, and up to date. The large scale of the book, approximately 21 × 15¼ inches, enabled the reproduction of more detailed, better-quality lithographs than smaller formats allowed. It also must have influenced how the illustrations were collected and viewed. The lithographs were probably collected separately and arranged according to subject or the interests of the collector and then hung as artworks independently of one another.24 As a result, the various albums in libraries around the world all have different arrangements of plates; some also are missing illustrations.25 To collect was to own and control; thus the endeavor of collecting as a form of entertainment or diversion can also be seen as a perpetuation of the dominant culture over the subaltern. Nebel’s political leanings are not known, but it is noteworthy that during his seven years in Mexico, seven men shuttled in and out of the presidency. Nineteenth-century Mexico can hardly be characterized as peaceful, despite the many images that suggest otherwise. None of this political turmoil is evoked in Nebel’s lithographs, which depict groups of people from various social and racial classes interacting harmoniously. Nebel, in his act of “othering,” did not seek to perpetuate stereotypes of the savage or uncivilized Mexican, which had been

39 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 39

11/17/17 3:29 PM

prevalent since the era of Cortés. Instead, he promoted other generalities about the picturesque, diverse, and harmonious nature of the Mexican populace. If Voyage pittoresque is interpreted as a form of “cultural capital,” a term coined by Pierre Bourdieu that refers to nonfinancial assets that promote social mobility, then the album suggested Nebel’s authority and reliability as an eyewitness, along with his spiritual enlightenment and self-knowledge.26 Nebel’s images can be divided into his three main areas of interest, though they received differing emphasis: archeological works, landscapes, and costumbrista paintings. Twenty lithographs depict pre-Columbian architecture or statues, twenty are landscapes, and ten portray costumes and human types. Despite the smaller number of the last group, these are among the most charming and vibrant of the lot and are of chief interest here. The costumbrista images are also the only lithographs that are all in color; most of the landscapes and all of the archeological scenes are in black and white. Of Nebel’s ten images dedicated to popular types, half depict the life of the criollos and the other half portray indigenous people and customs. Brief commentary accompanies the images. In some versions of the book, the text faces the corresponding plate; in others, the descriptions are located at the front of the book, entirely separate from the plates. In the latter case, the separation of text from image forces the beholder to “read” the images independently.27 Nebel was probably familiar with Linati’s book, which was published a year before his arrival in Mexico. But Nebel’s illustrations differ from Linati’s in that all of the costumbrista scenes represent a group of figures engaged with one another, whereas Linati depicted predominantly isolated individual types. Nebel also put more effort into the details in the background, which often contain specific, recognizable buildings and landscape features. Thus

the viewer’s attention is drawn not only to the individual figures but to the whole scene of group interaction and social behavior. Nebel, like Linati, used occupations to define particular characters such as tortilleras or rancheros, but he also included regional ethnic types like poblanas or Indias de la sierra. His inclusion of a few costumbrista types was not meant to provide a comprehensive view, unlike Linati’s more expansive endeavor. Even the title of Linati’s book, Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique, suggests a complete look at all of the civil, military, and religious costumes of Mexico. Nebel, by including just ten costumbrista scenes, signals his intention to provide only a sampling of Mexico’s diversity. Nebel’s album is more akin to a cabinet of curiosities, in which foreign objects offer a taste of the exotic. La mantilla (The veil) (fig. 17) is unusual in that its title refers not to the figures’ occupation or region but rather to a specific element of dress, in this case a particular veil or scarf worn over the head and shoulders by criolla ladies. Its origin, Nebel informs the reader, is entirely Spanish, but upperclass Mexican ladies adopted the mantilla as morning dress in the nineteenth century. Aileen Ribeiro points out that the wearing of the mantilla was considered a minor art form and was admired by foreigners for its feminine and flirtatious possibilities.28 The mantilla could playfully hide and reveal the face and torso as needed, at once charming and tantalizing the male viewer. Tara Zanardi examines the mantilla as one of the most specific garments that reflected lo castizo (the Spanishness) of its wearer.29 The mantilla was associated with the maja (a popular Spanish female type who wore a traditional costume) and in the eighteenth century was used by elite women to craft a noble Spanish identity. This accessory was made of a wide range of fabrics of varying quality and expense. The most prized were those made of finely embroidered sheer silk, as in the one depicted by Francisco José de

40 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 40

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 17  Carl Nebel, La mantilla (The veil), from Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la partie la plus intéressante du Mexique (Paris: M. Moench, 1836), plate 6. Lithograph. John Hay Library, Brown University Library.

Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828) in his Portrait of Doña Antonia Zárate of 1805–6 (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin). The Mexican ladies knowingly flirt and show off their costumes. In wearing the black mantilla and basquiña (skirt), these Mexican criollas emphasize their Spanish origins, an important factor in asserting their authority and maintaining the existing socioracial hierarchy. Despite its reference to an eighteenth-century Spanish tradition, Nebel describes the wearing of the mantilla as “modern.” He notes that after two o’clock in the afternoon, the ladies dressed a la moderna, and specifically that they favored the Spanish headpieces over European-style bonnets. Nebel also generalizes about the conflicting characteristics of Mexican women. He found Mexican women lacking in beauty and describes them as small and Indian-looking. Nevertheless, he thought they had beautiful eyes, were well proportioned, and possessed admirably small feet. Mexican women

were charming, sweet, calm, and modest, yet they loved ornament and were too preoccupied with appearances. According to Nebel, Mexican women sacrificed much for their husbands and families, and most domestic disorder could be attributed to the husband’s conduct.30 This last comment suggests an interesting bias and shows Nebel siding with Mexican women over men, reflecting his view of the less than reputable behavior of male criollos. La mantilla depicts three primary and three secondary figures. In the foreground, two Mexican criollas are dressed in the mantilla and peineta (the comb worn beneath it); one faces the viewer, while the other’s back is turned as she engages in a conversation with an elegantly dressed gentleman. The first woman holds a fan in her right hand and stands erect and proud; her mantilla is placed high on her head and her full skirt stops short of her ankles, revealing the tiny feet Nebel admired. Behind her is a cathedral, an indication of where

41 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 41

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 18  Carl Nebel, Poblanas (Poblana women), from Viaje pintoresco y arqueolójico sobre la parte más interesante de la República Mejicana (Paris and Mexico City: Paul Renouard, 1840), plate 6. Lithograph. American Museum of Natural History Library. Image # 10023997_1.

these proper ladies are headed, daily Mass being customary among this highly conservative Catholic society. The lady with her back to the viewer sensually reveals the back of her neck and shoulders through the transparent black lace of her mantilla. Her pale skin contrasts with her dark clothing, heightening her exotic femininity. The gentleman is dressed in an abundantly layered cloak over his suit and cravat, the excess of expensive fabric suggesting his wealth. Behind and to the left of this elegant trio, another couple sits on the stoop of a colonial building in the background. Their shabby clothing, loose dark hair, and skin color suggest their indigenous or perhaps mixed-race origins and provide a notable contrast with the well-dressed figures in the center of the composition. Another more simply dressed woman in the background leans on her balcony railing, observing the scene below and echoing the role of the collector of Nebel’s album, also an observer of the scene. In Poblanas (fig. 18), four figures stand in

conversation with one another. Two women dressed in the poblana costume of brightly colored floral skirts, white cotton blouses, and rebozos occupy the center of the composition. They seem to be stepping out of the doorway of a building. To their left, another poblana woman faces them, her back to the viewer. Mimicking her position on the other side of the composition is a ranchero, or rancher, bending forward. He seems to be fixing his stirrups, perhaps a ploy for engaging in conversation with the attractive young women. Poblanas in this context refers to women from Puebla. It also more specifically implied the china poblana, a popular type characterized, as we have seen, by her costume, coquettish behavior, independence, attractive features, and, significantly, her mestiza background. The china poblana was one of the female types most frequently portrayed by both foreign and Mexican artists in the nineteenth century. Part myth, part legend, she became the quintessential Mexican woman, and was immortal-

42 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 42

11/17/17 3:29 PM

ized by pen and brush alike. As someone of mixed Spanish and Indian race, she exemplified Mexico’s unique culture, all the while serving as an exotic Other who could not be found in Europe, though comparisons to the French grisette and Spanish maja were made (see chapter 3). In Nebel’s lithograph, the women are smoking, an act that can be seen as a measure of the poblana’s prized independence. The ranchero fixes his gaze on them. The scene, much as in La mantilla, suggests flirtation. The criollas in La mantilla and the poblanas dress to impress and charm their male companions. The importance of costume as a means of displaying social class, but also moral values, is relevant here. The women are on display for their male counterparts—virtuous Catholic values embodied by las criollas, independence and restiveness characterizing the poblanas. Both seduce the male viewer. In the accompanying text, Nebel informs the reader that middle-class criollas also wore poblana dress; it was not reserved to the lower classes alone. The main class difference was the fabric of the skirt. Nebel criticizes the Mexican people for being wasteful and for satisfying capricious whims through luxury items and dress. “Not only do these people fail to know good taste or quality of life, they do not even aspire to have them,” he says. “[The Mexican people] waste the fruits of their labor on the most useless and fleeting items.”31 These “simple” people are accustomed to good weather and resources that permit an attitude of indifference and abandon. Nebel, not unlike Linati, exhibits his opinions and biases openly. Interestingly, Nebel does not pass judgment on the poblanas’ smoking, which seems to have been a common habit among Mexican women of both the upper and lower classes.32 Other written accounts supply further information on the poblana costumes. Fanny Calderón de la Barca, the Scottish wife of don Ángel Calderón de la Barca, the first Spanish minister to newly indepen-

dent Mexico (1839–42), provides an elaborate description of the poblana dress in her published travel diary. The dress of the Poblana peasants is pretty, especially on fête days. A white muslin chemise, or shift, trimmed with lace and embroidery round the skirt, and plaited very beautifully round the neck, and sleeves; a petticoat shorter than the shift, made of stuff or foulard and divided into two colours, the lower part made generally of a scarlet and black stuff, a manufacture of the country, and the upper part of white or yellow satin, with a satin vest of some bright colour, and all brochéed with gold or silver, open in front, and turned back. This vest may be worn or omitted, as suits the taste of the wearer. . . . A long, broad, coloured sash, something like an officer’s belt, [is] tied behind after going twice or thrice round the waist, into which is stuck a silver cigar case. A small coloured handkerchief like a broad ribbon, crossing over the neck, is fastened in front with a brooch, the ends trimmed with silver and going through the sash. Over all is thrown a coloured rebozo, not over the head, but thrown on like a scarf; and they wear silk stockings, or more commonly no stockings, and white satin shoes trimmed with silver. This is on holidays. On common occasions the dress is the same, but the materials are more common.33

This detailed passage complements the costumes portrayed by Nebel and other traveler-artists. Calderón de la Barca’s description of the people she observed in the “contact zone,” or space of colonial encounters, at times offers minute details about costumes and jewelry, which assist in piecing together what artworks like Nebel’s depict. At other times, as we shall see, her writing takes a more condescending, imperialist tone. In La mantilla and Poblanas, Nebel used costume to identify a type and personality. Although he did not directly engage with the tradition of costume books, he did acknowledge the semiotic power of

43 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 43

11/17/17 3:29 PM

dress. Nebel paid special attention to the intricacies of the costumes and the minute details that identified particular types. He also placed the figures in groups, which, on the one hand, emphasized their similarity, while on the other hand it also accentuated their sociability and highlighted social and cultural differences. Nebel (fig. 19) and Linati (fig. 14) both depicted tortilleras. Like Linati, Nebel portrays one woman grinding the corn on the metate, while another makes the dough balls that will then be flattened and toasted on the comal (fig. 19). The woman grinding the corn is Indian and is also portrayed partially nude, though Nebel provides modest coverage by the addition of a loose apron. The other woman, in front of the comal, is fully dressed in a simple huipil.34 Her hair is handsomely braided, the braid tied up and encircling her head. Whereas Linati portrays only the two women making tortillas, inviting the intrusion of an invisible male spectator, Nebel prevents the viewer from being the only voyeur by including two men in the background, perhaps their husbands or brothers, who observe the tortilleras. Both men are probably Indian, as denoted by their dark skin and dress. One is standing, drinking pulque (a fermented drink made from agave) out of a bowl, while the other sits and gestures with his hand, as if in the midst of conversation. The four figures occupy a simple shack with a dirt floor and walls made of woven bamboo reeds. Nebel’s minimal text describes the handmade tortillas and the simple clothing of the figures. Tortillas, along with chilis and pulque, constituted the daily food of indigenous Mexicans. The figures’ costumes suggest that they are from the villages south of Puebla de los Ángeles. The factual description and the effect of the grouping of the four figures do nothing to rob the image of its sensuality. The scene tantalizes the viewer by eroticizing the women and presenting them as objects of delight, much like the food they are preparing. Nebel’s figures are classical, simple, and fully

delineated. The proportions and his use of color and light reflect his academic training. The spatial composition of his scenes is more technically advanced than Linati’s, in which the sense of space is flat and the figures’ placement disproportionate. Nebel’s neoclassical leanings are displayed most clearly in his Gente de tierra caliente entre Papantla y Misantla (People from hot lands between Papantla and Misantla) (fig. 20), in which the main Indian female figure is dressed in togalike drapery. She stands in contrapposto, her left hand on her hip, her right holding a ceramic bowl in place on her head. Her statuesque pose highlights her beauty and elegance. To her left, a mulatto is seated upon a horse conversing with an Indian man who is selling vegetables. The rider’s unbuttoned white shirt reveals his dark skin and muscular chest. Nebel juxtaposes the masculinity and virility of the mulatto with the femininity and sensuality of the Indian woman, an explicit contrast to the simplicity and humility of the Indian man, who is serving the mulatto and whose central placement between the other figures divides the painting in two. The Indian servant’s action also guides the viewer’s eye toward the background, where a picturesque baroque church is aptly located. Nebel shared Linati’s desire to identify Mexican types on the basis of a limited number of occupations and classes. Through observations of commonalities and differences, both artists constructed stereotypes that purported to represent the universal. Their accompanying text commented on a type’s position in society, articulating the morals and behavior implicitly suggested by the images. Linati’s liberal political views were more explicit, while Nebel idealized the country’s situation by presenting harmonious, picturesque scenes that glossed over the underlying political turmoil. Both artists worked from preexisting motifs, which served as reminders that their paintings existed within traditions of representation: on the one hand, the

44 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 44

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 19  Carl Nebel, Tortilleras (Tortilla makers), from Viaje pintoresco y arqueolójico sobre la parte más interesante de la República Mejicana (Paris and Mexico City: Paul Renouard, 1840), plate 27. Lithograph. American Museum of Natural History Library. Image # 10023997_2. Figure 20  Carl Nebel, Gente de tierra caliente entre Papantla y Misantla (People from hot lands between Papantla and Misantla), from Viaje pintoresco y arqueolójico sobre la parte más interesante de la República Mejicana (Paris and Mexico City: Paul Renouard, 1840), plate 31. Lithograph. American Museum of Natural History Library. Image # 10023997_3.

Moriuchi book.indb 45

11/17/17 3:29 PM

tradition of the costume books and curiosity cabinets, on the other, the painterly motifs concerning the association of food with sexual availability.35

The Modernist Sensibility of Johann Moritz Rugendas Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802–1858) was a German artist who descended from a family of artists and engravers. He is best known for his costumbrista and landscape images of Central and South America. He studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich and first traveled to Brazil in 1821 as a draftsman on a scientific expedition led by the Russian diplomat Baron de Langsdorff. Rugendas left the expedition shortly after arriving in Brazil to pursue independent study and ended up reproducing his drawings as lithographs in a book that was eventually published in Paris as Voyage pittoresque au Brésil.36 While in Paris in the late 1820s, he met Alexander von Humboldt, who greatly admired the illustrations from his expedition for their naturalistic and faithful representation of Brazilian life. Humboldt encouraged Rugendas to resume his travels and exploration in Latin America, in particular the Andean region, and he secured the sale of four paintings to the king of Prussia on the artist’s behalf. Rugendas himself raised enough funds to embark on his second trip to the Americas, returning to Latin America in 1831 and traveling through Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, and Uruguay. Rugendas produced more than five thousand drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings of North and South America. Rugendas remained in Mexico for three years, and from his stay approximately two thousand works portraying landscapes, costumbrista scenes, regional and indigenous towns, and flora and fauna survive. Humboldt and other friends had provided Rugendas with letters of introduction to German residents in Veracruz and Mexico City. In Mexico

City, Rugendas met Carl Christian Sartorius, who edited a book about Mexico titled México, sus paisajes y sus tipos in 1855, in which eighteen of Rugendas’s drawings were reproduced as lithographs.37 In this way, Rugendas’s costumbrista images reached a wider audience. Despite Rugendas’s prolific output, it was not until 1925, when the Museo Nacional de Historia de Chapultepec acquired thirty-seven paintings from the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, that scholars in Mexico recognized Rugendas as an important nineteenth-century artist. An exhibition featuring his paintings of landscapes and popular types was well received in Mexico, and critics lauded Rugendas for the ethnographic and historical dimensions of his work.38 More recently, scholars have recognized the deeper artistic training that Rugendas undertook in Paris. Eugène Delacroix, whom Rugendas met in 1825, was a key influence.39 It is also likely that Rugendas came into contact with the pre-Barbizon plein air landscape painters in mid-1820s Paris, and with the English watercolorists. In addition to Delacroix, he probably encountered the work of J. M. W. Turner, which was being exhibited in Rome when Rugendas toured Italy in 1828.40 Upon his return to the Americas in 1831, Rugendas’s work demonstrated the influence of these contemporaries. His Mexican watercolors displayed the more expressive impulses of European romanticism that were burgeoning at this time. Rugendas gave increasing emphasis to social and cultural life, representing the many types of people he encountered, their dress, manners, attitudes, and occupations. Stanton Catlin argues that Rugendas’s experience of natural phenomena in both the scientific and the emotional sense crosses over into the philosophical area of human creativity. I agree with Catlin that Rugendas does just that, and deliberately as much as intuitively. Through the visible brushwork, the texture of

46 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 46

11/17/17 3:29 PM

the paint, and the colorful palette, Rugendas expressed his romanticism, and his modernity in the Baudelairean sense.41 As an artist and chronicler, Rugendas represented scenes from daily life, from bullfights and ceremonial processions to everyday market scenes, plazas, and parks. Through the materiality of the paint, Rugendas recorded his sensations and emotions upon experiencing these scenes. His favorite promenade, he told his sister, was the Paseo de la Viga.42 Rugendas observed vibrant scenes of people interacting and enjoying their surroundings. “It is hard to imagine a happier scene than these people on boats, often decked with colored clothes or awnings,” he remarked. “Families picnic on the banks. The children play on the grass or gather around the fruit-sellers. People stroll along the boulevard where ladies in holiday dress ride slowly back and forth in a long line of carriages.”43 This type of travel narrative found pictorial representation in Rugendas’s costumbrista paintings. As in Nebel’s lithographs, there is an apparent harmony and a peaceful coexistence of diverse people and types in Rugendas’s costumbrista images. Rugendas does not single out any one type or class, but instead appears interested in a larger commingling of diverse social and racial classes. This social and racial integration downplays, and in fact masks, political and economic conflict that could not have been ignored in newly independent Mexico. In contrast to eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings, in which miscegenation was carefully mapped out and recorded visually in canvases placed in hierarchical order, Rugendas’s costumbrista images reject the rigid separation of races and classes in favor of assimilation. Casta paintings, which placed the Spaniard at the head of the hierarchy, were no longer desirable in the nineteenth century. While casta paintings attempted to represent the unrepresentable, that is, the exact identification of racially mixed people, which could not actually be determined, Rugendas’s costumbrista

paintings portrayed the possibility of the peaceful commingling of all classes and races, which could not have been truthful given the political, economic, and social instability of the country in the 1830s. His costumbrista paintings seem to acquiesce in political directives and may be interpreted as propaganda for an idealized postindependent nation. In Fuente de la Alameda central (Central Alameda fountain, ca. 1831) (fig. 21), Rugendas depicts the sun shining through the leafy álamos, or poplar trees, which are the source of the park’s name, Alameda Park. The central fountain sprays water, sending a cool breeze to the surrounding passersby. In front of the fountain is a crowd of people of various social classes and ethnicities, genders, and ages. Facing the viewer, though her gaze is directed upward toward her mother, is a small girl dressed elaborately in her Sunday best, consisting of a floral dress and hat. Her mother touches the girl’s shoulder with her right hand while holding her rebozo with her left. Behind her are several pairs of women, distinguishable by their mantillas and rebozos. Gentlemen converse, women stroll, children play. The pleasant hustle and bustle of the crowd on a beautiful sunny day is palpable. This “slice of life” painting captures a leisurely morning in a popular public park in Mexico City. The people represented are of all types, classes, and ages, and the harmony of their coexistence is pleasantly captured in loose brushstrokes and a vivid palette. Costume, skin color, and bodily poses suggest social type and status. As one looks more closely at the painting, one notices details that show a peaceful commingling of all types of people. Owing to its quotidian, leisurely feeling, the painting appears to be an accurate depiction of a Mexican park on a Sunday morning. Images such as these provided a European audience with a taste of the exotic destination that Mexico was considered to be. At the same time that Rugendas’s painting supposedly represented a “reality” that the artist experienced, it

47 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 47

11/17/17 3:29 PM

also presented a certain view of leisurely Mexican life that emphasized diversity, prosperity, and peace after independence. Rugendas’s Procesión de la Virgen del Rosario en la Ciudad de México (Procession of the Virgin of Rosario in Mexico City, ca. 1831–34) (fig. 22) represents a procession of the Virgin Mary. A dressed statue of the Virgin is carried aloft among the people, and she is easily distinguishable by her crown and the infant Christ in her arms. Further along the procession, one can discern statues of Joseph and other saints. Among the multitude are many ladies dressed in black with black mantillas covering their heads, similar to Nebel’s criollas in La mantilla. Through their costumes, these ladies stand out from the soldiers and monks dispersed throughout the scene. Between the buildings’

towers looms the mountain Ixtaccihuatl, in whose form the Indians saw the figure of a woman asleep, a popular subject for nineteenth-century landscape artists.44 Working against a tradition of procession painting in which the artist provides a bird’s-eye view of the procession bowing toward a religious or spiritual presence, Rugendas purposely renders this procession from the eye level of the people, lending it a more plebeian feel.45 Rugendas’s brushstrokes are loose and suggestive, not precise or delineative, implying a lack of concern for exacting detail or verisimilitude. Instead, Rugendas appears to be interested in the expression, or even an impression, of a moment in time. The loose brushwork accentuates the effects of color and light and evokes the feeling that Rugendas captured his surroundings in the plein air mode. Yet, as noted above, the harmo-

48 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 48

11/17/17 3:29 PM

nious coexistence of diverse social and racial classes was not true to life. Fuente de la Alameda central and Procesión de la Virgen del Rosario are imaginative fictions that reinforce a message of social unity, religious piety, and political stability. La reina del mercado (The queen of the market, 1833) (fig. 23) focuses on a female fruit vendor, who stands in the center of the composition atop the shelves of her market stand. Many types of people surround her, from the china poblana, ranchero, and priest in her immediate circle to the lépero (beggar) and soldier on the far left and right edges, respectively, of the scene. The fruits and vegetables that form part of her stand are not distinguishable from one another; their differences are alluded to by color and shape only. This constitutes a distinct departure from the fruits and vegetables in casta paintings, in

Figure 21 (opposite) Johann Moritz Rugendas, Fuente de la Alameda central (Central Alameda fountain), ca. 1831. Oil on paper. 43.8 × 51.7 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Figure 22  Johann Moritz Rugendas, Procesión de la Virgen del Rosario en la Ciudad de México (Procession of the Virgin of Rosario in Mexico City), ca. 1831–34. Oil on cardboard, 24.5 × 35.6 cm. Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Inv. VIIIE. 2514. Photo: bpk, Berlin / Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin / Volker-H. Schneider / Art Resource, New York.

49 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 49

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 23  Johann Moritz Rugendas, La reina del mercado (The queen of the market), 1833. Oil on canvas, 33 × 42 cm. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile.

which each fruit is reproduced as naturalistically as possible and sometimes even further distinguished by a label written on the canvas, to prevent the viewer from mistaking the fruit for something else or questioning its importance in the scene. As we saw earlier, for example, in Andrés de Islas’s No. 4. De español y negra, nace mulata (fig. 10), the prominent fruits in the foreground are identified in a key at the top of the composition. Rugendas’s costumbrista paintings completely reject this sort of mimetic representation. The black dresses and mantillas of the two criollas and the robe of the priest with whom they speak are barely distinguish-

50 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 50

11/17/17 3:29 PM

able from one another. The figures cluster around the vendor in apparent spontaneity, mingling together and going about their daily routine. This sense of capturing a fleeting, ephemeral moment reflects Rugendas’s modernist spirit. The diverse inhabitants of Mexico also inspired travel writers like Fanny Calderón de la Barca, who wrote of the view from her house in Mexico City, But what attracts our attention above all are the most curious and picturesque groups and figures that ever were seen here below—which we see from the windows. The men [are of] bronze colour and nearly naked, with nothing but a piece of blanket or a sarape half thrown over them, carrying lightly on their heads earthen basins, precisely the colour of their own skin, so that they look altogether like figures of terra cotta, these basins filled with sweetmeats or white pyramids of grease (mantequilla) or bread; the women with the invariable rebozo, short petticoats of two colors, sometimes all rags, yet with a lace border appearing on their undergarment, no stockings, and dirty white satin shoes, rather shorter than their small brown feet; gentlemen on horseback with their high Mexican saddles and handsome sarapes—gilt stirrups—a sort of half military coat, and the large shining black or white beaver hat with the silver rolls. Add to this the lounging léperos with next to nothing on, moving bundles of rags, coming to the window and begging with a most piteous but false sounding whine, or lying under the arches and lazily inhaling the air and the sunshine, or sitting at the door for hours basking in the sun or under the shadow of the wall; Indian women, with their tight petticoat of dark stuff and tangled hair, plaited with red ribbon, laying down their baskets to rest, and meanwhile deliberately examining the long black hair of their copper-coloured, half-naked offspring. We had enough to look at from the window for the present.46

In Calderón de la Barca’s account, the “curious and picturesque” groups of people in the contact zone

have a negative connotation, which makes her account at once descriptive, colorful, and patronizing. Her last sentence, “We had enough to look at from the window for the present,” implies that street life was an entertaining yet overwhelming diversion. Rugendas seems to illustrate the hustle and bustle of Calderón de la Barca’s chaotic street scene and the various types she describes, but his portrayal lacks her condescension. Rugendas displayed not only a modernist interest in his surroundings but also a modernist preoccupation with the materiality of paint. This was increasingly a concern for European artists of the mid-nineteenth century who opposed meticulous, detailed representation of their subject matter in favor of a more expressive, suggestive style. Rugendas prefigured an artist like Édouard Manet, who thirty years later would turn his back on the traditional representation of religious and historical subjects in favor of painting his contemporary surroundings. Rugendas lived in Mexico during a tumultuous political period in which various individuals strove to achieve political control of the country, among them Anastasio Bustamante, Vicente Guerrero, and Antonio López de Santa Anna.47 Rugendas found himself in contact with several liberal political figures who opposed the government of President Bustamante. Having hidden two military men, General Morán and another friend, Miguel Santa María, in his house so that they could escape the authorities, Rugendas eventually was revealed as an accomplice, and was convicted and thrown in jail for two months.48 Condemned to flee the country, Rugendas left via Acapulco in 1834 and headed for Chile. He would be forgotten in Mexico for almost one hundred years, until he was rediscovered in the 1920s. It is difficult to reconcile Rugendas’s liberal politics with his seemingly propagandistic images. It seems paradoxical that an artist who sided with liberal forces would paint pictures that evoke social harmony and order. Perhaps his paintings portrayed

51 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 51

11/17/17 3:29 PM

his ideal of what Mexico should and could be. By representing social and racial diversity in an unobtrusive, sympathetic manner, Rugendas universalized forms, people, races, and classes. Although he did depict diversity, he placed it in the context of a harmonious whole. The end result emphasizes unity rather than difference.

Representations of Everyday Life by Édouard Pingret Édouard Pingret (1788–1875), a Frenchman from Normandy, was initially attracted to Mexico by business interests rather than for scientific or artistic reasons. He received early artistic training in the workshop of Jacques-Louis David at age fourteen and later worked as an assistant in the workshop of Jean-Baptiste Regnault, where he continued to receive strict technical training in drawing, proportion, and perspective. In 1803, at age fifteen, Pingret began exhibiting paintings in the annual salon, but it was not until 1824 that his work began to receive critical attention. In 1831, he received his first gold medal at the salon and was awarded the title of chevalier in the Legion of Honor. When King Louis Philippe restored Versailles and created a museum in the palace in the 1830s, Pingret was commissioned to help illustrate the history of France for its galleries.49 In the 1840s, Pingret became friends with fellow painter Édouard Louis Dubufe (1820–1883) and came into contact with artists, politicians, and businessmen of North Africa, from whom he received numerous commissions. Travel to Tripoli, Morocco, and Algeria resulted in a series of six portraits of women, one of them entitled Albée, which he brought with him to Mexico. Though trained as a neoclassicist, Pingret was heavily influenced by the romantic painters Théodore Gericault and Delacroix, and his paintings reflect themes of the exotic, the Orient, and the Other. Pingret’s costumbrista paintings of Mexican racial and social types recall Edward Said’s maxim

that “all cultures tend to make representations of foreign cultures the better to master or in some way control them.”50 This goal is usually achieved without evoking the conscious desire to master or control. On the one hand, Pingret’s pictures imply a subtle dominance and possession; his subjects are obedient and subservient. On the other hand, they suggest the artist’s respect and admiration for his subjects. The hardworking individuals are portrayed in a dignified manner and are deemed worthy of being represented. In 1850, Pingret arrived in Mexico, primarily for financial reasons. Prince François de Joinville had encouraged him to travel to Mexico in order to rescue the property of a company in which the prince was a majority partner. Pingret, having experienced a decline in his own finances, embarked on this adventure to Mexico in the hope of reversing his fortunes. Through various French contacts, he met Ernest Masson, a wealthy Frenchman living in Tacubaya. Masson introduced Pingret to pre-Columbian archeology and provided him with various contacts that assisted him in amassing his collection of pre-Columbian ceramics, a collection that Pingret exported to France upon his return. Pingret shared with Nebel this interest in the ancient culture of the indigenous people featured in so many of his pictures. Masson proved a valuable friend, paying his bail when Pingret was jailed for striking the British consul.51 Pingret was initially welcomed into Mexican art circles and lauded for his artistic skill, but his combative personality ruffled feathers and alienated fellow artists. His Eurocentric viewpoint and arrogance clouded his artistic legacy and led to his departure from the country only five years later. Initially, however, his reputation as “painter to the king” and his friendship with President Santa Anna garnered Pingret favorable accolades in the press.52 Of the three aforementioned traveler-artists, Pingret was the only one to participate in the annual exhibitions held at Mexico City’s Academy of San

52 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 52

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Carlos. The academy had fallen on difficult times during the early years of independence, but it was restructured in the mid-1840s, when several European artists were hired to direct different artistic disciplines. The Catalonians Pelegrín Clavé and Manuel Vilar directed painting and sculpture, respectively; both espoused a neoclassical style rooted in formal academic training. During his five-year stay in Mexico, Pingret found himself, paradoxically, teaching and exhibiting within this academic structure, at the same time that he vociferously rejected classical and historical subjects in favor of scenes of everyday life. In the third annual exhibition, in January 1851, Pingret exhibited twenty-one paintings in the salon reserved for artists from outside the academy. Some of these works he had brought from Europe, including a series of popular Italian types, among them a lemonade vendor and a young woman from Naples. The latter was made in pastel, a medium Pingret championed for its tactile qualities and sense of immediacy. In the fourth exhibition, in January 1852, he displayed costumbrista images of Mexico, including Aguador (fig. 4), in addition to portraits of the elite.53 Pingret continued to exhibit works in the sixth (1854), seventh (1855), and eighth (1855) exhibitions, always in the gallery dedicated to artists from outside the academy. The placement of his works irritated Pingret to such a degree that he wrote an anonymous article in the newspaper El Omnibus in January 1854, expressing his discontent not only with the abysmal location of his paintings but also with the Mexican artist Juan Cordero and the director of the academy, Pelegrín Clavé.54 Pingret complained that Clavé and his students depicted only classical and biblical scenes instead of responding passionately to the world around them. Pingret’s scathing criticism and contempt infuriated the local art community. Despite his damaged reputation, Pingret found clients, including some affluent local patrons, who

were interested in his picturesque costumbrista scenes.55 His contemporary subject matter notwithstanding, Pingret’s painting style was traditional. His academic training can be seen in his well-modeled figures, his use of light and dark shading to enhance depth, and his attention to mimetic detail. He also taught many students, mainly young society women like Paz Cervantes and Guadalupe Rincón Gallardo, who copied his costumbrista images.56 His technique, as well as his affinity for everyday subjects, can be seen in the work of his students, who also portrayed quotidian themes and popular types.57 Paz Cervantes later recalled Pingret’s dedication to representing Mexico’s inhabitants and customs and his impact on her. I guess I was marked by the love for our people he knew how to convey to me, and for the particular sensibility that emanated from his words while he painted. For him, nothing was more beautiful than a sarape, a pot of clay, or an Indian sculpture. He would rub it between his fingers, carressing it, and would immediately put it on paper with a crayon or whatever he had in his hand in order to preserve it from oblivion. . . . Daily we would hear his hurtful words against the Academy of San Carlos and its European professors, and above all his criticism against biblical and mythological subjects that were far from the nation’s history and the lives of our people.58

Pingret’s preference for genre painting made a mark on his contemporaries as well. His paintings responded to a set of representational conventions that became common in costumbrista art. His lower-class characters are portrayed as dignified and obedient, hardworking and poor. Yet Pingret’s images of types perpetuated the ongoing system of discrimination and oppression. His motifs and images reflected a discourse, or a “regularizing collectivity,” as Edward Said put it (paraphrasing Michel Foucault), that shaped attitudes and assumptions toward the mixed-race lower classes.59 For

53 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 53

11/17/17 3:29 PM

example, Pingret painted several costumbrista pictures of daily scenes with a focus on local traditions. Images of domestic activity, such as his Aguador, share affinities with the harmonious, picturesque quality of Rugendas’s portrayals of social diversity in market scenes or public parks. The water carrier calmly empties his jug of water into a larger barrel while two servants perform household tasks nearby. The sunlight casts a romantic glow on the three noble workers. Pingret’s quaint and charming painting portrays the Indians as dutiful, hardworking, and nonthreatening. Without an accompanying text of the kind that Linati and Nebel provided, the viewer is not influenced by an author’s voice. Though presented as dignified, the Indians are placed on the lower rungs of the social ladder, with little room for social mobility. In Interior de cocina poblana (Interior of poblana kitchen, ca. 1852–55) (fig. 24), Pingret depicts a corner view of a rather large kitchen space where two indigenous women work. The Indian woman in the foreground is on her knees, making tortillas on a comal. Unlike Linati’s and Nebel’s seminude tortilleras, Pingret’s figure is fully dressed in a white and red cotton dress with matching red ribbon in the plaits in her hair. Her companion stands next to the ovens in the background waving what appears to be a fan against the flames; her head and shoulders are completely covered by a blue rebozo. Both women are absorbed in their tasks. The angled view gives the viewer a sense of peeking into this quotidian scene—the view of a voyeur. The objects and figures are depicted formally in relation to one another. No item or object is singled out, but rather the painting’s order and tranquility are derived from the calm interactivity of the figures and objects. Pingret emphasizes the verisimilitude of these objects, from the sheen on the copper pots and the small jars hanging on the gold walls, to the shimmering blue and white tiles that form the backsplash behind the ovens. An interesting decorative detail can be seen

in the cross that stems out of the rectangular wall of tiles, signifying the inhabitants’ Christian devotion. Pingret represents these women not as partially nude sexual objects but as diligent, conforming, dignified Christian members of Mexican society. Pingret also produced a series of solitary, pensive, romanticized types that recall those depicted by Linati, but with a pervasive tranquility and harmony lacking in Linati’s illustrations. Pingret was certainly aware of the French physiologie novels and the popular book Les français peints par eux-mêmes (1840–42), which spurred several imitators, among them Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (1843–44) and Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos (1854–55).60 In the physiologie novels, a particular type associated with an occupation was both visually and verbally described. Pingret seems to have been working within this tradition of the visual representation of popular types during a period generally considered the beginning of modernism in art. In addition to being aware of both Linati’s and Nebel’s books, in which foreigners first illustrated Mexican’s lowerclass trades and occupations, Pingret certainly was cognizant of the oeuvre of local artists such as José Agustín Arrieta, who was lauded for his cuadros de costumbres, or pictures of customs. It is likely that Pingret envisioned creating an album of lithographs based on these paintings of solitary types, though it never came to fruition. In images such as Músico de Veracruz (Musician from Veracruz) (fig. 25) and Tlachiquero (Pulque gatherer, or agave harvester) (fig. 26), the darkskinned male figures are portrayed performing an activity, whether tuning an instrument or blowing into the agave plant. The downcast eyes of both subjects prevent the viewer from returning their gaze. The black musician holds two violins in his hands. Not engaged in the leisurely pastime of playing music, he is absorbed in either fixing or tuning these instruments. The man’s simple, tattered clothing and bare feet also refer to his working-class status, as does the

54 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 54

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 24  Édouard Pingret, Interior de cocina poblana (Interior of Poblana kitchen), ca. 1852–55. Oil on canvas, 63 × 50 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex.

Moriuchi book.indb 55

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 25  Édouard Pingret, Músico de Veracruz (Musician from Veracruz), ca. 1850. Oil on paper, 40 × 29 cm. Colección Banco Nacional de México. Figure 26  Édouard Pingret, Tlachiquero (Pulque gatherer), ca. 1850. Oil on paper, 40 × 29 cm. Colección Banco Nacional de México.

Moriuchi book.indb 56

11/17/17 3:29 PM

modest straw shack in the background. The musician’s slumped back echoes the curves of his instruments, and the repetition of earth colors throughout unifies the composition. Similarly, Pingret represents the tlachiquero, whose job it is to harvest the sap of the agave with a gourd, in a harmonious play of forms. He is shown slightly bent, the shape of the gourd echoed by the curve of his back. Strapped to his hat and back is the skin of a large pig in which he will place the sap. In contrast to the musician, the tlachiquero occupies a nondescript setting, surrounded only by the agave plant itself. This isolation of the figure from his surroundings also separates the figure from his sociocultural background. This separation reinforces the notion of an idealized stereotype by suggesting that this one portrayal can represent all. Pingret’s individual working-class males contrast markedly with his China poblana (fig. 27). Here, the female subject directly confronts the viewer with her gaze. She coquettishly tilts her head as she simultaneously balances a clay pitcher on her shoulder. Her dark hair and eyes contrast with the reddish tint of the jug and the bluish gray of her long rebozo. Beneath her rebozo we glimpse a white blouse, and the full, colorful, patterned skirt with lace fringe is prominent. Her small, delicate feet peek out from beneath this fringe. As with the pulque gatherer, Pingret provides no background, architectural setting, or context for this figure. The effect is startling, isolating, and captivating. She is represented solely for the viewer’s pleasure, to be looked at and to engage the beholder with her own direct gaze. By the mid-nineteenth century, the china poblana, distinguishable by her colorful dress, was associated with a mestiza woman—beautiful, exotic, and sexually available—as seen in complementary portrayals by Carl Nebel and others. Fanny Calderón de la Barca attested to this in her account of her desire to dress up as a china poblana for a masquerade, an idea that, to her surprise, met with resistance

from the Mexican elite and senior officials because it was not perceived as a proper costume for a “lady.” Calderón de la Barca shared a letter written to her husband by don José Arnáiz, whom Fanny described as “an old man and a sort of privileged character who interferes in everything, whether it concerns him or not.” Arnáiz wrote, “The dress of a Poblana is that of a woman of no character. The lady of the Señor Don Angel Calderón de la Barca is a señorita in every sense of the word. However much she may have compromised herself, she ought neither to go as a Poblana, nor in any other character but her own.”61 The reputation of the poblana had permeated society, and, de la Barca makes clear, the poblana was associated with questionable morals. Costumbrismo had made the style, dress, and comportment of the china poblana recognizable in popular culture. After only five years, embittered by his incarceration and the failure of his negotiations with the transportation company, Pingret sold his shares and returned to Paris. His preference for costumbrista scenes over historical and biblical themes and his complaints against the academy identify him as an innovator, an artist who questioned and critiqued tradition even as he worked within its confines. Like those of Nebel and Rugendas, Pingret’s representations do not portray political upheaval but focus on the picturesque and harmonious intermingling of diverse social and racial classes. Despite his denunciation of Mexican artists and his clear Eurocentrism, Pingret’s representations of lower-class occupations were extremely popular and found life in multiple iterations by local Mexican painters, ceramicists, and photographers. Pingret’s continuation of representational conventions furthered the discourse surrounding a supposedly more enlightened West. As cognitive sociologists today observe, we experience the world by “carving out of reality ‘islands of meaning’ . . . [which] involves two contrasting yet complementary cognitive acts—

57 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 57

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 27  Édouard Pingret, China poblana, ca. 1850. Oil on paper, 40 × 29 cm. Colección Banco Nacional de México.

Moriuchi book.indb 58

11/17/17 3:29 PM

lumping and splitting.”62 Lumping involves grouping similar things together, while splitting entails differentiating conceptual clusters as separate from one another. In a similar manner, Michel Foucault explains knowledge as based on two types of comparison: that of measurement and that of order. In the first, one examines things in measurable units in order to establish relations of equality and inequality. In the latter, one arranges elements according to differences in order to create a methodical arrangement.63 These acts are socially constructed and help to make sense of the complex world we live in. They form an accumulated archive of knowledge and imagery that shape attitudes and assumptions. The four artists discussed in this chapter contributed to this representational discourse as they traveled through the contact zone of nineteenth-century Mexico. Whether in books, as in the case of Linati and Nebel, or in individual paintings, as with Rugendas and Pingret, these traveler-artists provided fictive and often picturesque images of Mexico and its people, although their works have traditionally been

read as scientific illustrations or truthful representations. Linati and Nebel added moralizing text to their images that inflected the way in which those images were read. Linati’s work, and to a lesser extent Nebel’s, took a lofty tone and presented a judgmental view of the superiority of European over Mexican culture. The popular types they illustrated appeared to provide a comprehensive, universalizing view of Mexico. In contrast, Pingret’s and Rugendas’s images enabled independent viewing, free of guiding text, and in this sense gave viewers more freedom to indulge their own biases. The visual images of all four men projected European desires and fears in the guise of scientific, objective observations. Through the logic of sameness and difference, these traveler-artists constructed idealized images of Mexican types. These artists performed the cognitive tasks of “lumping” and “splitting” in order to make sense of their surroundings and associations. By “othering” Mexicans, they articulated an us-versus-them discourse that served to further establish Mexican social and racial types in literary and visual form.

59 / Traveler-Artists’ Visions of Mexico

Moriuchi book.indb 59

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Moriuchi book.indb 60

11/17/17 3:29 PM

chapter 3

Literary Costumbrismo Celebration and Satire of los tipos populares

Costumbrismo created a propagandistic, nationalistic language of representation that chronicled and celebrated nineteenth-century Mexican culture and traditions. Costumbrista writers and artists contributed to the construction and proliferation of racial and social popular types used by Mexico’s literary elite to position Mexico vis-à-vis other nations. This chapter examines literary forms of costumbrismo. I begin with the early periodicals (from the 1840s) that featured short costumbrista narratives, followed by a discussion of panoramic literature and collections of types, which consisted of illustrated short stories. Finally, I look at the independent costumbrista novel, often produced first in serial format and then as one complete volume. To this end, I analyze specific examples of each category: El Mosaico Mexicano and El Museo Mexicano were two early periodicals with an interest in representing stock characters. Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos (1854–55) was a collection of popular types that I consider in the context of European panoramic

Moriuchi book.indb 61

literature. And, finally, I analyze The Magic Lantern by José Tomás de Cuéllar, a series of costumbrista novellas that mocked and denounced the racial and social types that had been celebrated in the early periodicals and satirized in the albums of types. Visual imagery and literary texts functioned together in the formation of a new national subjectivity in postindependence Mexico. Costumbrista artists and writers attempted to formulate a national identity based on notions of similarity to, and difference from, European nations. The political philosopher John Plamenatz theorizes two types of nationalism: a Western type that emerged primarily in western Europe and an Eastern type found in eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In the Western type, a nation may feel at a disadvantage in comparison with others when measured by universal standards of progress, but it is never considered culturally unequipped to reach and surpass those standards. Eastern nationalism, by contrast, occurs among nations imposed upon

11/17/17 3:29 PM

by a foreign civilization. These nations measure their progress against standards determined by an alien culture. In the Eastern scenario, cultural transformation occurs without a nation losing its distinguishable identity, through a refusal to simply imitate the dominating foreign culture. Thus the goal is a revitalization of the national culture, adapted to the standards of progress, while simultaneously preserving national distinctiveness. In Eastern nationalism, as Plamenatz defines it, formulating a national identity involves occupying an ambiguous middle ground between complete acceptance (imitation) and total rejection of the values imposed by the foreign culture. “In fact,” he writes, there are “two rejections, both of them ambivalent: rejection of the alien intruder and dominator who is nevertheless to be imitated and surpassed by his own standards, and rejection of ancestral ways which are seen as obstacles to progress and yet also cherished as marks of identity.”1 Nineteenth-century Mexican costumbrista art and literature make these equivocal rejections visible.

Costumbrista Periodicals The costumbrista movement was not limited to Mexico but was prevalent throughout Spain and Latin America. The essays by costumbrista writers were often called cuadros de costumbres (pictures of customs) or bosquejos (sketches), terms that imply a visual component.2 Vivid written descriptions compel the reader to imagine a scene or character, thus making the visual component inseparable from the text. In fact, as we have seen, illustrations often accompanied cuadros de costumbres and complemented the written description, though in many cases the descriptive and elaborate writing style rendered illustrations unnecessary. Scholars reassessing the history of Latin American literature have viewed the costumbrista

narrative reluctantly.3 This is perhaps due, on the one hand, to its multiple structural formats, which make it seem formless, and, on the other, to its initial appearance in ephemeral periodicals rather than books. Sometimes approaching literary fiction, at other times telling a historical tale, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, and often but not always incorporating the notable presence of the author, cuadros de costumbres tended to blend dissimilar rhetorical models. In addition, their impromptu, sketchlike quality made them well suited to publication in periodicals and gave them a reputation for nonscholarly commercial writing located on the margins of belles lettres. Costumbrista narratives tended to be autobiographical and satirical, and their descriptive focus on the natural world often masked their fictional status. In certain cases, the presence of the author tended to overwhelm the story with testimonial overkill. In others, the minutely detailed descriptions of regional features, customs, or events dated the imaginary content. Despite such characteristics, costumbrismo enjoyed immense popularity during the nineteenth century. A large number of weekly magazines and supplements were dedicated to the depiction of customs, manners, and types throughout Latin America. In Mexico, magazines such as Miscelánea (1829–32), Minerva (1834), El Museo Popular (1840–42), El Mosaico Mexicano (1836–37, 1840–42), El Museo Mexicano (1843), and Revista Científica y Literaria de México (1845), carried costumbrista sketches by writers like Guillermo Prieto (1818–1897) and Manuel Payno (1810–1894), among others, who held multiple roles as poets, journalists, and liberal politicians. The costumbristas who produced cuadros de costumbres endeavored to capture modernity in the Baudelairean sense. As the literary historian Juan López Morillas put it, “Their preoccupation with minute detail, local color, the picturesque, and their concern with matters of style is frequently no more

62 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 62

11/17/17 3:29 PM

than a subterfuge. Astonished by the contradictions they observed around them, incapable of clearly understanding the tumult of the modern world, these writers sought refuge in the particular, the trivial or the ephemeral.”4 Recalling Baudelaire’s assertion that modernity meant the ephemeral, the fugitive, and the contingent, and that the crowd is the artist’s element, the costumbrista possessed a sensibility similar to that of Baudelaire’s passionate spectator, the flâneur. The flâneur, according to Baudelaire, sought “to be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world.”5 The costumbrista shared some of the preoccupations of the modern flâneur—namely, the desire to observe the world and to capture the particular, the trivial, and the fleeting. Yet the costumbrista did not merely observe; he consciously claimed something of the world for his own. The costumbrista narratives that first appeared in miscellaneous periodicals were often modeled on English, French, and Spanish predecessors. Latin American costumbrista essays shared many features of the satirical narratives written by Joseph Addison (1672–1719) and Richard Steele (1672–1729) for the Tatler (1709–11) and the Spectator (1711–12). Articles penned by these English writers were copied in Mexican periodicals.6 Costumbrista writers such as Guillermo Prieto acknowledged French writers like Louis-Sébastien Mercier (1740–1814) and VictorJoseph Etienne de Jouy (1764–1846).7 In all of these countries, the proliferation of costumbrista narratives was linked to the advancement of engraving and lithographic printing practices. Lithography’s ability to produce an unlimited number of copies made it a key factor in the expansion of costumbrismo.8 In early Mexican periodicals such as El Mosaico Mexicano, many articles seem to have been reprinted from foreign magazines, though the source is not always clear.9 The presence of copied articles demonstrates that Mexican writers were well aware of

contemporary writings across the Atlantic. Translated European articles in local periodicals reached a much wider audience than the originals did, and they disseminated innovative theories and ideas. El Mosaico Mexicano offered diverse essays, from political biographies to studies of local flora and fauna. Certain articles highlighted the costumbrista concern with making detailed observations of people, costumes, and customs. Many authors made judgments about the characters and dispositions of the people they described on the basis of their physical features. Several articles discussed the relatively new pseudosciences of physiognomy (the art of determining character or personality traits from the form or features of the body, particularly the face) and phrenology (the theory that mental faculties and character traits could be determined by the configuration of the skull).10 Both of these theories were popular during the nineteenth century, only to be thoroughly discredited later. Mexican costumbrista writers repetitively referenced the physiognomist Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) and the phrenologist Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828). In an early issue of El Mosaico Mexicano, an article called “Frenología” (Phrenology) quoted a passage from an unnamed foreign newspaper that explained the principles of the famous Dr. Gall. In a later issue, an article gave a short biography of Gall and explained the fundamentals of his theories. Another issue contained an article titled “La nariz, o Manera de conocer por su figura las inclinaciones de las personas” (The nose, or the manner of knowing people’s inclinations owing to its shape), which called the nose one of the most important indices of the natural and constant tendencies of the human spirit. The writer hailed the nose for being one of the facial features with the least movement, as opposed to the highly mobile and expressive mouth. The immobility and passivity of the nose gave it a critical role in physiognomy; it was alleged to offer clues to one’s natural state and spirit,

63 / Literary Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 63

11/17/17 3:29 PM

energy and temperament. Various sketches of noses in profile illustrated the text. A similar essay, “Diferencias de la especie humana calculadas sobre la línea facial” (Differences of the human species calculated by facial lines), elaborated on phrenological theories. Various profiles of white and black faces demonstrated the perceived differences between facial lines of diverse races and the resulting racial prejudices.11 In another issue of El Mosaico Mexicano, an article titled “Análisis de la cabeza de un petimetre” (Analysis of the head of a fop) was copied from Joseph Addison, though the source was revealed only in a later piece, “El corazón de una coqueta” (The heart of a flirt), by the same author. Using humor, the author joined physiological elements with psychological characteristics in his analysis of the fop’s cranium: “The gland was lined with a cornea-like substance and covered with thousands of mirrors, imperceptible to the naked eye. From this we deduced that if by fortune a soul existed there it would have been maintained in ecstasy contemplating its own beauty.”12 Costumbrista sendups of physiognomy and phrenology like this one continued in costumbrista depictions of types. In Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, for example, discussed below, the author of “La costurera” (The seamstress) satirized the study of the seamstress’s character on the basis of Lavater’s and Gall’s theories. El Museo Mexicano, edited by Ignacio Cumplido, distinguished itself from its predecessor El Mosaico Mexicano by including fewer foreign reprints and more original articles, poems, and short stories by costumbrista writers. The focus also shifted from outward- to inward-looking. Departing from El Mosaico Mexicano’s emphasis on the latest European literature and theories, El Museo Mexicano was concerned with local culture and regional subjects. Writers often used pseudonyms; Prieto signed his works “Fidel,” while Payno wrote under the pseudonym “Yo.” Their essays described the diver-

sions, festivities, and ceremonies typical of nineteenth-century Mexico. Erica Segre aptly points out that the names of these periodicals—for example, El Museo Mexicano (The Mexican Museum)—with their explicit reference to encyclopedic education and collective heritage, demonstrate how the “metaphor of the ‘printed museum’ which subsumed the earlier ‘cabinet of curiosities’ was adapted to a Mexican context.” In Mexico, she argues, the costumbrista periodical became “associated with the empowerment of the citizen, who through the prismatic magazine had access to a representation of the world and the nation in microcosm.”13 The pages of El Museo Mexicano were filled with pictures of local popular types and written costumbrista narratives. In an 1843 issue, the periodical presented six local types: the aguador (water carrier), the jarochita (young lady from Veracruz), cocheros (coachmen), the chiera (woman who sells chia14 and other juices), populacho de México (Mexican populace), and rancheros (ranchers). Another issue described a seventh type, el jarocho (man from Veracruz). In the costumbrista sketch “Un puesto de chía en Semana Santa,” Fidel (Guillermo Prieto) affably recalls the springtime, when the stands that sell fresh fruit juices return to the public plazas, and the women who sell the juices, the chieras, welcome their customers. The chieras are the alma, or soul, of the stand. They are bright, lively, with dark skin and black eyes, and they efficiently order their maids and husbands to help prepare the pitchers of fresh juices of chia, lime, pineapple, tamarind, and horchata (rice water). The stand itself is an “oasis in the desert,”15 a welcome respite for all who labor and need a place to relax and socialize. Prieto notes that those who arrive in a bad mood leave in good humor, while those who arrive cheerful depart even more so. In the accompanying illustration (fig. 28), the chiera stands straight and proud, holding a ceramic bowl in front of her elaborately decorated stand, which is covered with fruits and flowers. She wears a

64 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 64

11/17/17 3:29 PM

seductive, off-the-shoulder dress with lace trimmings at the hem and sleeves. Her rebozo covers her right shoulder, while the left side has fallen off, revealing a bit of bare skin. Her dark hair is pulled back, and strands of beads accentuate her slender neck. She smiles invitingly at the beholder. The buildings that border the plaza can be seen in the background. Much like the china poblana, the coquettish chiera is meant to seduce the reader. She becomes a symbol of Mexico, a hospitable and inviting oasis. Although the chiera was only implicitly put forth as a representative Mexican figure, the costumbrista writer Domingo Revilla explicitly claimed the ranchero as a tipo nacional, or national type, that brought great pride to the Mexican people.16 In “Los Rancheros,” Revilla describes two classes of ranchers: the indigenous type who works primarily in the countryside, and the other, of mixed race, who attends to the conservation and care of the horses and other livestock. Revilla pays significant attention to the rancheros’ clothing—the distinctive chaparreras, or leather pants with silver buttons on the side, the botas de campana (heeled boots), and the wide-brimmed sombrero. The accompanying lithograph (fig. 29) portrays two rancheros, one of whom, seated on a spirited horse pawing the air with its right hoof, wears a patterned wool manto, a sombrero, and chaparreras. Undisturbed by his agitated horse, the rancher converses with the other rancher, who is on foot. With his back to the viewer, this man wears a dark manto that reaches almost to the ground, revealing several inches of his decorative pants and his heeled boots and spurs. His clothing and stance indicate a strong, firm presence. The masculine rancher, in contrast to the feminine and delicate chiera, is presented as gallant and virile. El Museo Mexicano’s essays on the chiera and the rancher are among the first costumbrista narratives of popular types to present text and image side by side. They depict a romanticized, idealized view of

Figure 28  Joaquín Heredia, Puesto de chía en Semana Santa (Chia stand during Holy Week), from El Museo Mexicano, o Miscelánea pintoresca de amenidades curiosas e instructivas, 5 vols. (Mexico City: Ignacio Cumplido, 1843–45), 3:428. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.

65 / Literary Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 65

11/17/17 3:29 PM

attempt to apply to the Mexican people the physiological and phrenological theories that had been advanced in El Mosaico Mexicano. Costumbrista writers recognized the importance of drawing on European literature to prove their intellectual sophistication. Their goal was not simply to imitate the dominant culture, however, but rather to revitalize the national culture, demonstrating standards of progress and national distinctiveness. The stock characters presented in El Museo Mexicano significantly informed the popular types included in Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, published a decade later.

Panoramic Literature and European Collections of Types

Figure 29  Joaquín Heredia, Rancheros (Ranchers), from El Museo Mexicano, o Miscelánea pintoresca de amenidades curiosas e instructivas, 5 vols. (Mexico City: Ignacio Cumplido, 1843–45), 3:551. Lithograph. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.

characters unique to Mexico that embody socially inscribed gender roles and embrace traditional readings of femininity and masculinity. These popular characters inform the picturesque figures and accompanying narratives later compiled in collections of types and photo albums. The shift from outward to inward focus in El Museo Mexicano can be seen in the magazine’s loose

This kind of short, descriptive depiction of types in periodicals like El Museo Mexicano gained in popularity and eventually led to book-length compilations of such pieces. The success of these collections attested to the belief that the essence of a nation could be captured in its most characteristic occupations and characters. But how did this process work, and how was national identity linked to the physical characteristics of the human body? As we have seen, antecedents may be found in eighteenth-century costume books; they are also found in the genre of street “cries,” or images of street vendors with captions that reproduced their “cries” (e.g., “old chairs to mend!”).17 Both genres originated in Europe, where they generated works that were widely circulated. At the heart of costume books and, to a lesser degree, collections of “cries” was the eighteenth-century understanding that clothing was an essential marker of difference. Unlike today, clothing did not express style or fashion but signified gender, age, marital status, occupation, social rank, and nationality.18 In the eighteenth century, dress was largely standardized and could be classified rationally, making it possible

66 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 66

11/17/17 3:29 PM

to identify a person’s standing by his or her clothes.19 Evidence of this can be seen in the enactment of sumptuary laws that sought to restrict movement among social classes and enforce social and racial hierarchies.20 Significantly, in a time of restricted social and geographic movement, the “cries” genre provided readers access to other social classes as well as other lands. In the nineteenth century, the interest in types acquired a national rather than an international focus, seen in the popular images and literature of the period, including songs, magazine articles, and books that portrayed various local social types. The interest in capturing one’s surroundings and inhabitants is generally referred to as “panoramic literature,” a term first coined by Walter Benjamin in The Arcades Project. Used to describe the panoramas and dioramas depicting great open vistas, it later encompassed social sketches and representations of popular urban culture and its inhabitants. In France, a series of short books called Les physiologies, popular in the 1840s, and Les français peints par eux-mêmes focused attention on characteristic national types. Even such artists as Édouard Manet portrayed gypsies, rag pickers, and musicians in their desire to capture the world around them. Several of Manet’s works depict figures that resemble those in the albums of types. His Chiffonnier or Ragpicker (1869), for instance, shares numerous affinities with Charles Joseph Traviès’s portrayal of the same subject in Les français peints par eux-mêmes. As noted in the introduction, England was the first to publish an album of national types (101 in all), the two-volume Heads of the People, in 1840–41. Heads of the People collected works by William M. Thackeray, Leigh Hunt, and Douglas Jerrold, among others, and was illustrated by Joseph Kenny Meadows (1790–1874). Its principal objective was to record the features and characters of the English people and to capture the historical moment. “English faces, and records of English character,

make up the present volume,” the preface tells us, “the aim of which is to preserve the impress of the present age; to record its virtues, its follies, its moral contradictions, and its crying wrongs.” It strove to offer, in other words, a humorous yet moralizing message that would encourage introspection on the part of its audience. Heads of the People was an instant success, and reviewers wanted to see it expanded into a broader representation of the national spirit.21 Its quick translation into French under the title Les anglais peints par eux-mêmes demonstrates the French desire to clarify who was being represented (and critiqued) by whom. Subsequent versions became very much identified with the nation itself and were used to promote a proud national identity. Many of these albums preceded international exhibitions, beginning with the first such exhibition at Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in London in 1851. This was an era in which nations competed for primacy and similarly became self-consciously reflective as they tried to establish how they were different from, and perhaps superior to, others. Like its English counterpart, Les français peints par eux-mêmes was published in serial format beginning in 1839 and was eventually published in its totality in 1840–42. The lengthy nine-volume collection of 333 types was organized into three main parts—five volumes describing Parisian types, three volumes portraying types from the provinces and colonies, and one volume, the last,22 presenting a variety of general and provincial types. After the publication of the fourth volume, the subtitle Encyclopédie morale du dix-neuvième siècle was added to all, underscoring its encyclopedic scope. The French essays were copiously illustrated, in contrast to the single image provided for each type in the English version, often with a full-page colored engraving and numerous vignettes, varying from two to ten per text. Established artists, such as Paul Gavarni (1804–1866), Jean-Jacques Grandville

67 / Literary Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 67

11/17/17 3:29 PM

(1803–1847), Honoré Daumier (1808–1879), Henry Monnier (1799–1877), Antoine Johannot (1803– 1852), Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815–1891), and Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878), produced the illustrations. Although clearly based on Heads of the People, Les français also drew inspiration from Les physiologies, a literary genre that provided a complete study of the physical appearance, psychology, lifestyle, customs, and origins of general types considered representative of the class or category to which they belonged. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin initiated the genre with his Physiologie du goût, and Honoré de Balzac popularized it with his famous Physiologie du mariage and Physiologie de l’employé. The physiologies were also illustrated, and they employed the same artists who contributed to Les français, including Gavarni, Monnier, Grandville, and Daumier.23 The main differences between the physiologies and the albums of types were the former’s focus on a single general type and more fragmentary vision of society. The collections of types, by virtue of their collaborative nature and the variety of types included, had a loftier, more ideological purpose and offered a unifying vision of the collective spirit of the nation. French works of physiologie made their way south to Spain, where many were translated into Spanish. In Spain, they were known as fisiologías or cuadros de costumbres.24 Los españoles pintados por sí mismos, published in 1843–44, was similar in size to Heads of the People, depicting a total of ninety-nine types, though in format it shared more with Les français, given the multiple illustrations per type. It included an introspective introduction that acknowledged the challenge of selecting types representative of the Spanish people, culture, and customs. It also recognized the inevitable influence of foreign cultures, particularly of France, and the challenge of preserving the purity of national cultural identity in the wake of the Peninsular War

and the French invasion of Spain (1808–14), which had occurred only three decades earlier. Los españoles pintados por sí mismos clearly articulated nationalistic aims. It proudly claimed, and in some cases reclaimed, certain types as typically Spanish. At the same time, the Spanish writers who contributed to Los españoles imitated the French collection of types in their quest for Spanish nationalism. For example, the anonymous author of the introduction states, “Here, as if cast into a mold, we experience a sense of regret over our old traditions, so mixed up, so unknown today, owing not only to the revolutions and the political upheavals, as some would say, but also to the foreign spirit that for years has been dominant. This causes us to abandon our clothes and our purely Spanish character for the character and clothes of other nations, to whom we pay the most burdensome tribute: that of primitive nationality.”25 Characters such as la maja or el torero (bullfighter) that had been exploited by European romanticism were recaptured and recast as emblematic Spanish types. Contributors to Los españoles discussed national character in terms of a lost identity. Manuel M. de Santa Ana, after describing nostalgically the dress of the majas and their simple, working-class origins, blamed the French invasion of Spain in 1808 for the transformation of these impoverished but honorable majas into the opulent, unscrupulous creatures of the nineteenth century.26 By sharing the tragic story of the maja, the author historicized and romanticized the fictive maja of the past.27 Although clearly reminiscent of Francisco Goya’s portrayals of majas, particularly his drawings, as well as his Portrait of the Duchess of Alba (1797), the costume of the maja in Los españoles is notably different (fig. 30). No longer adorned in a mantilla that covers her head or gloves that protect her hands, she wears a black shawl and a lightercolored full-bodied skirt. Her expression is one of defiance, even contempt. According to Santa Ana,

68 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 68

11/17/17 3:29 PM

(1839), Berlin und die Berliner: Genrebilder und Skizzen (1840–41), Nashi, spisannye s natury russkimi (1841– 42), Las mujeres pintadas por sí mismas (1843), Vien und der Wiener, in Bildern aus dem Leben (1844), Los cubanos pintados por sí mismos (1852), Los valencianos pintados por sí mismos (1859), Las españolas pintadas por los españoles (1871–72), and of course the Mexican version, Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos (1854–55). This transnational proliferation demonstrates the genre’s popularity and the public’s fascination with capturing the essence of a nation through its most characteristic figures.

The Mexican Album of Types

Figure 30  J. Vallejo, La maja, from Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (Madrid: I Boix Editor, 1843–44), 2:57. Lithograph. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.

the days of the beautiful, coquettish maja as depicted in Goya’s paintings were over. In describing the maja of his own day, Santa Ana presented a negative type, a seemingly unusual move in a collection of types designed to honor and validate Spanishness. Despite blaming the degradation of the maja on French influences, the author attempted to recapture the remote, historicized maja as a national progenitor. A whole suite of regional and national albums appeared in Europe in the middle decades of the century, including Les belges peints par eux-mêmes

Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos contains an expanded selection of the types represented in the periodical El Museo Mexicano. It shares many similarities with European albums, particularly with the Spanish edition, which it resembles most closely in format.28 But it also presents many interesting differences, such as the many colloquial Mexican expressions in the accompanying narratives. Its selection of popular types stresses both similarities to and differences from the European collections. Ultimately, Los mexicanos presents types that demonstrate Mexico’s distinctiveness while not deviating too much from the European norm. Los mexicanos was published in serial form beginning in 1853 and in its entirety as a book in 1854–55. It features thirty-three types.29 The frontispiece previews the types of Mexicans included in the book with various groupings of archetypal figures (fig. 1). The participating authors included Hilarión Frías y Soto, Niceto de Zamacois, Juan de Dios Arias, José María Rivera, Pantaleón Tovar, and Ignacio Ramírez, though at the time of publication they used pseudonyms.30 Hesiquio Iriarte and Andrés Campillo produced the lithographs. Each narrative is accompanied by one full-size illustration of the figure, often in an undefined setting, but almost always

69 / Literary Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 69

11/17/17 3:29 PM

carrying the tools or endowed with the attributes of his or her trade. Certain types, such as the ranchero or china poblana, were unique to Mexican culture, but most were not. Universal types like seamstress, lawyer, and poet also appeared in European collections. The balance between types unique to Mexico and those typical of many nations validated Mexico as both an independent nation and a participant on the global stage.31 The absence of African types in Los mexicanos reflects the authors’ desires not to stray too far from the western European norm. Africans were one of three main groups (the others being Amerindians and Spaniards) that had inhabited Mexico since the colonial period. Large numbers of Africans came to Mexico as part of the Atlantic slave trade in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.32 Miscegenation among these three castas produced a complex and fluid multiracial and multicultural society. As we have seen, Africans were portrayed in eighteenth-century casta paintings, a genre that depicted the hierarchical arrangement of colonial Mexican society through familial arrangements. Ideas of racial purity and racial degeneration were evident in the serial nature of the paintings, with white Spaniards occupying the top of the social and racial ladder, followed by various combinations of Spaniards, Africans, and Amerindians. The popular types included in Los mexicanos, however, are mainly mestizos (a mixture of Indian and Spanish), criollos (Spaniards born in the Americas), and the indigenous Amerindians, with a clear emphasis on the mixed class of mestizos. Independence in 1821, as we have seen, brought the rejection of casta nomenclature, and eventually, in 1829, the abolition of slavery. As Claudio LomnitzAdler has argued, racial dynamics in nineteenthcentury Mexico were simplified into a bipolar model of Indians and whites, with an intermediate class of racially mixed mestizos.33 The multiple racial categories that composed the sistema de castas in the

colonial period changed in the nineteenth century, essentially erasing the black presence from visual narratives. The Mexican album emphasized the mestizo, a mixed race that effectively occupies Plamenatz’s ambiguous middle ground. The stories in Los mexicanos frequently feature the author as an actor in the narrative or use dialogue to convey local dialects and colloquialisms, establishing a sense of authenticity. The active presence of the author in many of the texts does little, however, to evoke a sense of testimony to real-time events, instead imparting an imaginary, fictive, subjective presence. An example of this can be seen in the essay on the water carrier, a quintessentially Mexican type described extensively by writers such as Brantz Mayer and artists such as Claudio Linati and Édouard Pingret (chapters 1 and 2).34 The aguador, or water carrier, is featured in Los mexicanos as well as in the Spanish collection Los españoles pintados por sí mismos. He is the first type to appear in the Mexican book of types and he poignantly identifies the album’s objective, especially important since the collection has no separate introduction. Although the Mexican and Spanish water carriers represent the same occupation, they are distinguished by their costumes and poses. The Spanish water carrier (fig. 31) has a dark complexion and is short in stature. His simple clothing and standing position contribute to his rough, gruff appearance. He wears a triangular hat, a short jacket, trousers, and boots, all of which denote his working-class status. Both hands are hidden from view; the left hand is under his vest, the right in his pants pocket. He is depicted at rest, not in the act of transporting water. The Mexican water carrier (fig. 32), by contrast, is distinguishable by his erect carriage, clean clothes, and neat appearance. He wears a white shirt with sleeves rolled up above his elbows. His pants are made of two fabrics and are buttoned on the sides, like those of the rancher. The Mexican is depicted as a mestizo, with dark hair and

70 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 70

11/17/17 3:29 PM

eyes. His round cap and the two clay receptacles he carries, one on his back and the other in his right hand, identify his occupation. Presumably under tremendous strain thanks to the weight of the water he carries, he shows no signs of distress but stands proudly before the central well, at which a companion is filling his own barrels. Abenamar describes the Spanish water carrier in the third person and depicts his task as an inevitable result of the social class hierarchy in Spain. His water carrier comes from Asturias or Galicia, less fashionable areas of Spain, and travels to Madrid to serve the upper classes, who can afford to hire someone to bring them water, the most essential necessity of life. Although Abenamar quotes a conversation between the water carrier and his wife, in which he regretfully informs her that he must leave for Madrid in order to find work, Abenamar himself remains outside the story, the omnipotent narrator. He emphasizes the hardship and poverty of the water carrier.35 By contrast, in the Mexican text, Hilarión Frías y Soto describes his direct encounter with the aguador who delivers water to his own house and records several of their conversations. As the water carrier silently approaches, the author calls out to him, “Come here, Trinidad. . . . Sit down in this chair and tell me about the life you lead.”36 Trinidad respectfully declines; he has a full day’s work ahead of him, and his customers will be angry if he’s late. He wonders why the author would be interested in the humble life of a water carrier. The author replies that it is critically important that Mexicans, not the Spanish or the French or the Italians, represent themselves. This dialogue conveys the sense of pride and ownership of Mexican costumbrista authors writing about their compatriots. It was no longer acceptable to be chronicled by foreign artists and writers. As discussed in chapter 2, visual and written representations of the people and places of the New World had multiplied since Alexander von Hum-

boldt’s travels there at the dawn of the nineteenth century. Mexican costumbrista writers took a dim view of works like Carl Nebel’s erotic images of partially nude mestizas; they did not appreciate having Mexican women exoticized by foreigners. Mexicans set out to portray their compatriots, even those from the lower classes, with more dignity and respect. These writers belonged to a small and elite class of literary men who sought to position Mexico as a cultured and civilized society.37 Frías y Soto informs Trinidad that it is his job to tell the world about his customs, habits, vices, and lifestyle, so that others can get to know him. The water carrier’s own words, Frías y Soto suggests, will convey his character to the reader most truthfully. He describes Trinidad as an uneducated but hardworking, honest man, a good father and a decent husband.38 He eats simply, celebrates various festivals with his friends and family, rarely drinks to excess, and always carries himself with dignity. At one point in this account of the Mexican water carrier, the author is interrupted by a frantic knocking at the door. Trinidad enters with only the ropes of his clay barrels strapped around his body, his clothes torn, his face pale, and his lips bloodied. He explains that he had reluctantly agreed to deliver love letters for a virtuous young girl and her lover, a lower-class rogue, and that the girl’s father discovered him handing over one of the letters. The father snatched the letter and sent Trinidad stumbling down the stairs, shattering his barrels and splashing water everywhere. Trinidad escaped the father’s wrath by rushing to the author’s home, requesting that Frías y Soto accompany him to the courts and write a letter on his behalf explaining what happened, to prevent him from going to jail. Frías y Soto concludes, “I gathered my hat and left with Trinidad, very happy to be the apologist and patron of the water carrier. Mexico, September 27, 1854.”39 This is a curious place to end the story, but it reveals the style and mission of these cuadros de

71 / Literary Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 71

11/17/17 3:29 PM

costumbres. By inserting himself into the dialogue and concluding in this abrupt manner, the author succeeds in eliciting a “slice of life” sensation in the reader, as if he is capturing the day’s activities just as they actually happened in real life. The water carrier’s illiteracy, poverty, and working-class status are contrasted with the author’s literacy, affluence, and high social class. As the proud brother of the water carrier, speaking in terms of nationality, the author declares that the world must know what Mexicans do and who they are, thus asserting the two figures’ solidarity. This solidarity is reaffirmed in the essay’s conclusion, where two characters from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum are united in a common endeavor. Another quintessential Mexican type, popular among both costumbrista artists and writers, was the ranchero. Los mexicanos reasserts that this rural type was virile, gallant, and courageous. In the image, the sole ranchero stands upright, looking away from the viewer. He holds a lasso in his right hand and a serape over his shoulder with his left. The costume is less elaborate than those worn by the two rancheros in El Museo Mexicano (fig. 29). With his serape draped over his left shoulder, the simplicity of his costume is revealed; it is composed of a white shirt, shortened bolero, and chaparreras. The author, José María Rivera, writing in the first person, wants to visit a ranch in order to describe the occupation authentically. He wangles an invitation to the ranch of one don Alonso. Accompanied by Alonso’s son, Pancho, a young ranchero, Rivera travels the long distance from the city to the ranch via horseback. Leaving before dawn, Rivera recounts the boredom of the long journey and the silly rancheras (traditional songs) that Pancho will not stop singing.40 Upon arrival, he is greeted by half a dozen large, barking dogs that instantly recognize the author’s discomfort. Rivera comments that he is out of his element, and one can imagine the learned writer from the city feeling out

Figure 31 Alenza, El aguador (Water carrier), from Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (Madrid: I Boix Editor, 1843–44), 1:138. Lithograph. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries. Figure 32 (opposite) Hesiquio Iriarte, El aguador (Water carrier), from Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos: Tipos y costumbres nacionales, por varios autores (Mexico City: M. Murguía, 1854–55), 1. Lithograph. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.

72 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 72

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Moriuchi book.indb 73

11/17/17 3:29 PM

of place among the simple folk of the countryside. At the ranch, don Alonso and his sons fight becerros, or young bulls, for the entertainment of the author and the women of the ranch, including Pancho’s fiancée. Don Alonso and his sons provoke, control, and eventually tame the young bulls, simply for the pleasure, amusement, and awe of their audience, reinforcing their valor and masculinity. A comic twist is added to the story when Rivera is literally “bullied” into joining in the fun. Thrown onto a becerro, he lacks the skill and prowess of the rancheros and cannot tame the bucking animal. In the process of being tossed around and thrown from the young bull, he loses his pants (and his pride), landing exposed in the corral to much laughter from the other men. The ladies immediately cover their faces with their shawls so as not to witness the writer’s disgrace. As in Frías y Soto’s account of the water carrier, Rivera makes clear the social distinction between himself and the valiant rancheros, further cementing the class hierarchy that continued to prevail in the mid-nineteenth century. Rivera also makes an explicit connection with Spain and its popular type of the torero, or bullfighter. Significantly, Mexicans chose the ranchero over the torero as a type worthy of inclusion in Los mexicanos because, unlike the torero, the ranchero is linked to the land and plays a role in the ranch’s, and Mexico’s, economy. If the water carrier represented Mexican honesty, industriousness, and compassion, and the rancher, virility and masculinity, the china embodied Mexican feminine beauty, charm, and passion (fig. 33). As we saw in earlier chapters, the china was a favorite subject among traveler-artists and local Mexican painters and had been represented consistently since the 1840s, most notably in paintings by José Agustín Arrieta. The consummate female character, the china typified, idealized, and romanticized the Mexican woman. Images of the china typically emphasized her distinguishing features:

black hair, small waist, dainty feet, seductive curves, full skirt, and rebozo. In Los mexicanos, José María Rivera’s essay “La china” restates the collection’s goal of Mexicans painting Mexicans. Although there are many kinds of distinguished Mexican women, he says, he wants to focus on the one beautiful woman who is Mexican through and through. “Go away! Go away, all of you high-class people!” he writes. “Away with the Spanish majas and manolas41 and the French grisettes!42 I repeat, go away! Because now comes my china; that daughter of Mexico that is as beautiful as the blue sky, as fresh as the flower gardens and as pleasant and cheerful as the wonderful mornings of this blessed land of God and his saints.” A writer, Rivera claims, might see the china as the Mexican version of the Spanish maja, whereas a scholar might see her as a bad imitation of the Spanish manola. But, he continues, “For me, as I am neither erudite nor learned, the china is the legitimate and beautiful daughter of Mexico . . . who at this moment is my only inspiration.”43 By drawing attention to himself, the author ruptures the realism of the sketch and emphasizes his subjectivity and the fictiveness of the representation. By comparing the china to the Spanish maja and the French grisette, Rivera claims solidarity with types found in civilized European nations. He makes a point, however, of distinguishing the Mexican china from these European types in order to reassert Mexico’s independence and uniqueness from the very nations Mexico sought to emulate. The china’s mixed Spanish and Indian blood set her apart from her European counterparts. To be mestiza is to be uniquely Mexican. In Los mexicanos, the heroine’s name is Mariquita (Ladybug). The essay and the accompanying illustration depict her as a mestiza, with dark hair and eyes. Her left hand rests suggestively on her hip, while her right hand holds a cigarette. She stands in a kitchen, identifiable by the pots and

74 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 74

11/17/17 3:29 PM

pans adorning the walls, alluding to her domestic standing and her reputation as a good cook. She is a complex character—beautiful and flirtatious, but also proud and independent. In the essay, Rivera recalls an interview with Mariquita in her home. He discovers that his heroine is twenty-three years old and single, has no family, and lives alone. Rivera admires her charms, her jet black eyes, her curvaceous figure, and her tiny, exquisite feet. He notices and approves of the simplicity and cleanliness of her home. After the interview, they attend a party where villagers are dancing the fandango, a lively Spanish dance in triple time that is usually performed by a man and woman to the accompaniment of guitar and castanets. The china enchants many suitors with provocative moves, enticing them by flirting with her eyes and body. The dance ends with a fight between two of her suitors. In defense of her love interest, she inserts herself into the melee and struggles ardently to break the men apart, revealing her hot temper and combative, feisty personality. In her move from the private domesticity of the home to the public realm of the dance, the china displays both innocence and worldliness. In the end, Rivera pays her tribute not just for her feminine beauty and charm but also for her fiery, courageous, and independent spirit. Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos presented thirty-three types as representative of Mexican society. By including local figures like the water carrier, the rancher, and the china, it embraced the lower mixed-race classes and asserted their originality and authenticity. At the same time, by including universal types such as the lawyer, the minister, and the poet, it claimed solidarity and kinship with European nations.44

The Magic Lantern The latter part of the century saw the publication of Mexican costumbrista novels. In addition to their

costumbrista essays for periodicals like El Museo Mexicano, Guillermo Prieto and Manuel Payno became known for such novels as Prieto’s Memorias de mis tiempos, 1828 a 1840 and Payno’s five-volume Los bandidos de Río Frío (1889–91). These books have been lauded as truly national works, following in the path of such seminal works as José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi’s El periquillo sarniento (1831), which some consider the first Latin American novel and a precursor of the costumbrista novel.45 One of the most riveting and satirical costumbrista works of the nineteenth century was José Tomás de Cuéllar’s (1830–1894) La linterna mágica (The Magic Lantern), a series of twenty-four novellas. The first six novellas were published in Mexico in 1871, and all twenty-four were published in Spain between 1889 and 1892. Essentially short stories, the novellas can be understood as quick sketches of an emerging society that denounced the importation and influence of European and American food, fashion, and culture. Cuéllar was born in Mexico City nine years after Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821. He was a liberal poet and novelist and an observer of manners who scrutinized Mexico City and its inhabitants. In the preface to the Magic Lantern novellas, Cuéllar explains the title: “This is the magic lantern: it isn’t about foreign customs or invented things; everything is Mexican; everything is ours, which is what is important to us. Leaving behind Russian princesses, dandies, and European kings and queens, we shall instead be understood by the china, the lépero, the polla [fashionable woman], the cómica [actress], the Indio, the chinaco, the tendero [shop owner], and all that can be found here.”46 From the beginning, Cuéllar established that popular types, for better or worse, stand for a nation’s identity. Cuéllar wanted to write about what was local, vernacular, and Mexican—not imported from Europe. He saw Europe as a menacing, stifling Other

75 / Literary Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 75

11/17/17 3:29 PM

from which Mexico had to distinguish and distance itself. Cuéllar’s terms for the popular types emblematic of Mexico come from vernacular slang: the polla or chinaco, for example. This “Mexicanization” is lost in translations of these terms as “fashionable young lady” or “liberal soldier.”47 Though Cuéllar viewed these characters as distinctly Mexican, I would argue that they exemplify a more complex notion of Mexican identity. These figures had already been satirized in European literature, thus blurring the boundaries between what was solely Mexican and what was uniquely Spanish, French, or English. Cuéllar’s claim that these types are purely Mexican overlooks the dialectic of similarity and difference that created these figures. In the construction of Mexican popular types, physical and behavioral characteristics were simultaneously (and paradoxically) based on what they had in common with European occupations and types and what was distinct enough to maintain its uniqueness. Cuéllar was deeply interested in the realm of the visual. He was in fact trained as an artist, in painting and photography, at the Academy of San Carlos.48 This early training in the art of looking proved quite useful in his literary career as he incorporated artistic language and models of observation into his writing. The title of his masterwork itself recalls pre-cinematographic technology in that the magic lantern was a seventeenth-century prototype of the modern slide projector. Through a lens, concave mirror, and light source, the lantern would project an enlarged picture of the original image from the slide onto a screen. We can see this screen, represented by a large white sheet, in the frontispiece of Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos (fig. 1), which can be seen as a precursor to Cuéllar’s novella series. In the frontispiece, the title of the album is portrayed in large script on the oversized white sheet. While a man perched on a ladder attaches the corner of the sheet to a palm tree, various popular types gather in the foreground. Similarly, Cuéllar draws on

the popular types already established by the costumbrista genre and satirizes them in his Magic Lantern series, producing a humorous metanarrative of Mexican society during the Porfiriato. The Magic Lantern was also heavily influenced by Balzac’s multivolume series of interlinked novels La comédie humaine, which depicted French society during the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy (1830–48). Cuéllar acknowledged Balzac directly, writing, “You are absolutely right, Monsieur Honoré de Balzac—you, a privileged man, a profound philosopher, and a connoisseur of society, who with your literary scalpel dissected the human heart, and who, with your superior talents, knew how to enter the spiritual world, and reveal to the world of thought the gloomy and complicated mysteries of the soul.”49 Cuéllar paid homage to the French novelist of panoramic literature, emphasizing his belief that the keen observation of society is closely linked to the understanding of the human soul. In Cuéllar’s prologue to the Magic Lantern series, he reaffirmed the importance of the representation of everyday people and their lives. I have copied my characters by the light of my lantern, not engaged in magnificent, fanciful dramas, but in real life, in the midst of the human comedy, surprising them at home, with their families, at work, in the field, in jail, and all over, catching some with a smile on their lips, and others with tears in their eyes. And I have taken special care to make corrections through my profiles of virtue and vice, so that when the reader, by the light of my lantern, laughs with me and discovers the folly of vices and bad manners, or is entertained by my models of virtue, I will have won a new convert to morality and justice.50

Cuéllar moralized constantly, for he believed it was his duty—to write, in his view, was to preach.51 He sought to inform and instruct his readers through humor and satire. He poked fun at nineteenth-century Mexican society by exaggerating behavior and

76 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 76

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 33  Hesiquio Iriarte, La china, from Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos: Tipos y costumbres nacionales, por varios autores (Mexico City: M. Murguía, 1854–55), 88. Lithograph. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas Libraries.

Moriuchi book.indb 77

11/17/17 3:29 PM

personalities. An example of this objective can be seen in Baile y Cochino (Having a Ball), the first volume in the Magic Lantern series. Having a Ball uses a party as the premise for amassing in one place a multitude of diverse people. Throughout the story, Cuéllar examines society during Porfirio Díaz’s long reign, depicting a world of ostentation and luxury among the upper classes, the importation of Parisian foods and fashions, the transformation of customs to accommodate foreign influences, and the accompanying social mobility. A newly rich general, who was “only scraping by before he made contact with the public sector,”52 and his wife, doña Bartolita, decide to throw a party to celebrate their daughter Matilde’s birthday. They hire a friend named Saldaña to plan the party, whose true occupation is never disclosed. It soon transpires that Saldaña knows everybody who is anybody, can procure anything and everything for the party, and will ensure that the “right” people attend. Saldaña moves comfortably in every social circle and has an eye for obtaining the prettiest girls and the best wine. The main draw of the party will be the Machuca sisters, three young single women of renowned beauty and fashion sense (but questionable social upbringing) who are the talk of the town among men and women alike. They are said to be “kept” by their conniving, scheming brother, who made his fortune by unscrupulous means. The Machuca sisters kept up appearances, especially the appearance of elegance, which was their ruling passion. They appeared to belong to the Caucasian race, as long as they wore gloves, but when they took them off, the hands of La Malinche appeared on the marble bust of Ninon de Lenclos. As long as they didn’t open their mouths, they appeared quite refined; but their tongue, in the basest of treacheries, betrayed them, making the curious bystander recall the word that served Saldaña so well: “barefoot.” And finally, they appeared to be beautiful at night, or in the street, but in the morning or at home, the Machuca sisters

were nothing more than dark-skinned girls who had been slightly washed, that’s all.53

Cuéllar reveals his wit and erudition in this passage. La Malinche refers to doña Marina, Hernán Cortés’s Indian mistress and translator. The beautiful Ninon de Lenclos (1620–1705) was the hostess of a French literary salon attended by the most renowned writers of her day, including La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière. “Barefoot” refers to an earlier passage in which Cuéllar describes how Saldaña had known the girls long before they had achieved wealth, indeed, when they had gone around in bare feet. Cuéllar quickly lets it be known that people are neither who they say they are nor who they appear to be, and, moreover, that “passing” as someone of another class or race is a critical, and much criticized, component of this society. Women in particular are shown to be immoral, covetous, dishonest characters. Having learned of the glamorous, sensational party by word of mouth, throngs of people show up—but the pollos (dandies) consume all the expensive liquor and pastries. The coatroom becomes a jumbled mess, with coats and shawls trampled on and stolen. The high-class party degenerates into a low-class brawl. By the end of the night, Saldaña is hiding in a corner to avoid the guests’ wrath. Throughout the novel, Cuéllar’s racial and social prejudices are revealed. He criticizes and moralizes. He does not want to be “blamed for drawing portraits instead of presenting types.”54 He denounces Mexico’s idolization of all things European. He seems nostalgic for a mythical golden past before Mexico was corrupted by foreign influences; he longs for a future in which Mexico reclaims its purity by returning to its roots. By the late nineteenth century, the popular types of the early books and periodicals were being mocked as self-serving fictions. “Passing” as some-

78 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 78

11/17/17 3:29 PM

one from a socially superior class or race, a practice dating to the colonial period, was as common as ever in late nineteenth-century society, the rigid social and racial hierarchy still firmly in place. The expansion of the book market and the book-publishing industry in the nineteenth century enabled a greater number of individuals worldwide to become aware of one another via print. Print capitalism enabled larger groups of people to think about themselves, their identity, and especially their relation to others, both geographically and culturally.55 Costumbrista literature and art created unified fields of exchange and communication. In representing their surroundings and people, costumbrista artists decided what was meaningful to Mexican identity and the nation as a whole, and costumbrista works broadcast ideas and images of what constituted being a Mexican. Mexican costumbrismo was not an isolated phenomenon. Many countries in the nineteenth century were preoccupied with establishing national identity, and the artistic and literary creation of popular types contributed to nationalistic discourse.56 In volumes and albums of popular types, artists and writers both in Mexico and abroad attempted to position themselves vis-à-vis others. As Mexican artists produced their own popular national types in essays and lithographs, they were clearly influenced by European precedents. In acknowledging a connection with European models,

they registered their understanding that European cultures were similarly invested in claiming distinct types as part of their own national identities. As Plamenatz observed, a nation that had been invaded and colonized by a foreign civilization measured its progress against standards set by others. Refusing to simply imitate foreign cultures, Mexico’s writers and artists adapted certain universal standards of progress to their own ends. Simultaneously, costumbrista writers preserved their distinctiveness by selecting unique national types that emphasized Mexico’s multiculturalism and mixed races. Early periodicals absorbed foreign theories about racial and other types based on physiognomy and phrenology and attempted to apply these ideas to local characters. The selection of popular types in Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos not only reflected local trends and visual traditions but also played a part in national identity formation, helping to construct a view of how Mexico’s literary elite wished to present their new nation. The Mexican album revealed at once a desire to assert originality and authenticity and a longing for equality with Eurocentric norms. Literary works like Cuéllar’s Magic Lantern held up the popular types that succeeded as national symbols. Through cynicism and wit, Cuéllar invited the viewer to laugh at Mexican society and culture. Only through selfreflection and self-awareness, he seemed to suggest, could independence from European influence be achieved and a true Mexican nationalism realized.

79 / Literary Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 79

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Moriuchi book.indb 80

11/17/17 3:29 PM

chapter 4

Local Perspectives Mexican Costumbrista Artists

In the Labyrinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz describes the Mexican, whether criollo or mestizo, working or upper class, as one who lives behind a mask and remains alone and hidden. Living in solitude behind their masks, Mexicans continually attempt to reconquer their past and assimilate it into the present. By acknowledging their pre-Columbian ancestry, on the one hand, and coming to terms with their Spanish forefathers and the indoctrination of Catholicism, European rationalism, and humanism, on the other, Mexicans move between “solitude and communion, reunion and separation.”1 Paz’s observation was ideologically and politically rooted in the 1950s. In its decrypting of Mexican myths, it in turn has become another myth. Setting its subjectivity and historicity aside, I find Paz’s description of this transition between solitude and communion, separation and reunion, individual and group identity insightful, for it echoes the shift between the particular and the universal, norm and difference, that informed the evolution of nine-

Moriuchi book.indb 81

teenth-century costumbrista art and literature. In this chapter, I examine Mexican artists who represented their daily surroundings by creating cuadros de costumbres. As we have seen, Mexican artists were influenced by foreign art and created their own versions of certain popular types. Though they sought to represent their countrymen from a Mexican perspective, local artists absorbed and appropriated existing pictorial and visual narratives. This chapter also considers Mexican artists’ relationship with the academy. Given that the establishment favored neoclassicism, artists who produced genre paintings of everyday life were generally not esteemed as highly as those who produced historical paintings. Mexican artists who trained at the Academy of San Carlos were instructed in the principal importance of drawing and disegno (design), and they were encouraged to pursue the most highly regarded genre in the hierarchy of painting, namely, historical narratives. There was a demand for subjects that championed Mexico’s

11/17/17 3:29 PM

pre-Columbian past and repositioned Mexico’s colonial period in order to construct an image of a powerful, civilized nation that could compete on the global stage. Artists who preferred still life, genre, and costumbrista painting were subjected to criticism and, in a practical sense, poverty, as they typically found fewer patrons for their work, and did not fit the image of the intellectual artist.2 Mexico City’s Academy of San Carlos, founded in 1781, was the first of its kind in Latin America and was modeled after the academies of Madrid, Paris, and Rome. It was controlled initially by imperial politics, in particular by the Bourbon kings Charles III (r. 1759–88) and Charles IV (r. 1788–1808). Eventually, partisan politicians, the federalists and the centralists, and their heirs, the liberals and the conservatives, governed the academy, depending on who was in office.3 Although there were at least three political parties in Mexico by midcentury (liberals, moderate liberals, and conservatives), the majority of political debates occurred between the liberals, who were defined by their antichurch and anti-Spanish sentiments, and the conservatives, who supported the church’s continued prominent role in politics and valued religious culture and art. Ultimately, the conservatives dominated cultural politics in the nineteenth century and paved the way for the first national collection of Mexican art, which consisted predominantly of religious art from the viceregal period, under the direction of José Bernardo Couto.4 Though more than two dozen administrations governed Mexico between 1821 and 1867, both liberals and conservatives recognized the importance of the arts as a social signifier of progress and enlightenment. The acceptable stylistic model for the visual arts throughout the nineteenth century and into the early years of the twentieth was neoclassicism. As Stacie Widdifield points out, “It is one of the apparent contradictions observed in this study that liberals and conservatives did not always

share a preference for subject matter but they did share a preference for the way a particular subject might be painted.”5 Neoclassicism, which drew inspiration from the classical art of ancient Greece and Rome and coincided with the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, connected Mexico’s academy and its artists to the grand civilizations of the Western world, with emphasis on drawing from antique models and copying the great European masters, mainly through prints. European instruction was prioritized. Traditionally, paintings of low and vulgar subjects did nothing to advance the status of an artist. Artists who painted the subjects of quotidian life could achieve little respect as cultured men. Tied to this was the conflation of an artist’s output and his personality: if an artist painted lowly, inferior subject matter, then he was considered a low and inferior man. Mexican artists were not immune to these concerns and prejudices. Artists who chose to represent their mundane, everyday surroundings instead of loftier political or historical events were often considered men of ill repute and mediocre artists. Certainly, history has not done these artists justice; they continue to languish in obscurity, unlike their twentieth-century counterparts, who achieved recognition and fame. Perhaps this is due to their focus on trivial subject matter or their lack of stylistic innovation. It could be attributed to the absence of a cohesive group of artists or their lack of government support. It is probably a combination of all of these factors. However, costumbrista artists played a critical role in the discovery and building of a nation, a crucial endeavor for many nations in the nineteenth century. In choosing to portray the costumes, culture, and traditions of Mexico, costumbrista artists documented social and racial types and reinforced and reimagined cultural norms. Instead of historicizing the past, they focused on the here

82 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 82

11/17/17 3:29 PM

and now, and, like nineteenth-century realist artists, they issued a challenge to the old ways of painting and embraced a new, more modern outlook. In addition, costumbrismo informed and influenced twentieth-century Mexican artists in many revealing ways. For example, Frida Kahlo’s appropriation of indigenous dress is clearly indebted to the popular type of the china poblana. In this chapter, I examine the work of five Mexican artists who helped to create the costumbrista movement, even while much of their work fell outside its parameters: José Agustín Arrieta, Manuel Serrano, Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, and a pair of sisters, Juliana and Josefa Sanromán. Though they varied in artistic training and geographical background, these five artists produced costumbrista paintings throughout their careers. Their costumbrista images both absorbed and challenged foreign images of Mexico and Mexican life. Unlike interpretations of landscape artists like José María Velasco, in whose landscapes of Mexican valleys and rivers many art historians see embedded nationalism and a reflection of national identity, there is no disguised symbolism within costumbrista images.6 Instead, we see in the work of these five artists a direct desire to construct a Mexican identity and capture the corporeal presence of the Mexican people in actual representations. The paintings they created were nonetheless far from objective or rationalized. On the contrary, they were highly personal, romanticized, and politicized. Unlike the traveler-artists who saw and represented Mexican types through foreign eyes, Mexican artists had no such filter. This has led art historians to interpret their work as faithful representations of actual Mexicans and as accurate renderings of daily life. However, costumbrista images are products of desire, engendered by the imagination. They are artistic creations that stemmed from an interest in aesthetic and formal concerns. These representations are also deeply tied to political, social, and historical

events, and must be considered within such contexts. These images were created during a time of political uncertainty and crisis. During the nineteenth century, Mexico was struggling to define itself as a nation on the world stage. It sought to define itself as both independent from and on par with the powers of Spain, France, and the United States. Yet, at the same time, regionalism and localities ruled. There was no central nation as we know it today. Local caudillos ruled different regions, making it difficult to unite the nation under one dominant party. Some historians, such as Brian Hamnett, emphasize regional over national dimensions during the independence movement and question any historical reconstruction of events that attempts anachronistically to create a sense of nationhood.7 In order to properly situate the visual production of the costumbrista artists, the following examination considers the social, political, and artistic climate in which these artists lived and worked.

Realism and “Seeming Realism” in the Art of José Agustín Arrieta José Agustín Arrieta (1803–1874), perhaps Mexico’s best-known costumbrista artist today, is celebrated for his paintings of the provinces, in particular the people and customs of Puebla. He was born in Santa Ana Chiautempan, in the state of Tlaxcala. When he was four years old, his family moved to Puebla, where he received artistic training in the city’s academy of fine arts. Though he painted some images of historical and biblical subject matter, he favored and excelled at producing costumbrista paintings and bodegones (still lifes).8 Arrieta’s verisimilitude and penchant for portraying naturalistic scenes from quotidian life earned him praise for his authenticity, an essential component of successful costumbrista works. Arrieta is known to have shown his work in six of the exhibitions held by the Academy of San Carlos

83 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 83

11/17/17 3:29 PM

in Mexico City—1850, 1865, 1869, 1871, 1873, and 1877.9 He mainly presented portraits and cuadros de comedor10 in the salon reserved for artists outside the academy. None of Arrieta’s costumbrista images appear to have been exhibited at the academy in Mexico City. Therefore, it was not through the public salon that Arrieta became known as a prolific costumbrista painter, but rather through accounts of the artist in the writings of his contemporaries. The costumbrista writers Manuel Payno and Gui­ llermo Prieto praised the literalism of Arrieta’s costumbrista works. These writings’ descriptive nature is characteristic of the style of costumbrista literature and reveals the value placed on attention to detail and mimetic representation, elements also valued in costumbrista painting. In 1843, the liberal writer Manuel Payno lauded Arrieta’s talents in “Viaje a Veracruz en el invierno de 1843” (Voyage to Veracruz in the winter of 1843). Arrieta, a man much appreciated for his modesty and personable nature, is admired for painting those strange absurdities that we see in the streets. One of his best works is a beggar with rags, his dirty body, his graying beard yellowed from cigarette smoke. A short while ago it was exhibited at the grand theater of Santa-Anna and it deserves common praise. In the pictures of little poblana women, Arrieta has also been very successful. In a street in Puebla there is a store named Poblana after a painting by this artist. There is nothing comparable to the grace and facial expression of this woman. What chest! What arms and curves so soft and delicate! What flattering eyes! What mischievous features, at the same time simple and goodnatured! What feet and dress so proper and seductive! In my mind, one cannot imitate nature more perfectly. This is enough to defend Arrieta’s talent.11

In 1849 Guillermo Prieto wrote “Ocho días en Puebla” (Eight days in Puebla), a chronicle of the moment when he met Arrieta and saw his studio.

His recording of a direct encounter with the artist lends heightened authenticity to his observations: Mr. Arrieta is a man about forty-five years old, thick, dark, pale, a sad look. The yellowish tint of his eyes and the hair that falls on his forehead give his physiognomy an aspect, if not of disgust, then at least of indifference. Without much ceremony, after the typical formalities, I directed my gaze toward the paintings. . . . I saw lastly the paintings of customs; this is the true genre of Arrieta. It’s the easy brush, daring and picaresque, like the letters of Quevedo, the hallucinations of Figaro, or the descriptions of the Curioso Parlante. It is the charming and provocative chinas, the playful and daring boys, the crafty and clever vagabonds. . . . There is a street beggar, what a beggar! His face, full of wrinkles; his beard yellowed from cigarette smoke; his rags shiver in the air, his shoes, wrinkled on the top. . . . Behind the indifferent beggar, on the tips of his toes, with his eyes alert, his body arched, his hand wisely daring, goes the boy trembling from his own mischief; the boy goes, I say, with a stick poking the hat of the beggar. One is scared that the old man will turn around and surprise that charming little rascal. There is a china with a plate of mole in her hands, that would be at once a torment for a man who is starving or in love, because he doesn’t know if she comes offering a refreshment or a dirty thought.12

El mendigo (The beggar, ca. 1840) (fig. 34) demonstrates Arrieta’s talent for illusionistic representation. The beggar in this image is not alone, though he is the figure who captures our gaze. Despite his ragged appearance, the beggar’s expression conveys introspection and intelligence. He is seated, dressed in tattered clothing, his feet dirty, a discarded watermelon rind by his side. His surroundings are bleak. The cement wall and ground suggest that he is begging on a city street corner. The small boy behind him cheerfully plays with the beggar’s sombrero with his wooden walking stick, providing a contrast between the beggar’s self-reflection and the boy’s

84 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 84

11/17/17 3:29 PM

whimsicality. Prieto’s detailed narrative, however, causes the reader to question its veracity (or to suspect the existence of another version of the painting), as there are some discrepancies between his description of the painting and the painting itself. For example, the ragged beggar has no shoes despite Prieto’s comment on their wrinkled nature. Nor is the boy’s back arched, as Prieto says; he is standing vertically in the actual painting. These disparities urge caution in interpreting costumbrista works, both literary and visual, as factual, though it is important to note that in their incorporation of precise detail they imply authenticity. In contrast to the beggar’s introverted, contemplative gaze, Arrieta’s China poblana (ca. 1840) (fig. 35) is meant to seduce and engage, and recalls Édouard Pingret’s painting of the same subject. In Arrieta’s painting, the china looks coquettishly at the viewer while holding the platter of mole poblano, a specialty dish from Puebla that consists of a complex sauce made of more than thirty ingredients, including chocolate and chilis. Prieto’s comment—“There is a china with a plate of mole in her hands, that would be at once a torment for a man who is starving or in love, because he doesn’t know if she comes offering a refreshment or a dirty thought”—demonstrates how this figure was meant to arouse and entice the male viewer with her good looks and charm, as well as with her cooking, and this seduction would extend to Prieto’s reader. The first sources on Arrieta in twentieth-century literature were very much informed by these writings, and more recent accounts of Arrieta also describe his seeming authenticity and his ability to capture reality.13 Francisco Pérez Salazar, writing in 1963, criticized Arrieta for the lack of perspective in some of his works. Overall, however, he challenged the viewer to simply look at Arrieta’s costumbrista paintings in order to see how poblana kitchens appeared, or how chinas suggestively flaunted their costumes. In the same year, Francisco Cabrera

asserted that Arrieta was the first artist to demonstrate interest in capturing the local environment and the idiosyncrasies of the Mexican people.14 In attempting to uncover meaning in Arrieta’s depictions of everyday life, I have found insight in scholarship on other artists, also praised for their authenticity in representing their surroundings. There is a long-standing debate between realism and “seeming realism” in the study of seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting, for example.15 Svetlana Alpers argues that, unlike art of the Renaissance, seventeenth-century Dutch art enacts a visual culture, not a textual one, and must thus be “seen,” not “read.”16 In the sense that their sources were not specific biblical or mythological texts, costumbrista pictures also described rather than narrated. They focused on the details of costume and setting, not on the embedded symbolism of specific objects. There is rarely a place in costumbrista art for a positioned viewer. Instead, there is an insistence on representing as a conscious act. Arrieta’s images seem to portray what Mexicans looked like, how they dressed, and how they behaved in the nineteenth century. Yet Arrieta played with reality; he fabricated popular characters inspired by the people he encountered. He generated story lines with a sense of the theatrical. His costumbrista paintings incorporated everyday people and life as the building blocks for constructing and commenting on gender, social, and racial relationships. Arrieta’s images of the provincial and the popular created an imaginary pictorial fiction, not unlike the costumbrista literature discussed in chapter 3. In chapter 1, I examined the racialized social spaces in Arrieta’s La sorpreza (fig. 9) and Cocina poblana (fig. 11) and made connections with earlier eighteenth-century casta painting, which also represented social and racial identities. Another painting by Arrieta, Escena popular de mercado con soldado (Popular market scene with soldier, ca. 1850) (fig. 36), draws on the casta painting tradition and

85 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 85

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 34  José Agustín Arrieta, El mendigo (The beggar), ca. 1840. Oil on canvas, 151 × 98 cm. Museo José Luis Bello y González. Secretaría de Cultura del Gobierno del Estado de Puebla. Figure 35  José Agustín Arrieta, China poblana, ca. 1840. Oil on canvas, 90.8 × 71.5 cm. Private collection.

Moriuchi book.indb 86

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 36  José Agustín Arrieta, Escena popular de mercado con soldado (Popular market scene with soldier), ca. 1850. Oil on paper, 75 × 92 cm. Colección Banco Nacional de México.

Moriuchi book.indb 87

11/17/17 3:29 PM

also underscores gender relationships. The struggling couple on the left bears comparison with the central couple in Arrieta’s La sorpreza. This time, however, the outdoor public space is notably darker and shabbier. The woman’s agitated body significantly leans toward the left as she tries to loosen the grip of the man grasping her rebozo and shoulder. Arrieta’s interest in this gender conflict is shown in its repetition in two other pictures, El requiebro (The compliment) and Intervención (Intervention), both of circa 1850. Although this struggling couple is located in the background of Escena popular, the sunlight streaming in from the left draws attention to their presence. Characters on the left-hand side of the picture contribute to the setting’s humble appearance. They include a dark-skinned boy whose loose, simple clothing and tray of slim offerings at his bare feet reveal his poverty, and an older, white-haired beggar woman, known as a celestina, who leans, hunched over, against a wall. The celestina’s client, a mysterious man cloaked in black, stands beside her, while before her an inebriated man’s slouching pose echoes the curve of her back. On the right-hand side of the painting, a soldier gazes out at the viewer, his shoulder lifted as if to solicit the viewer’s opinion of this commingling of lowly types. This composition, like so many of Arrieta’s costumbrista paintings, conveys a sense of the theatrical, a sense heightened by the inclusion of the celestina. Though the elderly woman recalls procuresses in Dutch genre scenes, she also would have reminded viewers of a theatrical character in Spain, namely, Celestina from Fernando de Rojas’s love story La Celestina, a play first published in 1499.17 The elderly procuress in the play assists a bachelor in seducing a young, unmarried girl, though their affair ends in tragedy. Arrieta’s imaginary scene is imbued with multiple narratives and suggests many possible outcomes. Where is the celestina taking her mysteriously cloaked client? Who is the object of his desire? Will the struggling

woman free herself from the pesky man? Will the soldiers intervene to assist her? These questions are left unanswered, but they leave the viewers curious and engaged. As Payno and Prieto observed, Arrieta also painted images of isolated popular types, such as the beggar and the china poblana. His work suggests that he was very interested in relations between men and women. In El chinaco y la china (ca. 1850) (fig. 37), also known as El almuerzo (The lunch) or Un matrimonio feliz (A happy marriage), the seated, dark-haired china gazes directly at the viewer. She is dressed in a white blouse, with a full red-and-black-patterned skirt; a floral rebozo wrapped around her neck draws attention to her pretty features. Bent over behind her is the chinaco, a mestizo and partner of the china poblana, generally a horseman or charro (Mexican cowboy) type. His face is largely hidden, though his carefully placed hands reveal his deliberate actions. With his left hand, he touches the china’s shoulder, quietly restraining her. In his right he holds a small bird. His head is wrapped in a cotton handkerchief, and he wears a white shirt and black-and-brown striped pants. Spread before the china are several items of food: a plate of enchiladas with mole, a glass of agua de horchata (rice water), a couple of pears, and some other fruits suggest that the couple is sharing a meal (thus El almuerzo). The woman invites our gaze, and her exquisite features certainly would have provoked the kind of sensual responses penned by Prieto and Payno. This painting is an intimate peek into an imagined private scene, one between a husband and wife, perhaps. Although the woman is the focus of the image, she is silently possessed by the presence and touch of her husband. To the male viewer, the tempting food and attractive female would have satisfied desires for food, intimacy, and sexual union. Forms and colors repeat throughout the painting to evoke a unified composition. The chinaco’s curved white shoulder is echoed in a diagonal form with the china’s round shoulder and

88 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 88

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 37  José Agustín Arrieta, El chinaco y la china, ca. 1850. Oil on canvas, 151.1 × 100 cm. Private collection.

bosom and in the white plate in the foreground. The black used in the striped pants reappears in the black of the man’s handkerchief, the black zigzag in the wool blanket draped over the chair, and the black floral patterns on the china’s dress. The simple still life reveals Arrieta’s mastery of bodegones and appears at once tangential and deliberate. Arrieta’s immense range of style, from the intensely illusionistic chiaroscuro of El mendigo and carefully com-

posed Chinaco y la china to the flatter, more condensed, colorful spaces of La sorpreza, demonstrates his interest in the materiality of paint and his deliberate use of stylistic conventions to cater to demands for popular painting. Although he did not have much financial success during his lifetime, Arrieta did find wealthy patrons in Puebla, among them the Bello family, who amassed an extraordinary collection of luxurious

89 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 89

11/17/17 3:29 PM

decorative and fine arts from around the world, including Arrieta’s paintings. Perhaps collections such as these first exposed Arrieta to the art of old Spanish and Dutch masters. It is also likely that he was aware of the European masters through reproductions that he saw while a student at the art academy in Puebla. Arrieta chose to be an artist of the mundane and of the lower social classes. His role model was none other than the Spanish master Diego Velázquez, an artist revered for his naturalistic genre paintings and majestic portraits of the Spanish monarchy. In Interior de una pulquería (Interior of a tavern, 1850) (fig. 38), Arrieta included Velázquez’s The Triumph of Bacchus (1626–28) on the back wall of his own depiction of a site of drinking and revelry. Arrieta portrays the interior of a tavern where various social classes interact. The setting is sparse, with a wooden table occupying the center of the room, around which a group of popular types, from the charro to the soldier, the beggar lady to the china poblana, have congregated to socialize. The most elaborate, and fictive, element of Arrieta’s composition is Velázquez’s painting hanging on the wall behind them. Seemingly out of place in this lowly tavern, the Roman god of wine is in fact an apt subject here, and Arrieta uses it to pay tribute to the revered Spanish artist. The inclusion of Velázquez’s painting also demonstrates Arrieta’s knowledge of art history and his skill at emulating the grand masters of the past. In addition, Arrieta’s painting, with its prominent art-historical references, would have appealed to a learned, cultured patron.18 Between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a tremendous shift occurred politically, as the viceroyalty of “New Spain” fell before the recognized and established independent nation of Mexico. By the time Arrieta was painting his costumbrista pictures in the 1850s, General López de Santa Anna was serving in what would be his last presidential term (1853–55), after two decades of shuttling in and out of presidential office. The instability of the

country’s political situation is not explicitly addressed in costumbrista paintings. Instead, the mirror image of the hostile reality is often seen in the peaceful commingling of the various strata of society. Arrieta portrays positive images, though he almost always includes a subtle detail or two that subvert and complicate the tranquility of the scene, as we see in the struggling couple in Escena popular. This subversion of the tranquil social order can also be seen in such paintings as Tertulia en una pulquería (Gathering in a tavern, 1851) (fig. 39), where a tavern setting similar to that of Interior de una pulquería is depicted. In this image, the composition is cropped, removing Velázquez’s painting and focusing solely on the lowly types gathered around a glass of pulque (an alcoholic beverage made from agave) at a wooden table. Although the cast of characters is vaguely reminiscent of the former painting, this group is rowdier, more agitated and inebriated, as evidenced by the gesturing arms and upturned gazes. The figures are responding to an announcement on a broadside, held aloft by two men. The news is met with varied responses, from mild amusement to disgust. The reaction of the sole woman in the scene, the china poblana, is most dramatic, suggesting her more inebriated and emotional state. Perhaps this is another theatrical outcome of the commingling of popular types. The painting also provides a moral commentary on the negative outcomes of drunkenness and debasement, and contrasts male restraint with female passion. Given Arrieta’s art-historical knowledge, it is also likely that he is referring to seventeenth-century Dutch tavern scenes of rowdiness and debauchery. As Adriana Zavala has argued, these paintings served as “parlor entertainment” for the bourgeoisie.19 Patrons like the Bellos would have appreciated these multiple connotations, which cemented their elite position in nineteenth-century Mexican society. From the artist’s own day to the present, critics and art historians have lauded Arrieta’s costumbrista

90 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 90

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 38  José Agustín Arrieta, Interior de una pulquería (Interior of a tavern), 1850. Oil on canvas, 67 × 99 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. Figure 39  José Agustín Arrieta, Tertulia en una pulquería (Gathering in a tavern), 1851. Oil on canvas, 95 × 115 cm. Colección Fundación Andrés Blaisten.

Moriuchi book.indb 91

11/17/17 3:29 PM

imagery as accurate, factual representations of people and customs. Yet Arrieta’s work imagined social and gender relationships, and popularized and proliferated social and racial types through creative and theatrical compositions. In his various costumbrista paintings, Arrieta represented the lower classes in order to both celebrate and critique Mexico’s diversity. In addition, as a cultured artist and intellectual, he made conscious reference to past artists in order to secure his place in the history of art.

The Picturesque and Popular in the Art of Manuel Serrano Scant bibliographical information exists for Manuel Serrano (ca. 1830–ca. 1870s). His picturesque costumbrista scenes of diversion and entertainment, which vary in quality of execution, are his legacy. It does not appear that Serrano had the kind of academic training that his contemporaries Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez and Arrieta did. Many of Serrano’s paintings project a harmonized, propagandistic image of Mexico’s social and racial classes, recalling some of the compositions by Rugendas and Pingret, which also presented a diversified Mexico in a peaceful manner. Xavier Moyssén speculates that Serrano may have come from the state of Puebla, on the basis of a picture he painted of the city in 1856 and its dedication to Puebla.20 The few critics who commented on his paintings were quick to note their lack of classical composition techniques. In addition, in the San Carlos annual exhibitions of 1856 and 1857, Serrano exhibited his costumbrista paintings in the salon reserved for artists outside the academy, which suggests that he came from outside Mexico City. According to the academy’s archives, Serrano applied there in 1863, though in 1873 he appears as a night student in drawing classes taught by José Obregón, which suggests that he was never admit-

ted.21 The critic L. Agontía wrote in La Libertad in 1878, “It is with much pleasure that we have also seen exhibited a few original paintings by the master Manuel Serrano, who died some years ago and was also known as a distinguished stage designer. This artist dedicated himself to painting small pictures of national customs which are interesting for their subject matter, though perhaps a harsh critique of their execution cannot be resisted.”22 In the catalogue for the 1877 exhibition of which Agontía writes, several costumbrista paintings by Serrano are listed, along with the owners of the paintings, including Dr. Rafael Lucio, a surgeon and prominent art collector, and Mr. José M. Carbó and one Mr. Arce, for whom we have no biographical information.23 That their owners exhibited these works demonstrates that Serrano’s costumbrista paintings had found a market among the elite, cultured patrons of the academy’s exhibitions. Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez also critiqued Serrano’s costumbrista pictures in his review of the 1877 exhibition. Like Agontía, he praised the faithful and naturalistic renderings of the Mexican types and customs despite the absence of good instruction, presumably referring to their lack of perspective and depth. In the various small original paintings by Mr. Serrano, one can see another denial of good technique by those who refute that Mexicans have the talent for invention. Who doesn’t enjoy seeing so faithfully rendered the Mexican character and type in that small painting of a street vendor and in the one of costumbres where some chinas chat with a ranchero who arrives on a horse? In each character there is something of what Zamacois refers to, or of what Fidel so graciously describes, and without wanting to, the viewer stops and contemplates what Serrano’s little scenes represent. No matter how much the fine arts purist complains about the absence of a school, this is the poetry and feeling that there should be in the fine arts.24

92 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 92

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 40  Manuel Serrano, Vendedor de buñuelos (Fritter seller), ca. 1850–60. Oil on canvas, 50 × 57 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex.

Gutiérrez’s comparison of Serrano’s costumbrista pictures to Fidel’s (i.e., Guillermo Prieto’s) costumbrista writings suggests that Gutiérrez and his fellow artists would have seen the two men as sharing similar objectives. In Vendedor de buñuelos (Fritter seller, ca. 1850–60) (fig. 40), Serrano depicts a unique evening scene. Two buildings form the background, while a crowd of people congregate in both the front and middle planes of the composition. In the foreground, adults and children gather around the man who is making and selling buñuelos, fritters made of

93 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 93

11/17/17 3:29 PM

fried dough and often drenched in sweet syrup. A woman stretches out the dough while the vendor lifts a fried buñuelo out of the pan. Two small children appear to be intrigued by the smell and sight. A couple behind them casts large shadows on the wall, revealing the small fire in the center of the composition that functions as the painting’s central light source. To the left of the buñuelo vendor, another vendor is selling fruits and vegetables. Several indistinguishable, overlapping bodies appear behind the fruit vendor. The reason for the congregation is unclear; perhaps it is a gathering after an evening Mass or religious ceremony. Vendors often set out their wares outside Mexican churches, selling food and small souvenirs to a captive market. Serrano’s painting is unusual in its nighttime portrayal of this quotidian scene. The glow of the fire imparts a quiet spirituality to a scene in which various participants interact harmoniously with one another. The looser brushstrokes and closer viewpoint of Vendedor de buñuelos differ in style from the tighter brushwork and more expansive views given in El jarabe (The dance, ca. 1850–60) (fig. 41) and El juego de rayuela (Game of pitch-and-toss, ca. 1850–60) (fig. 42). In these two paintings, the setting has been moved back in space, resulting in a wider view with an equal division between setting and figures. In El jarabe, the receding wooden slats of the floor and the ceiling beams provide a loose sense of perspective. A china poblana and her chinaco companion dance, while a group of friends play music and sing around them in a pulquería, a Mexican tavern where pulque is served. The faces of the figures are not delineated and appear generic. Slightly contrived, the picture is a bit stiff and lacks a sense of natural movement. The figures in El jarabe are distinguished from one another only by the different colors of their skirts, rebozos, and hats. A large image of the Virgin of Guadalupe hangs on the wall, along with smaller prints of the crucifixion and other religious imagery.

Another wall is occupied by pottery and cookware. The religious imagery points to the piety and virtue of those who are entertaining themselves and the sort of clean fun marketed on the part of this lower social class. Serrano rejects the common misperception that the lower, mixed-race classes were lazy degenerates who favored their liquor, the type of view promoted by traveler-artists such as Claudio Linati (fig. 13). Instead, Serrano presents a group of modest, proper men and women dancing in a civilized, sophisticated manner. Local patrons would have seen the pulquería as a nationalistic symbol. The production of pulque, a milky, foamy alcoholic beverage made from fermented maguey sap, dates back to pre-Columbian times. In the nineteenth century, intellectuals keen on reclaiming Mexico’s indigenous lineage celebrated the legend of its discovery.25 The Aztecs had strictly controlled pulque’s use because of its intoxicating qualities, though regulations during the colonial period were not as stringent. Pulquerías were established during colonial rule and became popular venues of lowerclass social interaction, where men and women drank, danced, and enjoyed their free time, until the early twentieth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, pulque was seen as a social evil by authorities who associated the abuse of the drink with indolence, rowdiness, and violence. Images like Arrieta’s Tertulia en una pulquería (fig. 39) reflect this attitude. The regulation of pulquerías coincided with liberal modernization projects, as authorities sought to regulate schedules and facilities to curb what they deemed a threat to the social order. As Áurea Toxqui has argued, as a tavern that served an indigenous beverage, the pulquería was the product of cultural miscegenation, and it had to be controlled and regulated, just like Mexico’s mixed-race inhabitants.26 El juego de rayuela (fig. 42) portrays a group of six men playing a game similar to pitch-and-toss in a covered outdoor space outside a pulquería. The men assume various poses and make various

94 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 94

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 41  Manuel Serrano, El jarabe (The dance), ca. 1850–60. Oil on canvas, 67 × 81 cm. Private collection. Figure 42  Manuel Serrano, El juego de rayuela (Game of pitch-and-toss), ca. 1850–60. Oil on canvas, 67 × 81.5 cm. Private collection.

gestures as they engage with one another in play. A landscape of verdant trees and mountains can be seen through the wooden beams that frame the patio. A woman has entered the patio from a doorway on the right, drawing the viewer’s attention to the right-hand side of the scene. As Toxqui

has demonstrated, women were active participants in the pulquería industry and occupied various roles as servers, vendors, and entrepreneurs, depending on their class and race.27 Above the entryway is inscribed the name of the establishment, “Pulquería de S. Antonio.” Serrano again portrays a scene of

95 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 95

11/17/17 3:29 PM

local entertainment, this time one of male socialization. The once again cursorily delineated figures assume rigid positions in space, but the general tone of the scene is nevertheless agreeable and civil. Both El jarabe and El juego de rayuela display tableaus of diversion and amusement. It is not insignificant that these are not chaotic bar scenes in which inebriated, rowdy peasants misbehave. Instead, Serrano’s costumbrista paintings portray the civilized pastimes of the lower classes and promote the sophistication and agreeable public life of the Mexican people. They depict the lower classes as “regulated” and “under control.” But Serrano, like Arrieta, also depicted scenes that deviated from his tranquil and picturesque compositions and subverted the status quo. In Asalto a una diligencia (Assault on a carriage, ca. 1855), Serrano portrays a crime scene in which a traveling carriage has been assaulted by bandits. The welldressed travelers are sprawled across a rocky outcropping in front of the carriage while several bandits hold them at bay with their weapons. Six of the bandits have taken over the coach and are about to escape with the travelers’ possessions. Travel across the Mexican countryside was dangerous, as noted in several travelers’ accounts.28 It is possible that Serrano was also aware of visual precedents for the theme, such as Goya’s Attack by Robbers (ca. 1793–94). Even more likely is Serrano’s familiarity with midnineteenth-century Spanish costumbrista artists such as Eugenio Lucas Velázquez and Manuel Barrón y Carrillo, who also painted banditry scenes.29 Serrano’s painting could have served as one of many sources for Manuel Payno’s Los bandidos de Río Frío (1889–91). Scenes of disturbance and aggression would have reinforced the need for regulation and governance. That said, the loose brushwork and pastel color palette that characterize Asalto a una diligencia soften and romanticize the violence, suggesting that although these dangers may exist, they occur at a safe and controllable distance.

Serrano’s paintings vary between brushier, more painterly compositions and tighter, more linear ones, revealing stylistic discrepancies that may point to his lack of rigorous academic training. Most of his images portray lower- and middle-class people in scenes of tranquil congregation and diversion, though there are exceptions such as Asalto a una diligencia. Serrano’s picturesque costumbrista paintings catered to a demand for propagandistic images of cultivated Mexican identity. This accounts for their positive reception among educated patrons and critics who sought to nurture the view of a civilized, cultured Mexico and saw the visual arts as an instrument of change. Serrano’s costumbrista paintings also reinforced his patrons’ elevated position in society, fortifying a class hierarchy that had been in place since the colonial era.

Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez and the Status of the Mexican Artist The career of Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez (1824–1904) is intriguing for its idiosyncrasies and diversity. Gutiérrez was not only a painter but also a writer, teacher, art critic, intellectual, and cultural diplomat. In addition to being a well-traveled and academically trained artist, he reviewed art exhibitions in prominent journals and wrote his own treatise on art, one of the first of its kind by a Mexican artist. He produced history paintings and portraits in the prevailing neoclassical style of the academy, but he also embraced costumbrismo, painting everyday subjects and people. Gutiérrez was a self-conscious, politically motivated artist who understood art as a tool for advancing propaganda and communication. He sought to create art that would change the perception and status of the artist in Mexico, and he used his writings to promote the alliance between artistic culture and nationalistic discourse.

96 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 96

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Gutiérrez was born in 1824 in Texcoco, about fifteen miles northeast of Mexico City. Little is known of his family background, but it appears that he lost his father and mother at a young age.30 Legend has it that when he discovered his creative talent, he quickly enrolled at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City.31 At that time, the academy was floundering financially. General Antonio López de Santa Anna ordered the restructuring of San Carlos in 1843, importing European instructors to direct the institution. Santa Anna recognized that the academy was integral to the advancement of the nation and the rising cultural significance of Mexico on the world stage. San Carlos was a valued part of the state bureaucracy and a powerful instrument in educating its citizens, through both its curriculum and its annual exhibitions, which publicly displayed the results of its teachings. While Arrieta had received artistic instruction in the provincial town of Puebla and had shunned historical and biblical genres for the most part, Gutiérrez was trained within the conservative structure of Mexico City’s academy and excelled at the neoclassical style it espoused. His history paintings include La caída de los ángeles rebeldes (The fall of the rebel angels, 1850) and El juramento de Bruto (The oath of Brutus, 1857). La caída de los ángeles rebeldes depicts Satan in the guise of a winged male nude, cast down to the earth, his eyes revealing anger and fear. Behind him, the rebellious angels fall headfirst into the mountainside.32 El juramento de Bruto shares compositional similarities with Oath of the Horatii (1784), by the neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), particularly in the stoical stance of Brutus, which is reminiscent of the brothers’ stances in David’s painting, and the swooning desolate women.33 Both paintings reveal Gutiérrez’s talent for narrative painting based on biblical and classical texts, and emphasize his naturalistic style, which incorporated saturated

primary colors, careful modeling, and a balanced architectural framework. But Gutiérrez was not merely an academic artist who worked complacently within this conservative tradition. He produced many costumbrista paintings and specifically advocated for this less reputable genre in his writings. Gutiérrez was also a travelerartist, that other crucial category of national production. Mexico had welcomed a plethora of traveler-artists, primarily from Europe, in the mid-nineteenth century, and although Mexican artists often benefited from travel grants to Europe, they were rarely considered traveler-artists outright. Gutiérrez traveled extensively throughout Europe, the United States, and South America, recording what he encountered with both paintbrush and pen. He rejected teaching positions in Toluca, Morelia, and Guanajuato in favor of traveling.34 Gutiérrez left a written chronicle of his travels by way of correspondence with a fictitious friend named María, titled Impresiones de viaje: Viaje de Felipe S. Gutiérrez por México, los Estados Unidos, Europa y Sud-América (Impressions of travel: Felipe S. Gutiérrez’s travel through Mexico, the United States, Europe, and South America), published in Mexico in 1885. His exposure to other nations’ culture, art, and values increased his Mexican nationalism and his desire to depict and promote Mexican daily life and traditions. A well-traveled, cultured man who lived a nontraditional itinerant life, Gutiérrez produced an important collection of costumbrista drawings and watercolors. Unfortunately, many of his costumbrista oil paintings are known of only in writing, mainly in the annual exhibition catalogues of the Academy of San Carlos and in newspaper reviews. Titles such as Aguador mexicano (Mexican water carrier), Minero mexicano (Mexican miner), and Dos tortilleras (Two tortilla makers) provide a sense of the costumbrista paintings he exhibited, but his surviving costumbrista images are mainly drawings and works on paper. His largest collection of costumbrista imagery is a

97 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 97

11/17/17 3:29 PM

series of watercolors located in a small museum dedicated to the artist in Toluca, the Museo Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez.35 Many of Gutiérrez’s drawings are taken from the sketchbooks that accompanied him on his travels and are drawn on both the front and back sides of the page. His Cargador, hombre y mujer de pueblo (Loader, man, and peasant woman, 1851) (fig. 43) demonstrates Gutiérrez’s concern with gestures and poses and features the same workingman in various seated and standing positions, his face hidden by a widebrimmed sombrero. On the same page, in the upper right-hand corner, two humble women covered in their rebozos sit on the ground, while in the center a seated man melds into the front half of a street dog. Gutiérrez depicts the lower social types that characterized the oeuvre of Linati and Pingret, but a good portion of his watercolors and drawings represent upper-class people. For example, in Personajes costumbristas (Costumbrista figures, 1849–51) (fig. 44), Gutiérrez depicts a small concert in the lower right-hand corner, which consists of a woman playing the piano while another woman and a gentleman stand by her side; they are clearly of higher social status, given their leisurely stance and tailored European-style clothing. This work shares affinities with Dutch genre paintings of similar musical scenes. On the same page, a gentleman in a buttoned coat and trousers gestures with his right hand, and two seated women, identified as señoritas del campo (peasant women) and wrapped in rebozos, bend forward. The upper right-hand corner contains an interior view of two women in conversation; the seated one has her back to the viewer, while the other, perhaps her sister, addresses her, facing the viewer. The shadow of a man with a sombrero is visible in the background. The boundaries between the drawings are blurred, as in the man/dog in figure 43. A notable detail can be seen in the hand of a señorita del campo, which reaches into the drawing room of the pianist, physically blending social

strata. Though Gutiérrez did not produce marketplace scenes like those by Arrieta, these sketches that intertwine high-society men and women with working country folk achieve a similar effect of social commingling. His many sketches and watercolors of costumbrista scenes highlight Gutiérrez’s desire to represent his everyday encounters. In his watercolors, Gutiérrez depicts upper- and lower-class types—in many cases, as we have just seen, these classes are joined physically on the page as one shape blurs into another. The sketchlike quality of these images suggests that Gutiérrez recorded them quickly and informally. It is likely that he used these drawings and watercolors as studies for larger compositions on canvas. Gutiérrez’s watercolors, while they present a range of types, lack unity and cohesion owing to the presence of multiple, seemingly disparate figures. However, by repeatedly including the upper and lower classes, Gutiérrez presents Mexico as socioeconomically and racially diverse. We have seen this kind of mixing in albums of types like Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, in which types like the working-class water carrier appear alongside lawyers and poets. Gutiérrez’s surviving costumbrista oil paintings display more constructed, unified compositions than his watercolors. For example, in La despedida del jóven indio (The farewell of the Indian youth, 1874), Gutiérrez presents the interior of a simple peasant home. A young Indian boy who approaches from the left has come to say goodbye to his family, who gather in the center of the composition. Doorways on either side create perspective and add complexity to the interior space. The patron of the painting was Felipe Sánchez Solís, an Indian of humble roots who became a prominent intellectual and political figure in the nineteenth century. Sánchez Solís had left his small village for Mexico City in order to study literature and law, eventually becoming director of the Scientific and Literary

98 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 98

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 43  Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Cargador, hombre y mujer de pueblo (Loader, man, and peasant woman), 1851. Watercolor and drawing on paper, 17 × 21.5 cm. Museo Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez. Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno del Estado de México. Figure 44  Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Personajes costumbristas (Costumbrista figures), 1849–51. Watercolor and drawing on paper, 17 × 21.5 cm. Museo Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez. Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno del Estado de México.

Moriuchi book.indb 99

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 45  Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Mujer indígena con cempasúchil (Indian woman with marigold), 1876. Oil on canvas, 67.95 × 56.52 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Ronald A. Belkin, Long Beach, California (M.2013.130.2). Figure 46 (opposite) Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Indias de Oaxaca (Indian women from Oaxaca), ca. 1877. Oil on canvas, 100 × 80 cm. Colección de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia. AP 1125.

Institute of Toluca. Gutiérrez’s painting is both social and political, depicting Sánchez Solís as the boy leaving his family in order to pursue his education and career. Sánchez Solís believed in the power of education to elevate one’s social status, a prime example of which was Sánchez Solís himself. Like Gutiérrez, Sánchez Solís was a patron of the arts and the academy, and believed in the importance of the arts in establishing a cultivated national identity.36 Another painting, Mujer indígena con cempasúchil (Indian woman with marigold, 1876) (fig. 45), now in the collection of the Los Angeles County

Museum of Art, is believed to have been purchased by a collector in San Francisco while the artist was traveling in the United States.37 Other costumbrista paintings are located in Bogotá, Colombia, where Gutiérrez was instrumental in the establishment of the National School of Fine Arts. Although the costumbrista paintings held in Colombian collections were probably painted in that country, they were almost certainly based on Mexican models.38 In Mujer indígena con cempasúchil, Gutiérrez portrays a young, pregnant Indian woman wearing a white huipil, the traditional shiftlike shirt worn by

100 / Mexican Costumbrismo

04 Chapter 04.indd 100

11/21/17 1:29 PM

Indian women in Mexico, stretched over her growing abdomen. She gazes at the bright yellow marigold in her hand, completely absorbed in her thoughts. The Aztecs associated the marigold with mortality and believed that it guided the spirits of the dead to the living during celebrations associated with el día de los muertos (the day of the dead). In general, marigolds symbolize the fragility of life and perhaps express this woman’s sentiment toward her unborn child. The woman is probably a model whom Gutiérrez used to portray the type of an Indian woman. She may be the same model used for the woman in Indias de Oaxaca

(Indian women from Oaxaca, ca. 1877) (fig. 46), a painting of two dark-complexioned female figures set against a similar nondescript cement wall. The figures’ ambiguous relationship invites multiple narratives. If read as a later portrayal of the woman in Mujer indígena con cempasúchil, perhaps it depicts the same Indian woman, with her now grown daughter. Or it may have no connection to the previous painting and may instead portray two sisters playfully interacting with each other. The older figure is withholding something in her left hand that the child, smiling slightly, is trying to get from her. Both figures are

101 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 101

11/17/17 3:29 PM

color

Figure 47  Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, Mendigo (Beggar), 1891. Oil on canvas, 85 × 65 cm. Colección Museo Nacional de Colombia, reg. 2250.

dressed in simple white cotton blouses; the woman wears a huipil, while the girl wears a more tailored blouse with cap sleeves. Both have their dark hair tied back and wear headbands that hold back loose strands. According to Esperanza Garrido, the object of dispute might be a tortilla; if so, this painting may be the one that was registered in an exhibition titled Indias disputándose una tortilla (Indian women arguing over a tortilla).39 Gutiérrez’s costumbrista image succeeds in conveying a warm, familial relationship between the two figures.

In Mendigo (Beggar, 1891) (fig. 47), Gutiérrez portrays a beggar with intricate detail and picturesque color. The meticulous representation of every wrinkle on the beggar’s face contributes to the old man’s weary expression. His whitish-gray beard recalls Payno’s and Prieto’s descriptions of Arrieta’s beggar (fig. 34), but whereas Arrieta’s full body view emphasizes the beggar’s frailness, Gutiérrez’s closer observation of the beggar’s upper body evokes an awesome presence. Gutiérrez’s beggar stands upright, a handsome, if worn, serape

102 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 102

11/17/17 3:29 PM

over his broad shoulders. He leans on his wooden staff with his right hand, his left palm extended in the gesture of asking for alms. A maroon printed handkerchief covers his head, the print echoed in the faded stripes of his serape. A badly tattered cobalt-blue sleeve over a soiled white shirt is visible beneath the serape. The saturated colors of the beggar’s clothing seem unusually bright. In spite of his ragged clothing and obvious poverty, the man possesses a rather majestic aura overall. The fine detail of the beggar’s facial features and clothing make this painting a portrait of an individual more than a depiction of a type. Many of Gutiérrez’s costumbrista works were exhibited while he was living and teaching in Bogotá. He drew on a tradition of traveler-artists and fellow Colombian costumbrista artists, such as José Manuel Groot (1800–1878), Ramón Torres Méndez (1809–1885), and José María Dominguez Roche (1788–1858), who valued the quotidian aspects of life.40 Gutiérrez, in his lifelong endorsement of depictions of customs, costumes, and everyday surroundings, most certainly found a sympathetic audience in the artistic milieu of nineteenth-century Colombia. Gutiérrez earned a reputation as a talented artist who shared qualities with the great European masters. For example, the Cuban revolutionary hero José Martí, who lived in Mexico in the 1870s and wrote art criticism for the city’s newspapers, praised Gutiérrez’s mastery of chiaroscuro and mimetic naturalism.41 But it was as an art critic that Gutiérrez actively advocated for the elevation of the fine arts in Mexico as a means of securing Mexico’s status on an equal footing with European nations.42 In his review of the academy’s 1876 exhibition, he reflected on the inextricable links between art and society. “Painting, sculpture, and architecture have always contributed and aided in joining men in society,” he wrote. “They make their dwelling beautiful and comfortable. They extol humanity’s most prominent acts and they

perpetuate them so that future generations will know them. . . . When treasures are accumulated in a city, no matter how small they are, [the city] is then made worthy to be visited by numerous travelers . . . and that city is admired and its inhabitants respected.” And he passionately lamented the state of the arts in Mexico, writing that, “in Mexico, which is named the Rome of America par excellence in the South American republics, painting and sculpture are scorned. The artists do not occupy the elevated position of the Europeans, and the individuals who could decorate their rooms with products made with the talent of their compatriots instead bring trashy paintings and chromolithographs from Europe. . . . And would one still say that the arts are pure luxury? And would one deny that in civilized nations the government and its associates impart wide protection to the individuals who cultivate it?”43 National art and culture were synonymous with civilization and advancement. Or, as Stacie Widdifield argues in her study of nineteenth-century Mexican history painting, “Art and history were good for transforming the barbaric into the civilized.”44 Gutiérrez was not alone in this call for a national art. During the period 1867–81 there was a restoration of cultural politics in Mexico following the French intervention and the execution of Emperor Maximilian. Liberal intellectuals like Ignacio Manuel Altamirano and Ignacio Ramírez were greatly concerned with issues of national culture.45 Despite the dominance of partisan political ideology throughout this period, the formation of national culture through the visual arts was critical regardless of which political party was in office. Both liberals and conservatives recognized that the production of fine arts could secure Mexico’s place in a global modern world. Gutiérrez criticized Mexican collectors for importing from Europe inferior, kitschy prints and for believing that these might be more worthy than original works by Mexican artists. He attrib-

103 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 103

11/17/17 3:29 PM

uted this lack of passion for Mexican art to the low status of Mexican artists and disdain for local painting and sculpture. Gutiérrez envisioned the arts as a critical political tool that could be used to achieve international status and respect. It was through the cultivation of the arts that Mexico would cement its position vis-à-vis the European powers. To remedy the problem that Mexicans did not value art or esteem Mexican artists, Gutiérrez encouraged critics to write about art as European and American art critics did. Only in this way would the public learn to distinguish artistic quality and acquire taste. For Gutiérrez, the cultivation of artistic taste needed to become part of a nationalist discourse, and this conviction informed his oeuvre. Even if intellectuals of every political stripe could rally behind the importance of a national art, there was little agreement on what constituted Mexican national art. Works by Mexican artists still reflected the standards set by European art history, in terms of both form and content. For the most part, the academy considered national history and landscape painting valuable national art, though not without confusion and debate.46 Though Gutiérrez had produced acclaimed history paintings, and though his portraits provided him with an income and helped his reputation, the paintings he chose to champion were costumbrista works.47 Gutiérrez stressed the importance of representing customs and contemporary events, and he suggested that competitions be held in Mexico to award the types of paintings that would create a truly Mexican art.48 In his 1876 review, he praised the artist Alejandro Casarín for his genre pictures, calling him a Mexican Meissonier, a reference to the nineteenthcentury French artist who specialized in small genre scenes featuring costumes and accessories rendered in exacting detail.49 Gutiérrez criticized idealism in art and denounced a style he called bonito, or pretty, for

being false and mannerist. “To employ that ambiguous idealism that turns the figures into some type of porcelain doll is annoying,” he maintained. “We have seen, for example, some paintings of Indians in Mexico and we don’t know whether it causes laughter or pity, to see their clean flesh as if it was varnished.”50 In other words, paintings of Indians should resemble actual Indians. But one must take this critique cautiously, for three paragraphs later Gutiérrez criticizes José María Velasco for not making certain compositional and lighting changes that would have idealized the Valley of Mexico in his celebrated painting Valle de México, exhibited in Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition. Gutiérrez wanted the world, specifically Europe, to learn about Mexico’s customs, cities, and natural beauty. He believed that this would alter Europe’s perception of Mexico as a barbarous, uncivilized nation. In his 1895 artistic treatise Tratado del dibujo y la pintura (Treatise on Drawing and Painting), Gutiérrez praised the artist of genre paintings, writing, “The genre painter’s scenes are temples, public plazas, the streets, and the countryside. His paintings of a fruit vendor, a florist, a group of proud boys ridiculing a drunkard, or a blind man who goes door to door, covered in rags, asking for sustenance, are lively and poetic. When translated to canvas with the magic of his brush, they cause admiration among his contemporaries and he is glorified for posterity.”51 Despite prevailing notions to the contrary, Gutiérrez had faith that such works would find numerous buyers in the United States and Europe, which would prove the talent of Mexican artists to a foreign public. As an academic artist clearly concerned with promoting classical aesthetics and elevating the status of the Mexican artist through his embrace of contemporary subjects and costumbrismo, Gutiérrez revealed his desire for change and his interest in modernizing his nation, looking to Europe as a model. Notably, he preferred the artistic environ-

104 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 104

11/17/17 3:29 PM

ment of Paris to that of Rome during his European travels. In Paris, Gutiérrez saw the future of painting, while in Rome he saw the antiquated state of the arts, as he observed in Impresiones de viaje. I entered the classroom of the natural nude figure where they were copying a live model. After examining the young students’ drawings one by one, I frankly did not see them as any better than those drawn by the pupils of the Academy of Mexico. In fact, they appeared to me inferior and of lesser color. You can see this is a weakness of the Roman school, which is stiff and cold. Ours, in contrast, which is of the Spanish school, has a bit of Venetian influence; both have good color, energy, and vibration. . . . In summary, the Academy of San Lucas, even though it is in Rome and it is assumed abroad that it must be a grand establishment from which great artists emerge, is no more than a common school in which they barely learn the rudimentary lessons of art. This is due to the professors’ habits and the fact that they are more concerned with the fulfillment of religious morals than artistic ones.52

Gutiérrez challenged the common perception that Rome should serve as a model for Mexico’s artists. He believed that the success of Mexican art lay in its focus on the everyday world, and presciently saw Paris as the artistic center of the future of modern art. Opinionated and passionate, Gutiérrez believed in the talent of Mexican artists and in the role that painting could play in advancing his underlying social and political goals. Through his own oeuvre, both visual and written, he sought to contribute to a nationalist discourse and to create a national identity for the Mexican people. His costumbrista artworks of both the upper classes and the poor depict carefully composed environments of elegance, dignity, and fidelity and embrace the values that he adamantly promoted in his writings. However, despite his advocacy of modern subject matter, his painting style was rooted in traditional modes of figural representation. Global recognition and the creation of a “Mexi-

can” school of artists would not occur until the early twentieth century, when Mexican modernists experimented with new aesthetic modes of expression to portray Mexican culture.

Josefa and Juliana Sanromán: Gendered Views of the Bourgeoisie In the nineteenth century, society women in Mexico were taught painting and drawing, in addition to music, foreign languages, and embroidery, as a means of rounding out their education. Though often instructed by professional artists in their homes, these female artists seldom continued to create art once they married and started a family. Given strict societal rules of conduct and propriety, these women were not allowed to travel in public spaces unattended. As a result, they tended to paint what they had access to, producing mostly domestic interiors, still lifes, and devotional religious images. Their artistic production was deemed an amateur pastime, despite the high level of skill many attained. Juliana (1826–1852) and Josefa Sanromán (ca. 1829–?) were sisters from Jalisco, Mexico, active as artists in the 1850s. As upper-class women artists, they depicted contemplative views of domestic bourgeois life that differed from scenes of the lower classes and popular racial types produced by their male contemporaries. Often eclipsed by the work of more prominent male artists like Arrieta and Gutiérrez, the Sanromán sisters’ contributions to costumbrismo have lacked recognition. The Sanrománs were daughters of a businessman and grew up in a family of comfortable means. According to Leonor Cortina, the women probably received artistic training from Pelegrín Clavé, who encouraged them to exhibit their works publicly in San Carlos’s exhibitions.53 Owing to Clavé’s instruction and their involvement with the academy, the Sanromán sisters certainly had access to Dutch and Flemish genre prints. Their configurations of

105 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 105

11/17/17 3:29 PM

interior space, which demonstrate mastery of valued artistic techniques and a sophisticated understanding of how form and space contribute to meaning, make this connection evident. As Angélica Velázquez Guadarrama argues, the Sanrománs’ paintings reinforce the notion of bourgeoisie domesticity and also allude to the sisters’ recognition of themselves as artists, creators, and protagonists in their own lives.54 Just as they seem to portray the structural realities of upper-class women’s lives in Mexico City, they also communicate the way in which, as Adriana Zavala notes, “women’s roles in society were imagined and codified.”55 The sisters often represented a type of themselves in their paintings, although they are not acknowledged as self-portraits or portraits of their families. Instead, the paintings are described in contemporary art criticism as genre pictures, or cuadros de costumbres. Though loosely based on the social reality that the sisters lived, these paintings typecast figures of the privileged classes. In their representation of upperclass types, the Sanromán sisters promoted a refined, cultured image of Mexico. The elder sister, Juliana, using her married name, Juliana Sanromán de Haghenbeck, exhibited in the second (1850) and third (1851) of the academy’s annual exhibitions. Her Sala de música (Music room, ca. 1850) (fig. 48) was included in the third exhibition. In this painting, Juliana depicts a refined bourgeois interior occupied by two young ladies, one playing the piano, the other singing. A gentleman watches from an armchair nearby. The two women take part in a leisurely pastime associated with families of means, and their activity speaks to their well-rounded education.56 Their fashionable dresses, comportment, and gestures entertain the elegantly dressed man; his silk robe indicates that he is enjoying the comforts of his own home. The parlor is decorated luxuriously, with long silk drapes covering the window and an ornate mirror, silver sconces, crystal glassware, and several gilt-framed paintings adorning the walls. A

pastoral landscape and body of water can be seen through the window in the distance. It is tempting to place the figures in the scene in familial relationships; perhaps Sala de música depicts a brother and two sisters, or a husband listening to his wife and sister singing. Could this in fact be a self-portrait of the artist singing, her sister playing the piano while her husband listens quietly? The resistance to attributing specific identities to these figures universalizes the scene and transforms these figures into types—a costumbrista objective. The art critic Rafael de Rafael gave the painting a favorable review in El Espectador de Mexico (January 1851), noting its original composition, the elegance of the figures, and the pleasant landscape beyond the balcony.57 Rafael also noted that the perspective from which Juliana chose to depict the interior scene must have added to the difficulty of its execution. In fact, the angle of the composition adheres to the painting’s linear perspective and enhances the illusion of reality. This is, after all, a window onto another world, and Juliana provides the viewer with a snapshot view of a cultivated scene. The resulting casualness and fleeting nature of the captured moment also contribute to its sense of the everyday. It is as if one has just walked by the music room and witnessed this impromptu concert. Interior scenes of the leisurely pastimes of the bourgeoisie were unusual. Gutiérrez, as we have seen, also captured an intimate musical scene in watercolor on a page from his sketchbook. Although the loose brushstrokes of his Personajes costumbristas (fig. 44) do not lend the image as much clarity as Sanromán’s more finished composition, the clothing of the figures is very similar: the women wear corseted, full-skirted dresses and the men, elegant robes. Both works share affinities in composition and subject matter with Dutch genre paintings of similar scenes, though the Mexican scenes depict familial rather than amorous relationships.58 Sanromán seems to complete Gutiér-

106 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 106

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 48  Juliana Sanromán, Sala de música (Music room), ca. 1850. Oil on canvas, 137 × 124.5 cm. Colección de la Fundación Cultural Antonio Haghenbeck y de la Lama, I.A.P. Museo Casa de la Bola.

Moriuchi book.indb 107

11/17/17 3:29 PM

rez’s vision of the musical concerto, providing a finished product that focuses on the high level of consumption of the nineteenth-century Mexican elite. And although the two women perform for their male viewer, they also assert their roles as confident and talented women. Josefa exhibited in four of the academy’s exhibitions (the second, third, seventh, and eighth). In the second exhibition, she presented three paintings, including a depiction of a female artist’s studio.59 Interior del estudio de una artista (Interior of an artist’s studio, ca. 1849) (fig. 49) intricately portrays an interior view of a woman painting in an elegantly decorated room. The title uses the ambiguous indefinite article “an” rather than the definite article “the,” lending the scene a certain mystery. We don’t know whether this is the artist’s own studio, and thus a self-portrait, or a portrayal of a generic female artist’s studio. Notably, the generic title also suggests that there is nothing unusual about a female artist, and implies that this subject is often represented. In fact, however, this is the first time in the history of Mexican art that a female artist is depicted in the act of painting. The artist is dressed not in working clothes or a smock but wears an elegant pink corseted dress as she stands before her easel holding a palette, various paintbrushes, and a maulstick. It was not unusual for an artist to dress up for a self-portrait. The French painter Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun and the Swiss artist Angelica Kaufmann depicted themselves as virtuous and fashionable ladies in the act of painting. Similarly, male artists, from Diego Velázquez to Rembrandt, created self-portraits in full gentlemanly attire. By not identifying herself as the artist in the scene, Josefa, like Juliana in the Sala de música, generalizes the characters, asserting a societal place for the reputable and elegant female artist in Mexico. A characteristic of costumbrismo, this points to the strength of the genre in actively contributing to modern notions of Mexican identity.

The composition that the artist is painting is not, however, a costumbrista scene but a devotional religious image of Saint Teresa of Ávila. A prominent Spanish mystic, Saint Teresa was an energetic reformer who entered the Carmelite order despite strong opposition from her father; she spent her life seeking to reform the Carmelites. She was revered as a holy woman but also as a woman of courage, energy, grace, and, to a certain degree, independence. Josefa’s choice of this subject is significant. Saint Teresa would have served as an important role model, and her depiction here suggests that nineteenth-century women artists might share her courage, energy, and grace. The depiction of Saint Teresa, along with a Madonna and Child and a Dolorosa Madonna on the wall, affirm Josefa’s identity as a Catholic woman, as Velázquez Guadarrama has pointed out.60 This painting within a painting demonstrates the artist’s religious devotion and morality, which were particularly important given her gender. As noted above, it was proper for women of the upper classes to be educated in painting, music, embroidery, and languages, but their education also included rigorous religious instruction. The left side of the composition shows a seated woman reading a book, while on the right another woman sits on a sofa, her finger raised to her brow in contemplation. Josefa, like Juliana, has meticulously decorated this interior with upper-class furnishings, including carved wood furniture, a mirror, a brass and crystal light fixture, and fine porcelain. Full red drapery adorns the window, which provides the sole source of light. Sanromán has presented her subject not only as a talented artist but as a proper, dignified, and virtuous female artist—all essential qualities in a woman breaking social conventions. In 1854–55, Josefa exhibited a painting titled La convalecencia (Convalescence, ca. 1854) (fig. 50), a scene not of leisurely diversion but of anxiety and

108 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 108

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 49  Josefa Sanromán, Interior del estudio de una artista (Interior of an artist’s studio), ca. 1849. Oil on canvas, 132 × 114 cm. Colección de la Fundación Cultural Antonio Haghenbeck y de la Lama, I.A.P. Museo Casa de la Bola.

Moriuchi book.indb 109

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 50  Josefa Sanromán, La convalecencia (Convalescence), ca. 1854. Oil on canvas, 132 × 114 cm. Colección de la Fundación Cultural Antonio Haghenbeck y de la Lama, I.A.P. Museo Casa de la Bola.

Moriuchi book.indb 110

11/17/17 3:29 PM

distress.61 Although the convalescent is something of a cliché, Sanromán’s grave scene shows none of the irony or humor of comparable Dutch scenes of doctors visiting infirm ladies who are either lovesick or pregnant. Instead, it demonstrates the multiple roles of women as mothers, wives, and caretakers. An ill woman is seated on a sofa as another woman props her up with pillows. Her pale face and rigid posture suggest her discomfort as a doctor takes her pulse. Watching silently from the other side of the room is a young girl, possibly the ailing woman’s daughter or niece, who gazes apprehensively at the convalescing woman while clutching a doll. The elegant drawing room contains several gilt-framed paintings, a chandelier, and an Oriental carpet. A doorway in the background provides a view of the adjacent bedroom, in which a servant makes the bed that the convalescent has just left. The room-within-a-room composition demonstrates affinities with the interior spaces of Dutch genre paintings by Nicolaes Maes and Johannes Vermeer, and creates separate social spaces; in the front room, one encounters the bourgeois family, while in the rear one catches a glimpse of the maid. It is likely that this painting is self-referential and that the patient is in fact Juliana, who had died in 1852. Josefa married Juliana’s widower, Carlos Haghenbeck, in 1856, at the age of approximately twenty-seven. Velázquez Guadarrama has identified the paintings that hang in the drawing room as Dolorosa and San Rafael y Tobías, both painted by Juliana, which serve as a visual commemoration of Josefa’s deceased sister.62 This painting received a favorable critique, despite being described incorrectly in 1855 in El Universal. The lady Miss Josefa Sanromán has presented two lovely paintings of customs, and it is in due time as it has been a long time since we have had the pleasure of admiring her interesting paintings. One of them that now adorns the exhibition gallery is titled The Convalescence. A lady is

seated on a sofa and at her side is the doctor who takes her pulse; a man standing supports her head and a woman, also standing, listens attentively to the professional. On the side, on another sofa, is a girl who is playing with a doll, and in the background one can see through a doorway the maid who is making the bed. Everything in the painting is well placed and done with much propriety, such that one can soon imagine everything that has happened. The lady has just left the bed, and is without a doubt convalescing, and the man and woman who listen are her siblings. In such cases, things happen just as Miss Sanromán has represented them.63

It is unclear whether the critic is mistaken in his description because he has not actually seen the painting or because he saw another version of this painting, now lost or missing. The description given in the exhibition catalogue describes the painting accurately, as having only one male character, the doctor. It is difficult not to speculate that the critic unconsciously described the painting inaccurately; it is as if he has constructed his own genre scene loosely based on a costumbrista painting, twice removed from “reality.” The critic nonetheless praises Sanromán for representing the scenario truthfully. Accuracy figures as a principal merit of costumbrista imagery. If the scene and setting are implausible, then the work cannot be commended as a portrayal of everyday life. Despite parallels between the subjects in the paintings and everyday relations in the artist’s life, the figures are never identified in the contemporary literature as specific individuals but remain anonymous. This favors the objective of costumbrista artists, namely, to record their surroundings in fictional, idealized compositions loosely based on everyday life. The Sanromán sisters are unique among costumbrista artists in their consistent representation of the upper classes. Restricted by social constraints and the rules of female propriety and decorum, they used this limitation to their advantage and focused their gaze

111 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 111

11/17/17 3:29 PM

on their own social circle, producing new and invaluable images of spaces unexplored by their male counterparts. On December 6 and 13, 1885, in a periodical titled El Álbum de la Mujer (Women’s album), which was dedicated to the literate female population of Mexico, Leopolda Gasso y Vidal wrote a daring yet cautious essay titled “La mujer artista” (The woman artist) that stressed the importance of female artists. She acknowledged the challenges women artists faced in having to manage both their domestic interests and their artistic talent, yet she believed that women should be able to do both successively. She lamented the unjust situation in which women artists found themselves and argued that they should be allowed to take classes in human anatomy and perspective in order to compete more effectively with male artists.64 For Gasso y Vidal, no one could tackle the new modern art better than women artists. We have little biographical information on Gasso y Vidal, so we can only speculate as to what her role as an artist or protofeminist journalist might have been. But she clearly envisioned a progressive future that included women in the workplace. Gasso y Vidal wrote her essay approximately thirty years after the Sanromán sisters had exhibited their works in the academy. Female artists of the nineteenth century were still viewed as señoritas pintoras, well-bred ladies who painted as a means of rounding out their education. While it is impossible to know what if any impact her essay had on female artists of the late nineteenth century, by the early twentieth, a handful of women were beginning to receive recognition as professional artists. The Sanromán sisters lived in an era in which their desire to be artists was not reconcilable with their primary role as wives and mothers. Their few known paintings are still housed within their family’s collection at the Museo Casa de la Bola, a museum comprising the vast art collection of Josefa’s grandson, don Antonio Haghenbeck y de La

Lama. A house museum, akin to the Frick Collection in New York City, the Museo Casa de la Bola provides a rare view into a wealthy Mexican collector’s home. Here, a plethora of luxurious decorative objects—porcelain, armor, furniture, paintings, and prints—can be seen, among them the paintings by Haghenbeck’s grandmother, Josefa, and great aunt, Juliana. Hung in a sitting room decorated in a sumptuous style akin to that represented in the artists’ interiors, the four Sanromán paintings are displayed, perhaps not so differently from how they would have been in the nineteenth century. When viewed in relation to the work of their male contemporaries, the Sanromán paintings stand out because of their upper-class subjects and their emphasis on interior spaces rather than exterior ones.65 These differences work to their advantage, for these female artists provided a more expansive view of gender, social, and familial relationships of the period. The Sanrománs elevated the status of the woman artist through their innovative compositions. In short, their creation of assertive female types contributed to modern notions of Mexican female identity and paved the way for their twentieth-century female counterparts. Costumbrista paintings by local Mexican artists were varied in their subject matter, and the artists themselves came from diverse artistic and geographical backgrounds. Occupations that had been visualized in the eighteenth century, and typecast in the nineteenth by foreign artists, were in many ways reclaimed by local artists. Occupations like the water carrier and street vendor continued to be represented by Mexican artists and were seen as part of the daily urban fabric. Though the main emphasis was on depicting the activities and customs of the lower classes, some artists also represented the upper strata of nineteenth-century Mexican society. From Arrieta’s marketplaces to the Sanromán sisters’ bourgeois homes, and from Gutiérrez’s watercolor interiors to

112 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 112

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Serrano’s scenes of diversion, these Mexican artists shared a desire to shape the perceptions of the Mexican people by depicting their customs and traditions. Referring in many cases to European precedents—Nicolaes Maes’s interior spaces, for example, or Diego Velázquez’s Triumph of Bacchus— these artists appropriated these models in carefully conceived ways to serve the formation of national identity. For the most part, costumbrista artists sought to provide a civilized image of Mexico and its diverse people, and the creation of picturesque, harmonious pictures prevailed. However, artists also presented opposite sentiments in the guise of violence, aggression, and debasement. It should be noted that both charming and degrading imagery served to reinforce the elite social status of the observer and collector. Costumbrista art developed in a time of academic conservatism that paralleled aspects of the political and historical situation during the postindependence period. This epoch, characterized by political change, was also a time in which pride in the Mexican nation and ideas about Mexican identity were formed. Artists and their critics looked for a visual vocabulary with which to define this moment. Ignacio Altamirano, the politician, writer of costumbrista novels, and occasional art critic, lamented the fact that a national school of painting did not exist despite the great artistic talent that existed in the country. “Why is it,” he asked, “that so many young people, who possess true artistic qualities, haven’t committed to creating an essentially pictorial and sculptural national school, one that is modern and in harmony with the insuperable progress of the nineteenth century?”66 In his appeal for a Mexican school of art, Altamirano criticized Mexican artists for looking to

Greek and Roman models for inspiration, for blindly imitating the traditions of the Renaissance, and for following these conventions as dogma. Mexico had a rich, noble history in its pre-Columbian past, and artists should celebrate it by representing their everyday surroundings and cultural traditions. The visual arts formed a part of nationalist discourse, as they communicated visually what was Mexican. The call for a national art concerned not only Mexican subjects but also Mexican aesthetics. In the absence of modernist aesthetics like impressionism and postimpressionism, national history painting was judged inadequate, in that it portrayed Europeanized Mexican subjects steeped in tradition and classicism. Liberal intellectuals like Gutiérrez and ­Altamirano advocated scenes of everyday life that represented the Mexican people, traditions, and customs. Like Gutiérrez, Altamirano championed costumbrismo, seeing it as a way to construct a national image. Costumbrista painting, Altamirano asserted, “interprets the world today and substitutes the interest for classical and religious painting, just as modern drama and moral comedy substitute the interest in tragedies from antiquity and the cloak-and-dagger comedy.”67 Costumbrismo was viewed as a relevant modernist endeavor, a genre that challenged neoclassical standards and academic conservatism. Writers and politicians like Altamirano and artists like Gutiérrez believed that the visual arts could stimulate the creation of a national identity. Despite their impassioned appeals, however, costumbrista artists remained few and far between, and by the dawn of the twentieth century, costumbrismo as a cohesive movement would fade away altogether.

113 / Local Perspectives

Moriuchi book.indb 113

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Moriuchi book.indb 114

11/17/17 3:29 PM

chapter 5

Costumbrista Photography

With the invention of photography, the popular types established in costumbrista literature and paintings were also translated into the photographic medium. Photography was introduced in Mexico in 1839 via the daguerreotype.1 Costly to produce, daguerreotypes were available to only a small number of wealthy customers. By the late 1850s, technological advancements and the development of the more economical carte de visite allowed a larger number of consumers access to photography. Cartes de visite, known as tarjetas de visita in Mexico, were one of the first visual mass media to be widely collected and circulated among the upper and middle classes. These small photographs spurred the beginning of a celebrity culture. Commissioned by upper- and middle-class consumers, they enabled the control of one’s image, the expression of one’s personal identity, and the presentation of oneself as prosperous, successful, and essentially modern. Mexico’s foreign rulers from 1864 to 1867, the emperor

Moriuchi book.indb 115

Maximilian and his wife, the empress Carlota, embraced the new technology and were instrumental in the dissemination of photography in Mexico. Both were photographed widely, and both recognized photography’s potential use as propaganda.2 Indeed, the first photographic boom occurred during Maximilian’s short reign. Twenty new photography studios opened, dedicated to the production of cartes de visite. Through photography, Maximilian’s court and the upper strata of society promulgated select representations, thus creating and reaffirming social and racial attitudes. Individuals collected tarjetas de visita of friends and family, and of landscapes and urban scenes, and pasted them into albums. These personal albums became a way to demonstrate one’s personal and business connections and to reinforce one’s status in society. At the other end of the spectrum were photographs of laborers, vendors, and indigenous figures. Photographed initially by itinerant European photographers and then by Mexican photogra-

11/17/17 3:29 PM

phers, the lower-class figures in these photos were seen not as individuals but as racial and social types, also to be amassed and collected. Whereas photographs of upper-class individuals sought to affirm personal identity, then, photographs of the lower classes denied those subjects individuality. Stereotypes about particular occupations and trades dehumanized the individuals who posed for photographs by lumping them into generic categories. That the photographs were collected in albums by the upper classes only reinforced this debasement as a “generalizing” and “universalizing” gesture.3 Tarjetas de visita of the upper and lower classes alike were initially made in the controlled setting of the studio, though technological advances eventually enabled photographs to be taken in situ. The images of the lower classes represented street life and were often imbued with a sense of nostalgia. As records of trades and occupations that would essentially disappear with the modernization of the city, many tarjetas of the lower classes memorialized a way of life that was gradually becoming invisible. Advances in urban infrastructure and plumbing, for example, would soon render occupations like the cargador (loader) and aguador obsolete. Photographs of popular types reinforced the preexisting social hierarchy. Costumbrista photographs (figs. 51, 52) represented the lower indigenous classes as docile and adaptable. The passivity and weary gaze of many of the subjects reinforced the status of both viewer and subject. The subjects, especially by the 1870s, were often portrayed in a picturesque manner, with a re-created elaborate backdrop of a city street, complete with ceramic ware, torn posters, and potted plants (figs. 59, 60). This picturesque quality made these images political. As John Mraz has argued, “The picturesque is first of all a political problem, because it is a strategy by which people whose skins are a bit darker are made to appear a little less human; those who take the

pictures, and see them published, are somehow more human than those who are in them.” Mraz also notes that popular types photographed in natural landscapes were meant to be seen as “products of nature, passive and quiescent, incapable of acting in the world, or simply irrelevant.”4 As with other costumbrista imagery, costumbrista photography not only exoticized Mexico’s indigenous and mixedrace people but justified the long-standing economic system of discrimination and oppression. Costumbrista photographs, like costumbrista paintings, lithographs, and literature, sought to capture the customs, costumes, and traditions of everyday people and their lives. The genre’s intertextuality fit easily with the multiple media in which it proliferated. Julia Kristeva’s notion of a text as a “mosaic of quotations” is applicable here, where photographs of popular types absorb, are interwoven in, and transform preexisting costumbrista imagery.5 The archetypal figures that could be used and reused to represent particular behaviors, races, occupations, and social classes were a natural fit with photography, where technological advances enabled inexpensive reproduction. As with other modes of costumbrismo, photography also relied on a metonymic process—using particular objects, attributes, or concepts to stand in for one another— which helps to account for its success. For example, a round cap and jars signified the water carrier; a straw hat and bunch of baskets, the basket seller; a rebozo and long skirt, the china poblana, and so on. Photography’s popularity ensured costumbrismo’s continued appeal.

Early French Photographers The French were among the first photographers to portray Mexican trades and stock characters. Claude Désiré Charnay and François Aubert were two photographers who, in addition to portraying their upper-class clientele, also photographed street

116 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 116

11/17/17 3:29 PM

life and the lower classes in the 1850s and 1860s. Their goal, as Arturo Aguilar Ochoa has observed, was to satisfy the French public’s desire for images of a faraway savage land in need of salvation.6 In 1862 France invaded Mexico, seeking repayment of debt, and by 1864 Maximilian of Austria had assumed the throne as emperor of Mexico. The European demand for images of exotic, untamed Mexico was met by the new photographic technology. Largely seen as an endeavor by French artists to meet a French public’s curiosity, these early photographs also circulated among Mexico’s hombres letrados, or men of letters. As we saw earlier with the lithographs of traveler-artists like Claudio Linati and Carl Nebel, these photographs by French artists contributed to a visual repertoire of racial and social types that helped to create a sense of Mexican national identity. In 1857, Désiré Charnay (1828–1915) came to Mexico not, initially, to depict popular types but to document the country’s grand pre-Columbian ruins, a project commissioned by the French Ministry of Public Education. His first book, Álbum fotográfico mexicano, published in 1860, included a compilation of views of monuments of Mexico City and surrounding areas.7 Travels to the south of Mexico yielded the album Le Mexique, 1858–1861: Souvenirs et impressions de voyage, published in 1862. A traveler-artist similar to Carl Nebel, Charnay also sought to document Mexico’s vast landscape and archeological treasures, albeit through the medium of photography rather than lithographs. In a subsequent album, Cites et ruines américaines, published in Paris in 1863 and based on his second visit to the country in 1859–60, Charnay included forty-nine photographs of archeological sites. In some copies of this album, Charnay also included photographs of various popular types. One copy contained twelve types with the generic label “tipos mexicanos.”8 These photographic albums would have been collected in much the same way

that people collected lithographic albums like Nebel’s. Subscriptions were often sold, and individual plates were printed and distributed as they were completed. Eventually, the collector would compile the plates in an album. As a result of this decentralized process, finished albums took on many different appearances. Chapter 2 discusses a similar process with respect to lithographic albums. Charnay’s photographs include street vendors selling baskets, clay pots, and other wares, a woman dressed like a china poblana, an indigenous woman, a water carrier, a porter, and a scribe. Most of these characters were also included in the album Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos (1854–55), and it is highly likely that Charnay was aware of this publication, and of the many costumbrista paintings and lithographs that circulated in the nineteenth century. Another potential influence would have been the little wax and clay figurines of occupations and types that became collectibles during the period.9 Charnay’s early salt prints measure roughly 24 × 19 centimeters, much larger than the diminutive carte de visite, which generally measured approximately 6 × 9 centimeters.10 The size and material lend the photographs a sense of fragility and uniqueness. One of these images, Vendedor de ollas (Pan vendor, 1858) (fig. 51), portrays its male subject seated and dressed in loose, tattered clothing, with a striped serape around his shoulders. He barely fits within the frame of the photograph. As he leans against a largely obscured cart, he faces the camera under the shade of his straw hat, his right hand holding one of the pans that earn him a living. His weary expression engages the viewer, evoking empathy and compassion. This vendor’s body language and facial expression convey his submissiveness. His crouched, diminutive figure emphasizes his impoverished state and lowly social stature. In contrast, the Vendedor de canastas (Basket seller, 1858) (fig. 52) confronts the

117 / Costumbrista Photography

Moriuchi book.indb 117

11/17/17 3:29 PM

viewer with a direct, piercing gaze. Standing erect and facing the viewer head on, he is overloaded with dozens of baskets, though seemingly unperturbed by the awkwardness of their bulky presence. Dressed in simple, loose clothing and a straw hat, his central position bifurcates the composition symmetrically. His dark brown skin, simple clothing, and bare feet place him squarely on the same low rung of the social hierarchy as the pan vendor. The jumbled baskets that hang from his slender frame have the same effect of diminishing the subject, almost consuming his physicality. Costumbrista photographs expanded upon the visual repertoire of lower-class vendor types seen previously in lithographs and paintings. The pan vendor and basket seller have no direct visual precedent in Nebel’s or Linati’s work or in Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, though these albums depicted other kinds of vendors. Two of Charnay’s photographs, Escríbano (Scribe, 1858) (fig. 53) and Aguador (Water carrier, 1858) (fig. 54), do share affinities with both Linati’s types and those illustrated in Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos. As in Los mexicanos, Charnay’s scribe is seated at a table in the act of writing. While the scribe in Los mexicanos appears absorbed in his task, Charnay’s writer looks directly into the camera, and his furrowed brow suggests weariness. The direct gaze is a consistent feature of Charnay’s subjects. Unlike Linati’s scribe, who is taking dictation from a female client, Charnay’s writer appears by himself; the table bears the tools of his profession: books, pens, and ink. The scribes represented by Charnay and Los mexicanos are dressed in suits and have lighter skin, in contrast to the dark complexion and loose clothing of the indigenous men in the photographs of vendors, suggesting that education and literacy were often available only to the “whiter” (and thus more privileged) classes. However, as discussed in chapter 1, the scribe, though literate, was a hardworking man who struggled to make a

consistent living. His weariness is expressed in the exhausted visage of Charnay’s writer and the disorderly appearance of his desk. Charnay’s water carrier (fig. 54) shares more affinities with the water carrier in Los mexicanos (fig. 32) than with Linati’s (fig. 3). The distinction is seen mainly in the clothing; whereas the other two water carriers wear clean white shirts and full-length pants made of two layers of fabric, Linati’s water carrier has torn clothing and a more disheveled appearance. Charnay’s water carrier does not bear the proud, upright position of the water carrier in Los mexicanos; he is bent over by the weight of the water he carries. His slightly averted gaze suggests a query to the photographer about the correctness of his pose. Without the accompanying text that describes the work ethic and life troubles of public scribes and water carriers in Los mexicanos, these images lack further explanation. They convey a

118 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 118

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 51 (opposite) Claude Désiré Charnay, Vendedor de ollas (Pan vendor), 1858. Salt print, 24.6 × 19.2 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. 426331. Figure 52  Claude Désiré Charnay, Vendedor de canastas (Basket seller), 1858. Salt print, 24.9 × 19.3 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.-mex. 426343. Figure 53  Claude Désiré Charnay, Escríbano (Scribe), 1858. Salt print, 24.8 × 19.2 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.mex. 426330. Figure 54  Claude Désiré Charnay, Aguador (Water carrier), 1858. Salt print, 24 × 17.4 cm. secretaria de cultura.-inah.mex. 426344.

Moriuchi book.indb 119

11/17/17 3:29 PM

sense of nostalgia for the past, in particular for the occupations that would slowly disappear as Mexico modernized in the nineteenth century. All of Charnay’s photographs demonstrate an interest in formal concerns. The compositions are visually well balanced, with repeating shapes that increase their unity. The balance of light and dark shades also helps achieve visual cohesion. Emphasis is on the center of the composition. The photographs are often closely cropped around the subject, providing very little background. Faces and hands are in focus and shown in detail, while the edges of the composition, where feet or props are located, are blurry. These fuzzier surroundings guide the eye to the crisper areas that Charnay wants to highlight, such as a tired visage, worn, cracked hands, a bold fabric, or the varied use of textiles. This attention to the compositions’ aesthetic appeal lends the images a harmonizing quality that is disrupted by the direct, often confrontational gaze of the subject. François Aubert (1829–1906), born in Lyons, another French artist who arrived in Mexico seeking to establish himself as a photographer, was active in Mexico in 1865, during Maximilian’s reign, and is said to have been the monarch’s favorite photographer.11 Records indicate that he shared a photographic studio with fellow Frenchman François Merillé at 7 San Francisco Street in Mexico City. An advertisement in a city directory indicates the various services that Aubert’s studio provided, including photographs of landscapes, types, and celebrities, both local and foreign.12 Some of Aubert’s most important political works are photographs of the fall of Emperor Maximilian in Querétaro. Aubert’s images of the embalmed emperor in his casket and of Maximilian’s bloodstained, bullet-torn white shirt confirmed the monarch’s execution for the Mexican and French people.13 Aubert was also sought after as a portraitist; he took numerous photographs of the emperors during their travels and at court. In addition, Aubert

photographed a series of popular types that fit within the scope of this study. The origin of the series—whether the emperor commissioned it or whether the impetus came from Aubert—is not known. But it is probable that Aubert, like Charnay, was highly cognizant of the other visual and literary representations of popular types in circulation, from Linati’s and Nebel’s lithographs to Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos and wax figurines. In fact, Aubert photographed wax figurines of types on several occasions.14 Currently located at the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History in Brussels, Aubert’s photographs of popular types may have been brought to Brussels from Mexico by a veteran soldier or family member.15 The photographs are collodion wet plates on glass; some of them have been printed in the carte-de-visite format.16 Aubert portrays various lower-class types, from chinas and chinacos to market vendors who pose with their various products. While Charnay’s images often provide a close-up view of the sitter and very little background, Aubert’s representations typically supply the subjects with ample breathing room. Aubert often portrays the figure standing, centered, toward the back of a room, on either a tattered rug or a wooden floor, in front of a plain wall. The view is wider, making the figure appear smaller and more isolated. For example, in photographs such as Aubert’s Vendedor (Vendor, ca. 1865) (fig. 55) and Cargador de cazuelas (Pot carrier, ca. 1865) (fig. 56), the figures pose stiffly while carrying the tools of their trade. The frontal stances allow a good view of the costumes, which identify the types. By posing the subjects slightly farther away from the camera than Charnay did, Aubert imparted a sense of formality. The plainness of the studio suggests an objective point of view. Aubert’s Vendedor (fig. 55) stands erect, like Charnay’s basket seller, holding a bunch of peppers in his outstretched hand. On the floor in front of

120 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 120

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 55  François Aubert, Vendedor (Vendor), ca. 1865. Collodion wet plate. © Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History. KLM-MRA: DB-a-14061.

him is a tattered blanket on which an array of vegetables and pots is arranged. He stands relatively far back in the picture plane, providing a generous view of the wooden floor and the blanket upon which his wares lie. His gaze is also direct and disquieting. Vendors of vegetables in costumbrista paintings were typically portrayed casually, often in the act of selling (fig. 40). With a serape draped around his torso, this vendor’s pants are rolled up to reveal his bare feet. He is depicted statically, exuding a sense of being staged, and thus perhaps as “real,” as if he has just come in off the street. These photographs share similarities with ethnographic photographs of the period, but they

have notably different objectives. Anthropology as a discipline developed during the nineteenth century, and photography became the essential medium for capturing the various aspects of indigenous societies in Mexico. Anthropologists’ ethnographic photographs of indigenous people served scientific purposes, in marked contrast to the aesthetic goals of costumbrista photographs. Karina Sámano Verdura argues that while both portrayed indigenous people, ethnographic photographs sought to capture the essence of races. These “physical types” could be distinguished from the “popular types” of costumbrismo.17 Although photographs of physical and popular types are similar in their depiction of the

121 / Costumbrista Photography

Moriuchi book.indb 121

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 56  François Aubert, Cargador de cazuelas (Pot carrier), ca. 1865. Collodion wet plate. © Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History. KLM-MRA: DB-a-14249.

clothing, skin tone, and facial features of their subjects, they differ in composition and the positioning of the figures. While the former is interested in capturing physical and biological characteristics, the latter is concerned with capturing social and cultural values. In photographs of physical types, the subjects are mainly portrayed in profile, posing rigidly and dressed in simple clothing. The profile shot renders the subject’s facial features and cranial shape more clearly, allowing these aspects to be studied more deeply. Photographs of popular types, by contrast,

sought to depict occupations and cultural traditions. These types, arranged with their wares and props, invoke narratives, such as the story of the water carrier about to transport his heavy barrels to a family in need of water, or that of a food vendor preparing to sell vegetables to an unseen customer. In Cargador de cazuelas (fig. 56), a laborer is depicted at a slight distance dressed in loose, simple clothing against a neutral background. The presence of the drop cloth on the wood floor reveals the setting as that of the photographer’s studio and would have been similar to ethnographic photographs of the period. What differs is Aubert’s attention to the props and distinguishing attributes of his subject. His interest goes beyond capturing the physical characteristics of the cargador and toward social values that fulfill a cultural narrative. These portraits of the lower classes, which relied on dress and attributes to identify an occupation or type, share affinities with Aubert’s numerous photographs of military men and dandies, many of whose names have been forgotten and who have now, interestingly, become types in and of themselves. Their infantry costumes and fashionable suits now identify them as popular archetypes from nineteenth-century Mexico. The diverse photographs that would have been assembled in an album or scrapbook are strikingly similar to the lithographs in midcentury albums like Los mexicanos, where the upper and lower classes shared the same visual and literary space and became representative of Mexican national identity. Several of Aubert’s photographs of indigenous female types, such as Tortilleras (Tortilla makers, ca. 1865) (fig. 57) and China poblana (fig. 58), recall the images of Linati (fig. 14), Nebel (fig. 19), Pingret (figs. 24, 27), and Arrieta (figs. 11, 35). In Aubert’s Tortilleras, the two dark-skinned women are kneeling; one holds a tortilla while the other bends over the metate. Both wear traditional blouses, skirts, and rebozos and are not bare breasted, as in some of

122 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 122

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 57  François Aubert, Tortilleras (Tortilla makers), ca. 1865. Collodion wet plate. © Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History. KLM-MRA: DB-a-14103.

the early representations of tortilleras by Linati and Nebel. An unusual feature is that they are smiling, recalling Gutiérrez’s Indias de Oaxaca (fig. 46), in which the female characters seem to reach for the same tortilla in a playful way. The viewpoint is closer, and in front of the women lie the cooking implements that identify them as tortilleras. The smiles of the women lend the image a sense of intimacy, removing the isolation and formality present in many of Aubert’s other photographs. Their smiles also seem to suggest a certain complicity—they are part of this fabrication and are playing the role they have been asked to play. Another photograph by Aubert depicts the same young

women with serious expressions. The chronology of the photographs is not known; whether the “smiling” photograph preceded or followed the “serious” photograph is up for interpretation. Nonetheless, the two photographs side by side provide a sense of the temporality of the moment. Aubert’s China poblana (fig. 58) is highly reminiscent of Édouard Pingret’s China poblana (fig. 27) in both pose and costume. Both women are depicted facing the viewer, their left arms balancing a heavy ceramic jar on their shoulders, while they engage the viewer’s gaze coquettishly. Aubert would certainly have been aware of Pingret’s costumbrista paintings, and his photograph is clearly based on

123 / Costumbrista Photography

Moriuchi book.indb 123

11/17/17 3:29 PM

ways by adding to the narratives around the physical characteristics of these types. In addition, they reinforced the typecasting and objectification of the subaltern.

Cruces y Campa

Figure 58  François Aubert, China poblana, ca. 1865. Collodion wet plate. © Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History. KLM-MRA: DB-a-14108.

the visual trope of the china poblana. Aubert’s types are based on other types, twice removing them from the reality that they supposedly authentically portrayed. Like other images of the lower classes, Aubert’s photographs of types also reinforced the power dynamic between those who were privileged and those who were less so. The practice of photographing social types during the nineteenth century was an exercise of vigilance and control over the populace that demarcated and reaffirmed social status.18 Charnay’s and Aubert’s photographs of types contributed to costumbrismo in significant

Technological advances enabled photographers to offer their public better-quality portraits at lower costs. Mounting the tarjetas on cardboard made them much cheaper than their predecessors and enabled faster production and dissemination. The small size of tarjetas increased their portability, collectability, and popularity. Between 1862 and 1877, Antíoco Cruces and Luis Campa established a photographic studio and emerged as important commercial photographers. Both had some artistic training at the Academy of San Carlos and became known for their high-quality cartes de visite. They achieved success for a series of photographs of political rulers that were published as a book with the apt title Galería de personas que han ejercido el mando supremo de México, con título legal o por medio de la usurpación (Gallery of persons who have exercised supreme control in Mexico, through legal title or by means of usurpation). Their photographs of Mexican types were published as Retratos fotográficos de tipos mexicanos (Photographic portraits of Mexican types). The stock figures, like Charnay’s and Aubert’s, were photographed in the studio. However, in contrast to the French photographers’ simple settings, Cruces and Campa provided detailed backdrops, elevating the sense of drama and theatricality conveyed by the images. In 1876, Cruces and Campa were recognized for their high-quality photographs at Philadelphia’s Centennial Exhibition. Enthusiastically received by the public, their work was awarded a bronze medal by the judges.19 According to Aguilar Ochoa, the types produced by Cruces and Campa were “limpios and planchadi-

124 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 124

11/17/17 3:29 PM

tos” (clean and neat), not dirty and unkempt, like those in the photographs produced by Charnay and even Aubert.20 Their work can be compared to that of the illustrators of Los mexicanos, who attempted to reclaim the identity of Mexican people from previously clouded and unflattering representations by foreigners. However, I would argue that the main difference in the representations by Cruces and Campa was not in their “cleansing” of the types but rather in their inclusion of what I will refer to as a “stage.” In the tarjetas by Cruces and Campa, there are multiple props that identify the subjects’ occupations, and also scenery that sets the composition in a very specific urban or rural context. For example, the man in their Aguador (Water carrier, ca. 1870) (fig. 59) stands on a street corner in front of a spigot on a stone building. He is not dressed as nicely as Charnay’s water carrier but is somewhat disheveled, wearing an ill-fitting apron and white shirt. His pants are not composed of two different materials that open on the side but are rolled at the hem, revealing a white undergarment. Charnay’s water carrier is clothed in more constructed garments that more closely resemble the neatly dressed water carrier depicted in Los mexicanos (fig. 32). Presumably, Cruces and Campa’s water carrier has not yet filled his jars at the spigot, as he is not bent over by the weight of the jars but stands upright. He looks directly at the viewer, unlike the subjects in lithographs of water carriers, whose averted gaze was the norm a couple of decades earlier. The slight turn of his body is neither the full profile typical of representations of the water carrier nor the frontal stance of vendors photographed by Charnay and Aubert. Cruces and Campa’s water carrier is observant and alert, and the turn of his body seems to suggest imminent movement. The rock-strewn street corner and spigot lend an air of authenticity to the photograph and contribute to the suggested narrative typical of photographs of popular types.

Mujer moliendo nixtamal (Woman grinding nixtamal, ca. 1870) (fig. 60) recalls earlier images of tortilleras. A woman is portrayed kneeling in a kitchen and bending over the metate. The stage has been set with the appropriate plates on shelves, baskets, and comal, and even a small altar on which hangs a saintly devotional image. Baskets surround her on the floor. There is a rich juxtaposition of smooth and rough textures, from the woven reed mat upon which she kneels to the stone pottery, from the ornately decorated shelving to the soft textiles. Fully dressed, a striped rebozo covering her chest, the tortillera gazes forward with an understanding expression. She is in the middle ground of the photograph and appears literally entrenched in her task by the formal qualities of the image. This helps cement the idea that this is her identity, that she does not really exist outside the photograph. With her alert gaze, she seems to be aware of her role in this construction. As in other photographs of types, her gaze establishes a connection with the viewer (and photographer?), inviting him or her to see these images for what they are: fabrications of a pseudoreality. Representations of an imagined people that served at once to represent quotidian life and to preserve a record of certain trades and occupations, these photographs also perpetuated an established hegemonic power structure. Cruces and Campa also photographed many types of vendors, from the common flower and vegetable vendors to those who sold chicken (vendedor de gallinas), bread (panadero), and candy (vendedor de dulces), to name just a few.21 In each case, the vendor stands in front of elaborate backdrops that provide geographical and cultural context to the occupation. For example, the vendedor de gallinas appears standing, dead birds hanging from the cage on his back, amid stones and dirt, while a thatched roof and trees are visible in the background. The vendedor de dulces is just a young boy. Dressed all in white, he stands before a large

125 / Costumbrista Photography

Moriuchi book.indb 125

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Figure 59  Cruces y Campa, Aguador (Water carrier), ca. 1870. Albumen silver print, 10.2 × 12.7 cm. secretaria de cultura.inah.-mex. 453783. Figure 60  Cruces y Campa, Mujer moliendo nixtamal (Woman grinding nixtamal), ca. 1870. Albumen silver print, 10.2 × 12.7 cm. secretaria de cultura.inah.-mex. 453778.

Moriuchi book.indb 126

11/17/17 3:29 PM

basket of sweets that is propped up by a round column. The wall behind him and the stone floor give the appearance of an actual urban street corner. He holds our gaze and we play the role of his customer. Cruces and Campa’s fictive stages were meant to legitimize their photographs as authentic and “real.” Unlike Aubert, whose photographs were clearly taken in a studio, Cruces and Campa sought to create the illusion of real topography. It appears as if the photographers have just passed the water carrier or food vendors on the street. The moment is brief, informal, transitory. With the photograph, the moment is recorded; it becomes permanent and collectible. However, that Cruces and Campa’s photographs are all tarjetas de visita also lends them an ephemeral quality. They are small, not as precious as the larger salt prints or glass plates, and easily discarded, thus emphasizing their temporality and impermanence. Easily disseminated, they were also easily lost and replaced, just like the subjects they represented. The camera was a symbol of modernity and technology. Photography united art, history, documentation, and memory. Photographic technology in the nineteenth century advanced the local and international exchange of visual imagery in unforeseen ways. It surpassed the dissemination of visual media that had been achieved through printmaking and graphic media. It brought to the fore questions of authenticity and reality. It provided the Mexican people with a medium in which to easily and inexpensively represent themselves to others. Photographic family albums were an important means of preserving memory. They often occupied a prominent place in a wealthy family’s home, atop an imported ivory inlay chest in the formal living room,

for example, where visitors could peruse the family’s legacy. Photographs of extended family members and friends from abroad were kept together, keeping alive the memory of those loved ones. The albums, like the photographs themselves, helped to create an identity for the owner. One’s relationships marked one’s place in society. Ironically, as time passed, the photographs of family members lost the identity provided by a name and relationship and gained identity through typology. In a way, they too began to function as types—the honored military general, for example, or the accomplished lawyer. History did not record their names for posterity, yet their images live on. The many popular trades and types that had been represented in visual and literary forms of costumbrismo found abundant representation in photographs. Many of the tropes had already been established; often, the photographers mimicked tradition and copied previously seen imagery. Photographic costumbrismo did not provide new characterizations of the lower classes, though it did provide more variety to the representation of particular types, such as the numerous street vendors. The significance of photographic costumbrismo lies in its continued portrayal of the racial and social types, its expansion of the repertoire of trades, and its recognition that the construction of these types framed an understanding of center and periphery, of the privileged and the subaltern. These images also cemented these types as symbols of national identity in the minds of the Mexican people and the eyes of foreigners. Many of the popular types in the nineteenth century became symbols of mexicanidad in the twentieth, further cementing ties between tipos populares and nationalism during the Mexican Revolution.22

127 / Costumbrista Photography

Moriuchi book.indb 127

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Moriuchi book.indb 128

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Conclusion

Mexican costumbrismo was a movement that sought to find cultural and social meaning in representations of everyday life, people, customs, and traditions in the nineteenth century. These secular portrayals had their roots in earlier genres like the casta paintings of the eighteenth century. Casta paintings, which sought to establish a rigid social and racial hierarchy, reflected the directives of colonialization. In the nineteenth century, after independence was achieved, an effort at deconstructing this hierarchy occurred through the dissolution of the once prevalent complex casta nomenclature. However, the racial and social diversity that had existed during colonialization did not cease to exist, nor did it stop being represented pictorially. Traveler-artists had begun to arrive in large numbers in the early nineteenth century and, enamored of the rich landscape and diversity of population they encountered in Mexico, they captured what they saw, predominantly, at least initially, for audiences back home. The different

Moriuchi book.indb 129

types of occupations they encountered in urban and rural spaces greatly informed their depictions of the lower-class trades. The indigenous and mixed races found representation in costumbrismo. These portrayals instantiated the typecasting that would exemplify what an individual would “typically” encounter in Mexico and emblematized a sense of Mexico as a diverse nation. As the illustrations by the traveler-artists became more widely distributed, they also inspired local Mexican artists to record their everyday surroundings. Mexican artists and intellectuals recognized the importance of contributing to the visual conversation by bringing their own voices and views to pictorial and literary acts of representation. The stakes were high. Mexico was in the throes of becoming an independent nation, a civilized nation that sought rupture from the reins and vestiges of colonialism. The visual arts, and the institutions that enabled their development, like the academy, were critical to this mission. Artists such

11/17/17 3:29 PM

as Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez understood the power of the visual arts and strongly advocated that art was a key indicator of the advancement of a nation. Aligned with this notion was the belief that art that represented everyday life was essential to establishing a nation’s modernity and progress. Costumbrismo was a means of achieving these goals, though this was not without its contradictions. Many costumbrista pictures portrayed harmonious and picturesque views of Mexico’s racial and social diversity, often the opposite of the political or economic situation. Figures with different occupations and racial mixes intermingled in public places, such as parks, processions, and drinking establishments. These images served as subdued and subtle types of national propaganda that showcased Mexico as peaceful, civilized, and modern. At the same time, these portrayals that focused on the poor and underserved represented a view of Mexico that, in the eyes of some, warranted foreign intervention. Other costumbrista imagery depicted the lower classes in a negative manner, focusing on immoral qualities such as inebriation or laziness. These portrayals perpetuated stereotypes that showcased the lower classes as indolent and debauched, and suggested that the nation had not quite achieved a civilized state. In either case, these pictorial representations served to reaffirm elite viewers’ (and collectors’) social rankings. Harmonious, picturesque images romanticized the lower classes and placed them “under control,” while negative, hostile pictures distanced and exoticized them. Lithographs, paintings, drawings, photography, and text shaped the development of these popular types and the racial, social, gender, and national identities they formulated. It was through a constant juxtaposition of text and image that costumbrismo proliferated. And the multiple formats in which costumbrismo found representation allowed for diverse views of these various identities. For

example, the Sanromán sisters created types based on their everyday bourgeois lives that gave voice (and vision) to women as artists, creators, and protagonists. Pingret, Arrieta, Serrano, Aubert, and many other artists formulated the type of the china poblana through their numerous portrayals, directly contributing to her popular status today. The authors who participated in costumbrista albums were cognizant of European models and aware of their global standing. Very clearly emulating European albums of types, Mexican writers desired to position Mexico as unique from these nations; however, diverging too far from the norm imperiled Mexico’s ability to assimilate. Thus types included in Los mexicanos were a compilation of trades unique to Mexico as well as occupations found in Europe. Deviating too far from societal rules risked alienation and the possibility of being continually exoticized and positioned as other. Cultural identity, as posited by Stuart Hall, is “not an essence but a positioning.”1 This positioning was an active, conscious negotiation with and against dominant, hegemonic European cultures. And, as Plamenatz has theorized with respect to what he terms Eastern nationalism, the goal (of Eastern nations, in which Mexico is included) is a revitalization of the national culture, adapted to the standards of progress, while simultaneously preserving its distinctiveness. Costumbrismo negotiated this ideological terrain. The development of photography made constant representation and mediation of self and society possible. Depictions of lower-class types preserved Mexico’s distinguishability, while reaffirming racial and social attitudes and reasserting the power of the privileged criollos. Despite costumbrismo’s loss of momentum toward the end of the nineteenth century, the ideas about who could and should represent Mexico as a nation continued to have relevance in the twentieth century. Modes and styles of representation

130 / Mexican Costumbrismo

Moriuchi book.indb 130

11/17/17 3:29 PM

changed to reflect the artistic innovations of modernism across the globe, but the recognition that portrayals of everyday people contributed to national identity did not. A topic that I hope will engender further dialogue, costumbrismo’s impact can be seen in the twentieth-century concept known as mexicanidad and the works of art produced by the Mexican modernists. Loosely translated as “Mexicanness,” mexicanidad refers to the indigenous culture and national heritage associated with Mexican identity. It is the essence of being Mexican. It embodies a shared conscious identity, a collective personality, and pride in Mexican culture and history. It acknowledges that being Mexican is heterogeneous and that Mexico’s rich mestizaje drives Mexico’s

cultural identity. Mexicanidad as a political and ideological concept reached its maturity during the twentieth century with a rise of intellectuals, philosophers, and writers, most notably José Vasconcelos, Mexico’s minister of education, who commissioned the first murals to adorn Mexico’s city walls. Mexican modernists, such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Rufino Tamayo, María Izquierdo, and Frida Kahlo, among many others, sought to represent the culture, traditions, history, and people of Mexico in their art. From the monumental murals of the muralists to the more intimate paintings of Izquierdo and Kahlo, Mexico’s popular and indigenous artistic traditions, and costumbrismo, were evoked.

131 / conclusion

Moriuchi book.indb 131

11/17/17 3:29 PM

notes

Introduction 1. The Mexican-American War resulted in the devastating loss of half of Mexico’s national territory, including what are today the southwestern and western states of the United States: Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. 2. Mexican conservatives and monarchists persuaded Maximilian that he could save the country, yet his liberal policies alienated conservatives and ecclesiastical authorities, leaving him with few allies. Increasing costs, domestic resistance, and opposition from the U.S. government contributed to Napoleon III’s decision to abort the intervention and withdraw French troops. Refusing to flee with the retreating French armies and left with little military support, Maximilian met a swift demise. His execution, along with that of the royalist Mexican generals Miramón and Mejía, was ordered by Juárez and carried out on June 19, 1867, and was forever memorialized in photographs by François Aubert and paintings by Édouard Manet. On the French invasion of Mexico, see Hanna and Hanna, Napoleon III and Mexico; Quirarte, Historiografía sobre el imperio. For more on Aubert and his photographs of Maximilian’s demise, see Aguilar Ochoa, Fotografía durante el imperio. See also Alquimia: Sistema Nacional de Fototecas 21 (May–August 2004), which is dedicated to François Aubert. For an analysis of Manet’s series on Maximilian’s execution, see Ibsen, Maximilian, Mexico, chapter 2. 3. For more information on this controversial caudillo, see Olivera and Crété, Life in Mexico Under Santa Anna. 4. See Hamnett, Juárez. See also Wasserman, Everyday Life and Politics, part 2. 5. On liberalism in Mexico in this period, see Hale, Transformation of Liberalism. 6. Positivism, an empiricist philosophy developed by Frenchman Auguste Comte (1798–1857), claimed that natural sciences were the sole source of true knowledge about the human and physical world. For Díaz and his followers, the científicos, the basic tenet was that economic development should be analyzed objectively and placed first, no matter what the cost. They believed that social progress could be made only once economic stability was achieved. Under their stewardship, Mexico attained widespread economic development through the export of minerals and commodities. Foreign investment coincided with relative political stability, but only at the expense of the

Moriuchi book.indb 132

exploitation of the lower classes, particularly the rural poor. This underlying social instability provoked Mexico’s last and greatest civil war, the Mexican Revolution (1910–20). See Perry, Juárez and Díaz. For a selection of critical readings from this period, see Gil, Age of Porfirio Díaz. 7. Hall, “Introduction: Who Needs Identity?,” in Hall and Gay, Questions of Cultural Identity, 4. 8. Currie, Difference, 3. 9. Hall, “Local and the Global,” 21. 10. See Quijano, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism.” 11. See Peñas Ruiz, “Revisión del costumbrismo hispánico,” 31. 12. See Soriano and Martínez-Pinzón, Revisitar el costumbrismo, 10–11. 13. I refer to three conferences: “Dissecting Society: Periodical Literature and Social Observation (1830–1850),” organized by Christiane Schwab and Ana Peñas Ruiz and held at the New York University Center for International Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, March 20, 2015; “Dissecting Society II: Social Movement, Literature, Social Science Conference,” organized by Christiane Schwab and Daniel Benson and co-sponsored by the Remarque Institute and the Department of Comparative Literature at NYU, held at NYU April 16–17, 2016; and “Tracing Types: Comparative Analyses of Nineteenth-Century Sketches,” organized by Leonoor Kuijk and held at Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, June 3–4, 2016. 14. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 4–6. 15. See, for example, Carrera, Traveling from New Spain; Castello Iturbide, Esparza Liberal, and Fernández de García Lascuráin, Cera en México; Esparza Liberal, “Figuras de cera.” 16. See Katzew’s Casta Painting. 17. As Roland Barthes puts it, “The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centers of culture. . . . The writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them.” Image-Music-Text, 146. 18. Kristeva, Desire in Language, 66. 19. Steiner, “Intertextuality in Painting,” 57. 20. China poblana refers to a mestiza woman from the region of Puebla who wore the traditional dress of white blouse, full skirt, and shawl. Legends and myths have evolved around her origins. Today she is known as a popular Mexican female figure.

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Chapter 1 1. The term “miscegenation,” coined in 1864 and meaning the interbreeding of people considered to be of different racial types, comes from the Latin words miscere (to mix) and genus (race). See Croly, Miscegenation, ii. 2. To cite one example, in Miguel Cabrera’s 1763 casta series, the ninth panel depicts a China cambujo of black and Indian parentage, while in Andrés de Islas’s 1774 casta series, the eighth panel depicts a wolf (lobo) of black and Indian parentage. There are numerous inconsistencies in the nomenclature that demonstrate both the inadequacies of such a system and the pervasive desire to classify and control miscegenation and the perceived social and racial instability it creates. For more on casta terminology, see Alvar, Léxico del mestizaje. 3. For a comprehensive history of the genre and for illustrations of casta series, see Katzew, Casta Painting. See also García Sáiz, Castas Mexicanas. 4. For illustrations of Miguel Cabrera’s 1763 casta series, see Katzew, Casta Painting, 100–106 (figs. 110–23). 5. See García Sáiz, Castas Mexicanas, introduction. The duke of Linares is believed to have commissioned a set by Juan Rodríguez Juárez, who painted a large portrait of the duke ca. 1711–16, now located in the Museo Nacional de Historia in Mexico City. See Castro Morales, “Cuadros de castas,” 681. Others are known to have been commissioned by ecclesiastical authorities, such as the 1740s set by Luis Berrueco, which was commissioned by the archbishop of Puebla. See Katzew, Casta Painting, 37; and Castro Morales, “Cuadros de castas,” 681. Another series by José Joaquin Magón was brought to Toledo in 1772 by Archbishop Lorenzana; see Katzew, Casta Painting, 155. This is also mentioned in García Sáiz, Castas Mexicanas, 90–92, though García Sáiz refers to Lorenzana as a cardinal, while Katzew identifies him as an archbishop. 6. Katzew, Casta Painting, 63–109. 7. Ladd, Mexican Nobility at Independence, 122. See also Carrera, Imagining Identity in New Spain, 136–37. 8. I employ the term “postcolonial” here both literally, to refer to the period after independence from Spain, and theoretically, to refer to how social and racial stratification continued within an us-versus-them paradigm. 9. In other words, the stock characters depicted in casta painting are emblematic of a racial/colonial Other. They were imagined in relation to European types but were distinct to colonial Mexico and were meant to represent a racialized, differentiated subject. 10. Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” 226. Though Hall is referring here to black Caribbean identities, the notion can be similarly applied to Mexican identities (226–27). 11. Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man,” 122.

12. Bhabha, “Other Question,” 95. 13. Ilg, “Significance of Costume Books,” 42. 14. Linati, Trajes civiles (1956), 77. 15. Mayer, Mexico as It Was, 43. 16. The original publication of Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos did not list the authors’ names. Subsequent publications from 1935 forward included the authors who penned the essays: Hilarión Frías y Soto, Niceto de Zamacois, Juan de Dios Arias, José María Rivera, Pantaleón Tovar, and Ignacio Ramírez (texts), and Hesiquio Iriarte and Andrés Campillo (images). For Hilarión Frías y Soto’s essay, “El Aguador,” see Mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, 1–6. 17. Ibid., 2. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 18. Although the concept of textual relations has its origins in twentieth-century linguistics, particularly in the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Mikhail Bakhtin, Julia Kristeva first coined the actual term “intertextuality” in the late 1960s. See Kristeva, Desire in Language, 64–91. 19. For an examination of the importance of space as a marker of racial and social status, see Carrera, “Locating Race.” 20. Linati, Trajes civiles (1956), 79. 21. Mayer, Mexico as It Was, 39–40. The Parián was a set of outdoor shops in the southwestern corner of the Plaza Mayor used to warehouse and sell products brought by galleons from Europe and Asia. It was opened in 1703 and demolished in 1843. For more information on its history, see Colección de documentos oficiales. 22. Juan de Dios Arias, “El Evangelista,” in Mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, 65–72. 23. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 36. 24. I would like to express my gratitude to Steven Z. Levine for offering this interpretation at a lecture given at the Bryn Mawr Visual Culture Colloquium on March 9, 2014. 25. García-Barragán, José Augustín Arrieta, 83; Sullivan, Language of Objects, 104. 26. For references to black hostility and prejudices against blacks, see Aguirre Beltrán, Población negra de México, 185–89; Cope, Limits of Racial Domination, 4–5, 15–17. 27. I would like to thank Marcus Burke for sharing this interpretation during my presentation of this research at the panel discussion “Representing ‘Race’ in Iberia and the Ibero-American World,” College Art Association, February 14, 2013. 28. Ramírez, “Nurture and Inconformity,” 207. 29. The celestina type has older Spanish origins and derives originally from the title character in the sixteenth-century Spanish play La Celestina by Fernando de Roja. 30. See, for example, José María Rivera, “La china,” in Mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, 89–98. 31. Catarina was known as Mirra in India. See León, Catarina de San

133 / notes to pages 11–24

Moriuchi book.indb 133

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Juan; Carrasco Puente, Bibliografía de Catarina de San Juan; Gillespie, “Gender, Ethnicity, and Piety.” 32. See León, Catarina de San Juan, 65–67. According to León, the term “china” was applied to Catarina de San Juan after she married a chino, a slave named Domingo Suárez (21, 32). 33. García-Barragán, José Agustín Arrieta, 83. See also Sullivan, Language of Objects, 104. 34. For more on this embedded symbolism in Dutch genre painting, see Jongh, “Bird’s-Eye View of Erotica.” 35. For a more detailed discussion of the influence of Flemish religious prints on viceregal Mexican paintings, see Mesa, “Flemish Influence in Andean Art”; Burke, Spain and New Spain, 30–36; Vermeylen, “Exporting Art Across the Globe”; Tovar de Teresa, Pintura y escultura, 191–98. 36. See Fernández, Coleccionismo en México. 37. For an illustration, see Castro Morales, Homenaje nacional, 225. 38. For a summary of the concept of blood mending, see Katzew, Casta Painting, 48–51. 39. See Bullough, “Medieval Medical and Scientific Views”; Maclean, Renaissance Notion of Woman; Jordan, White over Black, 11–20. 40. Cope, Limits of Racial Domination, 106–24. 41. For examples, see Museo del Barrio, Retratos. 42. Bhabha, “Other Question,” 96. 43. As Stuart Hall argues, we should think of “identity as a ‘production,’ which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation.” “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” 222.

Chapter 2 1. Humboldt had begun his professional career as a superintendent of mines. His dedication to the study of the natural sciences led him to seek opportunities abroad. With European wars reducing French and German patronage, Humboldt made his way to Spain, where he received permission to travel at his own expense to the Spanish territories in the New World. 2. Humboldt, Cosmos, 1:ix, 62. 3. See Panofsky, Idea, for a discussion of the role of art in antiquity, including Plato’s negative view of art’s illusive and imitative properties and Aristotle’s more positive attitude toward artists and the importance of their imagination. 4. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 4. 5. The term “transculturation” was first used in the 1940s by the Cuban sociologist Fernando Ortiz to describe the convergence of influences in Afro-Cuban culture. In the 1970s, the Uruguayan writer and literary critic Angel Rama applied the term to literary studies. 6. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 6. 7. Linati was associated with Parma’s Society of Engravers. See

Justino Fernández’s introduction to Linati, Trajes civiles (1956), 18. This is the first Spanish translation of Linati’s original French book, Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (1828). See also César Macazaga Ordoño’s 1978 translation. 8. José María Morelos (1765–1815) was a Mexican priest and revolutionary rebel leader who led the Mexican independence movement after the execution of Miguel Hidalgo in 1811. Guadalupe Victoria (1786–1843) was the first president of Mexico, serving a full four-year term (1825–29), the only president to do so for the next forty years. For more on nineteenth-century Mexican politics, see Wasserman, Everyday Life and Politics. Fashion plates appeared in many editions of El Iris; for examples, see nos. 1 (February 4, 1826) and 6 (March 11, 1826). Victoria and Morelos appear in nos. 9 (April 1, 1826) and 10 (April 8, 1826), respectively. See Linati, Galli, and Heredia, Iris. 9. One of Linati’s collaborators was the Cuban poet José María Heredia, who was born in Santiago de Cuba in 1803 and died in Toluca, Mexico, in 1839. After being arrested on charges of conspiracy against the Spanish government, he was exiled from Cuba. He took refuge in Mexico in 1825, where he assumed a variety of administrative and judicial posts. Though he is remembered as a poet, Heredia also contributed to the development of Mexico’s literary press. See Heredia, Minerva periódico literario. 10. The 1828 edition, in French, was followed by a second edition, also in French, published in London in 1830, with thirty-three black-and-white lithographs, labeled slightly differently from the first edition. The work was eventually published in Mexico, in Spanish, in 1956, and a second Spanish-language edition was published in 1978. 11. The review is reproduced in Linati, Trajes civiles (1956), 20. 12. Thompson, Travel Writing, 71. 13. Ilg, “Significance of Costume Books,” 42. 14. See Rosenthal and Jones’s introduction to Vecellio’s Clothing of the Renaissance World, 16. 15. Ilg, “Significance of Costume Books,” 42. 16. Vecellio, Clothing of the Renaissance World, 19. 17. Linati, Trajes civiles (1956), 84. 18. Ibid., 74. 19. Ibid., 72. 20. A Spanish translation was published in 1840 by the same Parisian publisher and was reprinted in Mexico in 1963. 21. Nebel also lived in Mexico from 1840 to 1847. His second major work consisted of twelve illustrations documenting battles during the Mexican-American War, which took place between April 1846 and February 1848. See Kendall, War Between the United States. 22. Nebel, Viaje pintoresco y arqueológico, frontispiece.

134 / notes to pages 24–39

Moriuchi book.indb 134

11/17/17 3:29 PM

23. Pagden, European Encounters, 21. 24. This assumption is based on that fact that different owners of the book arranged the plates differently. This was common during the nineteenth century, as the plates were printed over a period of time and sent to collectors separately, leading to diverse compilations. In the 1836 version in the New York Public Library, the lithographs have been cut and pasted into a new order distinct from the 1840 Spanish edition. 25. For example, the 1840 Spanish version at the American Museum of Natural History does not have the plate La mantilla. The 1836 version at the New York Public Library includes two lithographs by the German artist Johann Moritz Rugendas, La mantilla and El arriero. Their placement in the Nebel album suggests that the same collector purchased works by both Rugendas and Nebel. In addition, many of the lithographs in this version of Nebel’s book have been cut and reassembled on larger sheets of paper, which suggests that they were removed from their original setting, perhaps to be displayed separately as independent works. Rugendas’s prints were randomly interspersed among Nebel’s own lithographs. See Nebel, Voyage pittoresque et archéologique, plates 1 and 27. 26. Bourdieu, Distinction, 114–25. 27. For example, the 1836 French edition held by the New York Public Library and the 1963 Spanish reprinting have the text separate from the plates. The 1840 Spanish version located at the American Museum of Natural History, by contrast, places the text opposite the corresponding plate. 28. See Ribeiro, “Fashioning the Feminine.” For another discussion of the mantilla and its relation to Spanish femininity, see Bass and Wunder, “Veiled Ladies.” 29. See Zanardi, Framing Majismo, 123–28. 30. Nebel, Viaje pintoresco y arqueológico, xv. 31. Ibid., xvi. 32. Brantz Mayer shares a story in which the lady of the house customarily smokes in the presence of visitors. See Mayer, México, lo que fue, 76. 33. Calderón de la Barca, Life in Mexico, 82–83. 34. From the Nahuatl uipilli, meaning blouse or tunic, a huipil is a traditional garment worn by women of Mexico and Central America that consists of a rectangular piece of cloth folded and stitched at the sides. Designs and embroidery provided the huipil with specific meanings particular to the wearer. 35. See Eddy de Jongh’s interpretation of the tradition of symbolism, or “disguised symbolism,” in Dutch genre painting, specifically works by Gerrit Dou, Jan Steen, Gabriel Metsu, and Nicolaes Maes, in “Bird’s-Eye View of Erotica.” Eric Sluijter criticizes a strictly iconological methodology but also sees pictorial conventions and prevailing stereotypes as a key to the thoughts and associations that might have been linked to

36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42.

representations of particular subjects and motifs. See his Seductress of Sight, 15–16. Publication was delayed until 1835, by which time Rugendas had returned to Latin America. See Sartorius, Mexiko: Landschaftsbilder und Skizzen. Hernández Serrano, “Juan Moritz Rugendas,” 468. See Rugendas, México luminoso de Rugendas. Tomás Lago also sees Rugendas’s work in Mexico as exhibiting the touch of romanticism that he had experienced in Paris in the 1820s and as differing from his earlier Brazilian work. See Lago, Rugendas, 9–29. See Stanton Catlin’s prologue in Rugendas, México luminoso de Rugendas, 32. See Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life” (1863), in Painter of Modern Life, 1–40. Many of Rugendas’s letters are reproduced in Löschner, Deutsche

Künstler in Lateinamerika; this one is dated March 31, 1882. 43. Translations provided in Rugendas, México luminoso de Rugendas, 56. 44. Among the best-known examples are landscapes by José María Velasco. See Altamirano Piolle, Homenaje nacional. 45. For example, seventeenth-century Corpus Christi procession paintings of the Virgin of Guadalupe, such as the one attributed to José de Arellano from 1709, provide bird’s-eye views of the events. See Fane, Converging Cultures, 178–79; Rishel and Stratton-Pruitt, Arts in Latin America, 370. 46. Calderón de la Barca, Life in Mexico, 91–92. 47. Anastasio Bustamante (1780–1853) was president of Mexico from 1830 to 1832. Vicente Guerrero (1782–1831), a leader of Mexican independence, was briefly president in 1829. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (1794–1876), as noted earlier, was a controversial figure in Mexican political history; he towered over Mexican politics for nearly forty years and occupied the presidency at seven distinct, nonconsecutive times between 1833 and 1855. 48. Löschner, Rugendas en México, 23. 49. Ortíz Macedo, Édouard Pingret (1989), 57–58, 60. 50. Said, Culture and Imperialism, 100. 51. Ortíz Macedo, Édouard Pingret (1989), 61. 52. For example, see Rafael de Rafael, “Tercera Exposición de la Academia Nacional de San Carlos de México,” El Espectador de México, January 4, 1851, reprinted in Rodríguez Prampolini, Crítica de arte en México, 1:252, 258. See also “Bellas artes,” El Daguerrotipo, January 4, 1851, ibid., 298. 53. Romero de Terreros, Catálago de las exposiciones, 77–81, 83, 109. 54. This Omnibus article is reproduced in Ortíz Macedo, Édouard Pingret (1989), 71–84. For more on Clavé, see Moreno, Pintor Pelegrín Clavé. 55. Records indicate that Dr. Rafael Lucio and Sr. Leopoldo Batres were patrons. Dr. Lucio was also a patron of José Agustín

135 / notes to pages 39–53

Moriuchi book.indb 135

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Arrieta’s work. See Romero de Terreros, Catálago de las exposiciones, 543, 560. 56. In the sixth annual exhibition, Paz Cervantes, in addition to exhibiting several original paintings, showcased her copies of Pingret’s paintings El evangelista, La tortillera, and La cocina. Guadalupe Rincón Gallardo also exhibited copies of Pingret’s works in the same exhibition, including El jarabe, La cocina en la calle, El amor maternal, Cuadro de comedor, El evangelista, and La tortillera. See Romero de Terreros, Catálago de las exposiciones, 163. 57. For more on the work of these female artists, see Cortina, Pintoras mexicanas del siglo XIX. 58. Quoted in Ortíz Macedo, Édouard Pingret (2004), 27–28. 59. Said, World, the Text, 186. 60. Physiologie novels were small books dedicated to recording the apparently trivial aspects of life during the July Monarchy; they commented on the society, politics, and culture of the period. Among the most famous are Brillat-Savarin’s Physiologie du goût (1826) and Balzac’s Physiologie du mariage (1830). 61. Calderón de la Barca, Life in Mexico, 126. 62. Zerubavel, “Lumping and Splitting,” 421. 63. Foucault, Order of Things, 53.

Chapter 3 1. Plamenatz, “Two Types of Nationalism,” 34. 2. See Peñas Ruiz’s apt discussion of costumbrismo as “poética pictórica,” or visual poetry, in “Entre literatura y pintura.” 3. Although she uses Spanish costumbrismo as a case study, Ana Peñas Ruiz provides a good summary of this reluctance that is applicable to Latin American costumbrismo. “Revisión del costumbrismo hispánico,” 31–38. 4. Quoted in Pupo-Walker, “Brief Narrative in Spanish America,” 491. 5. Baudelaire, Painter of Modern Life, 9. 6. For example, the article “Análisis de la cabeza de un petimetre,” discussed below, was a copy of an article by Addison. See Mosaico Mexicano, 4:484–86. 7. For example, see Prieto, “Literatura nacional,” 27. 8. In Mexico, lithography became the medium of choice for the illustrations that accompanied cuadros de costumbres, a choice made possible by the Italian artist Claudio Linati, who brought the first lithographic printing press to Mexico in 1826. For more on the history of lithography printers and shops in Mexico, see Toussaint, Litografía en México; O’Gorman and Fernández, Historia de la litografía; Mathes, Mexico on Stone; and Museo Nacional de Arte, Nación de imágenes. 9. For example, the first paragraph of a piece titled “Frenologia” (Mosaico Mexicano, 1:325–27) states that it is a copy from a foreign newspaper but offers no details. Another piece, titled “La nariz, o Manera de conocer por su figura las inclinaciones de

las personas” (ibid., 3:73–77), is signed Semario pintoresco, referring to Semanario pintoresco, a Spanish newspaper that was published from 1837 to 1857. “Dr. Gall” (ibid., 3:180–82) ends simply with the word “copiado” (copied). And “Diferencias de la especie humana calculadas sobre la línea facial” (ibid., 3:449–55) is signed “The Family Magazine—traducido para el Mosaico.” 10. See Segre, Intersected Identities, 16–17. 11. For example, racial bias against blacks was explained by the alleged similarity between the profiles of black people and those of monkeys, and in the contrast between the Greek maiden Ariadne and the Hottentot Venus. See n. 9 above for all four of these articles. 12. “Análisis de la cabeza de un petimetre,” Mosaico Mexicano, 4:485. 13. Segre, Intersected Identities, 7. 14. Chia is a very small seed that comes from an herbal plant native to Mexico and Guatemala. It has been used since pre-Columbian times for its medicinal properties. Water and juices are made from the seed’s extract. 15. “Un puesto de chía en Semana Santa,” Museo Mexicano, 3:429. 16. Domingo Revilla, “Los Rancheros,” Museo Mexicano, 3:551. 17. See, for example, Études prises dans le bas du peuple; Cries of London; and Gritos de Madrid. 18. Vecellio, Clothing of the Renaissance World, 16–19. 19. Ilg, “Significance of Costume Books,” 42. 20. Sumptuary legislation had largely been discarded in Europe in the seventeenth century, but in Spanish America it reached its height in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These laws attempted not only to control the clothing worn by different social classes but to preserve distinctions based on race. Rebecca Earle provides an interesting discussion of the relationship between clothing and racial identity. She points out that by the nineteenth century, clothing was no longer considered a racial marker and that it was easier to “pass,” a situation aptly satirized in Tomás de Cuéllar’s novel The Magic Lantern, discussed below. See Earle, “‘Two Pairs of Pink Satin Shoes,’” 187–89. 21. See, for example, Westminster Review, October 1840, 163, quoted in Ucelay Da Cal, Españoles pintados por sí mismos, 72–73. 22. The last volume, titled Le prisme, was issued free to subscribers and is often missing from sets. 23. For example, Physiologie du flâneur, by Louis Hart (1841), included images by Daumier and Theodore Maurisset, and Physiologie du bourgeois included text and images by Henry Monnier. These publications were small in format—fourteen centimeters in height at most and were often 130 pages or fewer. 24. The term “costumbrismo” was not used until 1895. See Peñas Ruiz, “Revisión del costumbrismo hispánico,” 31. The main costumbristas in Spain, Ramón de Mesonero Romanos, Serafín Estébanez Calderón, and Mariano José de Larra, often wrote

136 / notes to pages 53–68

Moriuchi book.indb 136

11/17/17 3:29 PM

under pseudonyms: El Curioso Parlante (The curious speaker), El Solitario (The lonely one), and Pobrecito Hablador (Poor little chatterbox) and Figaro, respectively. 25. Españoles pintados por sí mismos,1:vii. 26. Manuel M. de Santa Ana, “La maja,” ibid., 2:59. A maja or majo was a lower-class woman or man who distinguished her- or himself by an elaborate sense of style and dress, an exaggeration of traditional Spanish dress, in marked contrast to French fashions. Today, the term is synonymous with nice or good-looking. 27. For more on the role of the maja/majo (or majismo, “majaness”) in the construction of Spanish identity, in particular in the eighteenth century, see Zanardi, Framing Majismo. 28. Cuba was the only other Latin American country to produce its own collection of types. See Cubanos pintados por sí mismos. 29. In order of appearance in the text, they are el aguador, la chiera, el pulquero, el barbero, el cochero, el cómico de la legua, la costurera, el cajero, el evangelista, el sereno, el alacenero, la china, la recamarera, el músico de cuerda, el poetastro, el vendutero, la coqueta, el abogado, el arriero, el jugador de ajedrez, el cajista, la estanqillera, el escribiente, el ranchero, el maestro de escuela, la casera, el criado, el mercero, la partera, el ministro, el cargador, el tocinero, and el ministro ejecutor. 30. The authors were later identified and their names were published in subsequent versions; see the 1935 edition published by the Biblioteca Nacional y Estudios Neolitho. 31. It is difficult to make an exact comparison to European albums because the types often took on different vernacular names despite their similar attributes. I estimate that approximately one-fifth of the types in Los mexicanos were actually unique to Mexico, namely, the chiera, the pulquero, the evangelista, the china, the arriero, and the ranchero. 32. See Aguirre Beltrán, Población negra de México, 220–34. 33. Lomnitz-Adler, Exits from the Labyrinth, 276–77. 34. See Mayer, Mexico as It Was, 43; Linati, Trajes civiles, plate no. 7; and Ortíz Macedo, Édouard Pingret (1989), 85. 35. Abenamar, “El aguador,” in Españoles pintados por sí mismos, 1:138–43. 36. Hilarión Frías y Soto, “El aguador,” in Mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, 2. 37. These men of letters were also associated with the institutions of state- and nation-building in Latin America. See Rama, Ciudad letrada. 38. Frías y Soto, “El aguador,” 3. 39. Ibid., 6. 40. José María Rivera, “El Ranchero,” in Mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, 195–97. 41. A colloquial derivation of the name Manuel, manola referred to

the popular classes in Madrid and was similar to the maja. The term can also be synonymous with handsome or pretty. 42. In nineteenth-century France, a young working-class woman of loose morals. 43. José María Rivera, “La china,” in Mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, 90. 44. A similar argument has been made with respect to nineteenthcentury cartographer Antonio García Cuba’s mapping practices, where ties to costumbrismo are evident. See Carrera, Traveling from New Spain, chaps. 5 and 6. 45. Written in 1816, El periquillo sarniento was not published in its entirety until 1831, owing to government censorship. 46. Cuéllar, Ensalada de pollos, xv (my translation). 47. See Margaret Carson’s translation in Cuéllar, Having a Ball and Christmas Eve, 4. 48. Carlos Monsiváis, “Las costumbres avanzan entre regaños,” in Glantz, Del fistol a la linterna, 13–22. See also Sergio González Rodríguez, “De lo viejo a lo nuevo,” ibid., 23–28. Jaime Erasto Cortés questions the veracity of Cuéllar’s artistic training in “Cuéllar entre la pintura y la literature,” ibid., 107–11. 49. For the original Spanish, see Cuéllar, Ensalada de pollos, 184. Here, I am using Margaret Carson’s English translation in Cuéllar, Having a Ball and Christmas Eve, xxi. 50. Cuéllar, Having a Ball and Christmas Eve, 4. 51. “Escribir es predicar.” See Monsiváis, “Las costumbres avanzan entre regaños,” in Glantz, Del fistol a la linterna, 17. 52. Cuéllar, Having a Ball and Christmas Eve, 23. 53. Ibid., 29. 54. Ibid., 31. 55. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 36. 56. Most recently, Soriano and Martínez-Pinzón have argued for revisiting costumbrismo in a cosmopolitan context. See their edited volume Revisitar el costumbrismo.

Chapter 4 1. Paz, Labyrinth of Solitude, 29, 147. 2. This disparaging view of genre painting has a long history in the West. For example, in Francisco Pacheco’s art treatise Arte de la pintura (1649), the lower genres of painting, such as bodegones (still lifes) and flower painting, are described as being simple to produce and distractions from loftier aspirations (510–12). 3. For a review of the academy’s history, see Widdifield, Embodiment of the National, chap. 1. Also see Hernández-Durán, “Modern Museum Practice.” 4. Hernández-Durán, “Modern Museum Practice,” 5–7. 5. Widdifield, Embodiment of the National, 23. 6. For more on Velasco, see Altamirano Piolle, Homenaje nacional. 7. See Hamnett, Roots of Insurgency, 2–3. 8. Arrieta’s religious paintings include Santa Ana con la Virgen Niña

137 / notes to pages 68–83

Moriuchi book.indb 137

11/17/17 3:29 PM

(1822), El ministerio de la Virgen y San José (1825), and three images of the Virgin of Guadalupe dated 1825, 1826, and 1831. See Castro Morales, Homenaje nacional, 73. The costumbrista writer Guillermo Prieto praised Arrieta’s painting of Mary Magdalene (1845, Museo José Luis Bello y González, Puebla) for its simplicity and compassion. See Prieto, “Ocho días en Puebla,” 29–30. 9. See Romero de Terreros, Catálogo de las exposiciones. 10. Literally, “dining-room paintings,” or still lifes of vegetables, fruits, cooking ware, and pottery that were predominantly hung in dining rooms. 11. Reprinted in Payno, Tardes nubladas, 393–94. 12. Prieto, “Ocho días en Puebla,” 29–31. 13. See Pérez Salazar, Pintura en Puebla; Cabrera, Agustín Arrieta; Castro Morales, Homenaje nacional; García-Barragán, José Agustín Arrieta; Palou Pérez, Identidad de Puebla esencia. 14. Pérez Salazar, Pintura en Puebla, 106–7; Cabrera, Agustín Arrieta, 73. 15. For a good review of the issue of realism, see Wayne Franits’s introduction to Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. 16. See Alpers, Art of Describing. 17. Zanardi, Framing Majismo, 135. 18. There is little information on Arrieta’s patrons, but we know that they included the doctor Rafael Lucio and the successful merchant José Luis Bello y González and his family. Lucio (1819–1886) was a surgeon and pathologist and a devoted art collector, who wrote Reseña histórica de la pintura mexicana de los siglos XVII and XVIII (1864). He often showed works from his collections in the academy’s exhibitions. See Romero de Terreros, Catálogo de las exposiciones. His daughter, Eulalia Lucio (1853–1900), was a well-respected painter. See Cortina, Pintoras mexicanas del siglo XIX, 153–61. In addition to Dr. Lucio, Arrieta’s patrons included the merchant José Luis Bello y González, his son José Mariano Bello y Acedo, and his grandson José Luis Bello y Zetina. 19. Zavala, Becoming Modern, 24. 20. Moyssén, “Manuel Serrano,” 69. 21. Romero de Terreros, Catálogo de las exposiciones, 247, 271, 453. 22. L. Agontía, “La Academia Nacional de San Carlos en 1877: El arte,” La Libertad, January 12, 1878, quoted in Rodríguez Prampolini, Crítica de arte en México, 2:423. 23. See Romero de Terreros, Catálogo de las exposiciones, 483–84. 24. Felipe S. Gutiérrez, “Revista de la exposicion de San Carlos,” La Libertad, February 3, 1878, quoted in Rodríguez Prampolini, Crítica de arte en México, 2:441. 25. In 1869, José Obregón exhibited his painting The Discovery of Pulque, which portrayed the legend of the presentation of pulque by the beautiful Toltec woman, Xochitl, to the king Tecpancaltzin. The king, taken with Xochitl’s great beauty,

kept her as his wife. See Widdifield, Embodiment of the National, 91–95. 26. See Toxqui, “‘Recreo de los amigos,’” 19. 27. For an examination of the role of women in pulquerías, see Toxqui, “Breadwinners or Entrepreneurs?” 28. See firsthand accounts by Brantz Mayer, in México, lo que fue, 17, and Fanny Calderón de la Barca, in Life in Mexico, 75–90. For slightly later accounts, see John Bigelow, “Bandits on the Veracruz Railroad,” and Albert S. Evans, “Our Military Escort,” both in Gil, Age of Porfirio Díaz, 18–19 and 15–17, respectively. 29. For example, see the collection at the Museo del Romanticismo in Madrid. 30. See Garrido and Díaz Sánchez, Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, 16. 31. Much of the literature on Gutiérrez tends to mythologize the artist’s natural talent and creative spirit. For a discussion of this phenomenon, see Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic, 13–38. 32. Rafael de Rafael suggests that Gutiérrez was inspired by John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Rafael de Rafael, “Tercera Exposición de la Academia Nacional de San Carlos de México,” El Espectador de México, January 4, 1851, quoted in Rodríguez Prampolini, Crítica de arte en México, 1:261–62. 33. Fausto Ramírez and Angélica Velázquez see Gutiérrez’s classically inspired Oath of Brutus (1857, Museo Nacional de Arte) as having political underpinnings pertaining to the constitution of 1857. See their “Circunstancial, transcendido.” 34. Garrido and Díaz Sánchez, Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, 20. 35. This museum shares a colonial-style building with another well-known nineteenth-century Mexican landscape painter, José María Velasco. 36. Newspaper accounts of the period argued that Sánchez Solís was not of just any indigenous heritage but was a descendant of the ancient Aztec empire. See Widdifield, Embodiment of the National, 91–94. See also Garrido and Díaz Sánchez, Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, 68. 37. This painting was acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2014. For an interview between curator Ilona Katzew and James Oles, visit http://www.lacma.org/node/15308. 38. During his travels, Gutiérrez met the Colombian poet Rafael Pombo, who befriended him and encouraged him to visit. Beginning in 1873, Gutiérrez began several extended visits to Colombia. Initially unsuccessful in establishing an official academy, he taught drawing and painting free of charge to male and female students and organized exhibitions of his and his students’ work. Eventually, in 1881, the academy was established under the presidency of Rafael Núñez. Garrido, “Presencia de Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez,” 241. 39. Ibid., 256. 40. See Gaona Rico, Noticias iluminadas; González, Arte colombiano.

138 / notes to pages 83–103

Moriuchi book.indb 138

11/17/17 3:29 PM

41. See José Martí, “Felipe Gutiérrez,” Revista Universal, August 24, 1875, 2, reprinted in Rodríguez Prampolini, Crítica de arte en México, 2:287. 42. Gutiérrez wrote about the academy’s exhibitions of 1876, 1877, and 1881. See ibid., vol. 2. See also Gutiérrez, Exposición artística de 1881. 43. Gutiérrez, “La exposición de bellas artes en 1876,” Revista Universal, February 18, 1876, reprinted in Rodríguez Prampolini, Crítica de arte en México, 2:380, 367. 44. Widdifield, Embodiment of the National, 31. 45. See Girón, “Idea de la ‘cultura nacional.’” 46. See Widdifield, Embodiment of the National, 64–72. 47. Gutiérrez, “Revista de la Exposición de San Carlos,” La Libertad, February 15, 1878, reprinted in Rodríguez Prampolini, Crítica de arte en México, 2:439–40. 48. Gutiérrez, “La exposición de bellas artes en 1876,” Revista Universal, February 18, 1876, cited in ibid., 2:386. 49. Ibid., 2:386–87. 50. Gutiérrez, Dibujo y la pintura, 64. 51. Gutiérrez, Impresiones de viaje, 362–64. 52. Cortina bases this argument on the affinities between the works by Pelegrín Clavé and those of the Sanromán sisters. Pintoras mexicanas del siglo XIX, 187–98. 53. See Velázquez Guadarrama, “Representación de la domesticidad burguesa.” See also her essay “Pervivencias novohispanas.” 54. Zavala, Becoming Modern, 33. 55. The picture is listed in the exhibition catalogue under paintings submitted from artists outside the academy: “Sra. Doña Juliana Sanromán de Haghenbeck, 68: Sala de música. Dos señoritas, una toca el piano y la otra de pie con un papel de música canta, del otro lado las está oyendo con mucha atención un señor con capa; en el centro de la pieza hay un balcón por el que se descubre una amena vista de paisaje con laguna.” Romero de Terreros, Catálogo de las exposiciones, 79. 56. Rafael de Rafael, “Tercera Exposición de la Academia Nacional de San Carlos de México,” El Espectador de México, January 4, 1851, reprinted in Rodríguez Prampolini, Crítica de arte en México, 1:243–44. 57. See, for example, Johannes Vermeer’s A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal and Gabriel Metsu’s Virginal Player. Brown, Images of a Golden Past. 58. The other two were a still life with flowers and a cuadro de comedor (dining-room picture). See Romero de Terreros, Catálogo de las exposiciones, 57. 59. Velázquez Guadarrama, “Representación de la domesticidad burguesa,” 130. 60. The painting was described in the exhibition catalogue as follows: “Señorita doña Josefa Sanromán, 91: La convalecencia. En el interior de un gabinete, sobre un sofá, está sentada una

señorita enferma, a quien toma el pulso el médico, su hermana está en pie a su lado informándose de las prescripciones del doctor; enfrente juega una niña con una muñeca: al fondo se ve una puerta que conduce a una recámara, donde una camarista dispone la cama de la enferma, alto 42 pulgadas, ancho 36 pulgadas.” Romero de Terreros, Catálogo de las exposiciones, 189. 61. Velázquez Guadarrama, “Representación de la domesticidad burguesa,” 140. 62. “Bellas artes: Séptima Exposición de la Academia Nacional de San Carlos,” El Universal, January 13, 1855, reprinted in Rodríguez Prampolini, Crítica de arte en México, 1:397–98. 63. Leopolda Gasso y Vidal, “La mujer artista,” El Álbum de la Mujer, December 6 and 13, 1885, ibid., 3:188–93, esp. 189, 191. 64. These elements are shared with the art of the female impressionists. See Griselda Pollock, “Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity,” in Vision and Difference, 50–90. 65. Ignacio Altamirano, “La pintura histórica en México,” quoted in Rodríguez Prampolini, Crítica de arte en México, 2:197. 66. Altamirano, Escritos de literatura y arte, 147–48.

Chapter 5 1. On December 3, 1839, the French engraver Louis Prélier arrived in Veracruz and organized a public demonstration of the cameras he had brought from Paris. Since 1837, Prélier had lived in Mexico City, where he ran a printing business. On January 26, he repeated the demonstration in the plaza in Mexico City. See Debroise, Mexican Suite, 20. 2. See Acevedo, “Legado artístico”; Aguilar Ochoa, Fotografía durante el imperio. 3. For the concept of universalism as a tool of empire, see Achebe, Hopes and Impediments, 68–90; Serequeberhan, “Critique of Eurocentrism.” 4. Mraz, Looking for Mexico, 4. 5. Kristeva, “Word, Dialogue, and Novel,” in Desire in Language, 64–91. 6. Aguilar Ochoa, “Tipos populares en México,” 7–8. 7. Álbum fotográfico mexicano was published in collaboration with the firm Julio Michaud. In 1842, Michaud had published a collection of lithographs by the Italian artist Pedro Gualdi, México y sus alrededores, demonstrating a connection between the artistic endeavors of lithographers and photographers. 8. See Aguilar Ochoa, “Tipos populares en México,” 10. 9. Collecting these wax and clay figurines of lower-class occupations became a popular hobby in the nineteenth century. See Castello Iturbide, Esparza Liberal, and Fernández de García Lascuráin, Cera en México; Esparza Liberal, “Figuras de cera.” 10. A salt print is printed on photographic paper that is coated first with a salt solution and then with a silver nitrate solution. For more on the origins of the salt print, see Stulik and Kaplan, Salt Print.

139 / notes to pages 103–117

Moriuchi book.indb 139

11/17/17 3:29 PM

11. Aguilar Ochoa, “Preguntas a un fotógrafo,” 10. 12. Dorotinsky, “Tipos sociales,” 16. 13. As Debroise points out, it is likely that a photographer associated with Aubert’s firm took the photographs of Maximilian’s body. Aubert later advertised the photographs, thereby associating his name with the images. As noted above, these photographs also provided material for Édouard Manet’s painting series The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1867–69). See Debroise, Mexican Suite, 168–70. For an analysis of Manet’s series on Maximilian’s execution, see Ibsen, Maximilian, Mexico, chap 2. 14. Among Aubert’s photographs of types at the Musée Royale de l’Armée et d’Histoire Militaire in Brussels are his photographs of wax figurines, such as the tlachiquero (Boite B, no. 38) and the china (14219). 15. See Boijen, “Colección de fotografías tomadas,” 44.

16. For safety and security reasons, copies of the original glass plates were made in the 1990s. 17. See Sámano Verdura, “Indígena en la fotografía.” See also Dorotinsky, “Creación del cuerpo indígena.” 18. Dorotinsky, “Tipos sociales,” 24. 19. Massé Zendejas, Cruces y Campa, 9. 20. Aguilar Ochoa, “Tipos populares en México,” 19. 21. These photographs are located at the Fototeca Nacional in Mexico and can be seen online at http://www.fototeca.inah .gob.mx. The vendedor de gallinas is inv. no. 453780, and the vendedor de dulces is inv. no. 453793. 22. Mexicanidad is the indigenous culture and national heritage associated with Mexican identity.

Conclusion 1. Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” 226.

140 / notes to pages 117–130

Moriuchi book.indb 140

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Bibliography

Acevedo, Esther. “Diferencias y permanencias en el retrato de la primera mitad del siglo XIX.” In Hacia otra historia del arte en México, vol. 1, De la estructuración a la exigencia nacional (1780–1866), edited by Esther Acevedo, 107–21. Mexico City: Conaculta, 2001. ———. “Entre la ficción y la historia: La denegación del perdón a Maximiliano.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 23, no. 78 (2001): 235–47. ———. “Introducción al periodo 1821–1857: Una sociedad en busca de definición cultural.” In Historia del arte mexicano, edited by Jorge Alberto Manrique, 7:112–37. Mexico City: Salvat, 1982. ———. “El legado artístico de un imperio efímero.” In Testimonios artísticos de un episodio fugaz (1864–1867), edited by Lorenzo Ávila, 35–79. Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte, 1995. Acevedo, Esther, and Helia Bonilla. “La gráfica: Testigo de lo cotidiano.” In Hacia otra historia del arte en México, vol. 1, De la estructuración a la exigencia nacional (1780–1866), edited by Esther Acevedo, 218–38. Mexico City: Conaculta, 2001. Acevedo, Esther, Arturo Camacho, Fausto Ramírez, and Angélica Velázquez Guadarrama. Catálogo comentado del acervo del Museo Nacional de Arte: Pintura, siglo XIX. Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte, 2002. Achebe, Chinua. Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays, 1965–1987. New York: Doubleday, 1989. Ades, Dawn, ed. Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820–1980. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Aguilar Ochoa, Arturo. La fotografía durante el imperio de Maximiliano. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996. ———. “Los inicios de la litografía en México: El periodo oscuro (1827–1837).” Anales del Insituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 29, no. 90 (2007): 65–100. ———. “Preguntas a un fotógrafo: François Aubert en México.” Alquimia: Sistema Nacional de Fototecas 21 (May–August 2004): 7–13. ———. “Los tipos populares en México entre 1859–1866.” Alquimia: Sistema Nacional de Fototecas 51 (May–August 2014): 6–21. Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. La población negra de México: Estudio etnohistórico. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1972. Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. London: Routledge, 2000. Alonso, Ana María. “Conforming Disconformity: ‘Mestizaje,’ Hybridity, and the Aesthetics of Mexican Nationalism.” Cultural Anthropology 19, no. 4 (2004): 459–90.

Moriuchi book.indb 141

Alpers, Svetlana. The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. Altamirano, Ignacio Manuel. Clemencia. 1869. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1944. ———. Escritos de literatura y arte: Obras completas. Vol. 14. Mexico City: Conaculta, 1989. ———. La literatura nacional: Revistas, ensayos, biografías y prólogos. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1949. ———. La navidad en las montañas. Mexico City: Librería de Manuel Porrúa, 1949. ———. El Zarco, the Blue-Eyed Bandit: Episodes of Mexican Life Between 1861–1863. Translated by Ronald Christ. New Mexico: Lumen, 2000. ———. El Zarco: Episodios de la vida mexicana en 1861–1863. Barcelona: Tipolitografía Salvat e Hijo, 1901. Altamirano Piolle, María Elena. Homenaje nacional: José María Velasco, 1840-1912. Mexico City: Amigos del Museo Nacional de Arte, 1993. Alvar, Manuel. Léxico del mestizaje en Hispanoamérica. Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1987. Americas Society. Reproducing Nations: Types and Costumes in Asia and Latin America, ca. 1800–1860. New York: Americas Society, 2006. Exhibition catalogue. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2006. Anderson Imbert, Enrique. Historia de la literatura hispanoamericana. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1954. ———. Spanish-American Literature: A History. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1969. Arroyo, Sergio Raul, and Miguel Fernandez Felix. México: A través de la fotografía, 1839–2010. Madrid: Taurus, 2013. Balzac, Honoré de. La comédie humaine. 10 vols. Paris: Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Française, 1935–37. ———. The Human Comedy. New York: P. F. Collier, 1893. ———. Physiologie de l’employé. Paris: Aubert et Cie, 1840. ———. Physiologie du mariage, ou Méditations de philosophie éclectique, sur le bonheur et le malheur conjugal. Paris: Levavasseur, 1830. ———. The Physiology of Marriage. London: Strangeway and Sons, 1904. Barnitz, Jacqueline. Twentieth-Century Art of Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Barros, Cristina, and Marcos Buenrostro. ¡Las once y serenooo! Tipos mexicanos, siglo XIX. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1994. Barthes, Roland. Image-Music-Text. Translated by Stephen Heath. London: Fontana Press, 1977. Bass, Laura R. The Drama of the Portrait: Theater and Visual Culture in Early Modern Spain. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2008. ———. “To Possess Her in Paint: (Pro)creative Failure and Crisis in El pintor de su deshonra.” In Writing for the Eyes in the Spanish Golden Age, edited by Frederick A. de Armas, 185–211. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2004. Bass, Laura R., and Amanda Wunder. “The Veiled Ladies of the Early Modern Spanish World: Seduction and Scandal in Seville, Madrid, and Lima.” Hispanic Review 77, no. 1 (2009): 97–144. Baudelaire, Charles. The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. Translated and edited by Jonathan Mayne. London: Phaidon Press, 1964. Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Edited by Rolf Tiedemann. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999. Bermúdez, Jorge R. Gráfica e identidad nacional. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, 1994. ———, ed. Nation and Narration. London: Routledge, 1990. Bhabha, Homi K. “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse” and “The Other Question: Stereotype, Discrimination, and the Discourse of Colonialism.” In The Location of Culture, 121–31 and 94–120, respectively. London: Routledge, 1994. Bland, David. A History of Book Illustration: The Illuminated Manuscript and the Printed Book. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Blanton, Casey. Travel Writing: The Self and the World. New York: Twayne, 1997. Bleichmar, Daniela. Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Boijen, Richard. “Colección de fotografías tomadas por François Aubert y conservadas por el Museo Real del Ejército Belga.” Alquimia: Sistema Nacional de Fototecas 21 (May–August 2004): 44–45. Boone, M. Elizabeth. Vistas de España: American Views of Art and Life in Spain, 1860–1914. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Bortoluci, José, and Robert S. Jansen. “Toward a Postcolonial Sociology: The View from Latin America.” Political Power and Social Theory 24 (2013): 199–229. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. London: Routledge, 1984. Brading, David. The Origins of Mexican Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. Physiologie du goût, ou Méditations de gastronomie transcendante. Paris: A. Sautelet et Cie Libraires, 1826.

Brown, Christopher. Images of a Golden Past: Dutch Genre Painting of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Abbeville Press, 1984. Brown, Marilyn. Gypsies and Other Bohemians: The Myth of the Artist in Nineteenth-Century France. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985. Bruman, Henry J. Alcohol in Ancient Mexico. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000. Buchanan-Brown, John. Early Victorian Illustrated Books: Britain, France, and Germany, 1812–1860. London: British Library, 2005. Buchenau, Jürgen, ed. Mexico Otherwise: Modern Mexico in the Eyes of Foreign Observers. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. Bueno, Eva P., and Terry Caesar, eds. Imagination Beyond Nation: Latin American Popular Culture. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998. Bullock, William. Six Months Residence and Travels in Mexico, Containing Remarks on the Present State of New Spain, Its Natural Productions, State of Society, Manufactures, Trade, Agriculture, and Antiquities. London: John Murray, 1824. Bullough, Vern L. “Medieval Medical and Scientific Views of Women.” Viator 4 (1973): 485–501. Burke, Marcus B. Spain and New Spain: Mexican Colonial Arts in Their European Context. Corpus Christi: Art Museum of South Texas, 1979. Exhibition catalogue. Burman, Barbara, and Carole Turbin, eds. Material Strategies: Dress and Gender in Historical Perspective. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003. Cabrera, Francisco. Agustín Arrieta: Pintor costumbrista. Mexico City: Editorial Libros de México, 1963. ———. Puebla y los poblanos. Mexico City: Editorial Libros de México, 1987. ———. La vida en Puebla: Crónicas de Fidel. Mexico City: Editorial Libros de México, 1987. Calcott, Wilfrid Hardy. Church and State in Mexico, 1822–1857. New York: Octagon Books, 1971. Calderón, E. Correa. Costumbristas españoles. Madrid: Aguilar, 1964. Calderón de la Barca, Frances Erskine Inglis. Life in Mexico: The Letters of Fanny Calderón de la Barca. Edited by Howard T. Fisher and Marion Hall Fisher. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. Camacho, Arturo. Álbum del tiempo perdido: Pintura jalisciense del siglo XIX. Jalisco: El Colegio de Jalisco, 1997. Camille, Michael, Zeynep Çelik, John Onians, Adrian Rifkin, and Christopher B. Steiner. “Rethinking the Canon.” Art Bulletin 78, no. 2 (1996): 198–217. Carrasco Puente, Rafael. Bibliografía de Catarina de San Juan y la china poblana. Mexico City: Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, 1950. Carrera, Magali M. “Affections of the Heart: Female Imagery and the Notion of Nation in Nineteenth-Century Mexico.” In Woman and

142 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 142

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Art in Early Modern Latin America, edited by Kellen Kee McIntyre and Richard E. Phillips, 47–72. Leiden: Brill, 2007. ———. Imagining Identity in New Spain: Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. ———. “Locating Race in Late Colonial Mexico.” Art Journal 47, no. 3 (1998): 36–45. ———. Traveling from New Spain to Mexico: Mapping Practices of Nineteenth-Century Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. Casanova, Rosa. “El éxito del comercio fotográfico.” Alquimia: Sistema Nacional de Fototecas 21 (May–August 2004): 27–34. ———. “La fotografias se vuelven historia: Algunos usos entre 1865–1910.” In Los pinceles de la historia: La fabricación del estado, 1864–1910, edited by Esther Acevedo and Fausto Ramírez, 214–42. Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte, 2003. ———. Mexico: A Photographic History; A Selective Catalogue of the Fototeca Nacional of the INAH. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2007. ———. Sobre la superficie bruñida de un espejo: Fotógrafos del siglo XIX. Mexico City: Fondo Cultural Económica, 1989. Castello Iturbide, Teresa, María José Esparza Liberal, and Isabel Fernández de García Lascuráin. La cera en México: Arte e historia. Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1994. Castello Iturbide, Teresa, and Marita Martínez del Río de Redo. Biombos mexicanos. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1970. Castro, Casimiro, Julián Campillo, Luis Auda, and G. Rodríguez. México y sus alrededores: Colección de monumentos, trajes y paisajes. Mexico City: Establecimiento Litográfico de Decaen, 1855–56. Castro-Klarén, Sara, and John Charles Chasteen, eds. Beyond Imagined Communities: Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003. Castro Morales, Efraín. “Los cuadros de castas de la Nueva España.” Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft Lateinamericas 20 (1983): 671–90. ———. Homenaje nacional: José Agustín Arrieta (1803–1874); Su tiempo, vida y obra. Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte, 1994. Catlin, Stanton Loomis. Art of Latin America Since Independence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966. Chapman, H. Perry. “Propagandist Prints, Reaffirming Paintings: Art and Community During the Twelve Years’ Truce.” In The Public and Private in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age, edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Adele Seef, 43–63. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2000. Charlot, Jean. “Juan Cordero: A Nineteenth-Century Mexican Muralist.” Art Bulletin 28, no. 4 (1946): 248–65. ———. Mexican Art and the Academy of San Carlos, 1785–1914. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1962.

Charnay, Désiré. Les anciennes villes du Noveau Monde: Voyage d’explorations au Mexique et dans l’Amérique Centrale. Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1885. ———. Le Mexique, 1858–1861: Souvenirs et impressions de voyage. 1862. Edited by Pascal Mongne. Paris: Éditions du Griot, 1989. Chatterjee, Partha. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? London: Zed Books, 1986. ———. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Cherry, Deborah, and Janice Helland, eds. Local/Global: Women Artists in the Nineteenth Century. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Colección de documentos oficiales relativos a la construcción y demolición del Parián. Mexico City: I. Cumplido, 1843. Colón Mendoza, Ilenia. “Ramón Frade’s El Pan Nuestro: The Jíbaro as a Visual Construction of Puerto Rican National Identity.” Athanor 22 (2004): 77–83. Cook, Sherburne F., and Woodrow Borah. Essays in Population History: Mexico and the Caribbean. 3 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Cope, Douglas. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. Coronado, Jorge. “Photography and Everyday Subjects in Cuzco, 1900–1940.” Latin American Perspectives 36, no. 3 (2009): 119–35. Coronil, Fernando. The Magical State: Nature, Money, and Modernity in Venezuela. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. ———. “Naturaleza del poscolonialismo: Del eurocentrismo al globocentrismo.” In La colonialidad del saber: Eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales, perspectivas latinoamericanas, edited by E. Lander, 87–112. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2000. Cortina, Leonor. Pintoras mexicanas del siglo XIX. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1985. Exhibition catalogue. Couto, José Bernardo. Diálogo sobre la historia de la pintura en México. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1947. Cowling, Mary. The Artist as Anthropologist: The Representation of Type and Character in Victorian Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Cries of London. London: Colnaghi and Co., 1795. Croly, David G. Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races. New York: H. Dexter, Hamilton and Co., 1864. Los cubanos pintados por sí mismos. 1852. Miami: Editorial Cubana, 1992. Cuéllar, José Tomás de. Ensalada de pollos y Baile y cochino. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1946. ———. La linterna mágica por Facundo. 24 vols. 3rd ed. Barcelona: Tipolitografía de Espasa y Compañía, 1889–92. ———. The Magic Lantern: Having a Ball and Christmas Eve. Translated by Margaret B. Carson. Edited by Margo Glantz. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

143 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 143

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Cumplido, Ignacio. Presente amistoso dedicado a las señoritas mexicanas. Mexico City: Editorial Cosmos–César Macazaga Ordoño, 1976. Curiel, Gustavo, ed. Patrocinio, colección y circulación de las artes. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1997. Curiel, Gustavo, Fausto Ramírez, Antonio Rubial, and Angélica Velázquez, eds. Pintura y vida cotidiana en México, 1650–1950. Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1999. Currie, Mark. Difference. London: Routledge, 2004. Cuvardic García, Dorde. “La construcción de tipos sociales en el costumbrismo latinoamericano.” Filología y Linguística 34, no. 1 (2008): 37–51. ———. “Iconografía de los frontispicios de las colecciones costumbristas de tipos sociales en Europa y Latinoamérica.” Filología y Linguística 40, no. 2 (2014): 199–216. ———. “El punto de vista panorámico en la literatura europea decimonónica.” Filología y Linguística 32, no. 1 (2006): 37–50. Day Corbitt, Roberta. “A Survey of Cuban Costumbrismo.” Hispania 33, no. 1 (1950): 41–45. Debroise, Olivier. Fuga mexicana: Un recorrido por la fotografía en México. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994. ———. Mexican Suite: A History of Photography in Mexico. Translated by Stella de Sá Rago. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. Debroise, Olivier, and Claude Désiré Charnay. Claude Désiré Charnay: 150 años de la fotografía. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1989. Díaz y de Ovando, Clementina. “El grabado commercial en México, 1830–1856.” In Historia del arte mexicano, edited by Jorge Alberto Manrique, 7:164–83. Mexico City: Salvat, 1982. Diener, Pablo. Johann Moritz Rugendas, Bilder aus Mexiko: Bildband und Katalog zur Ausstellung in der Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg. Augsburg: Universität Augsburg, 1993. ———. Rugendas: Imágenes de México, Bilder aus Mexico. Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Historia, 1994. Dorotinsky, Deborah. “Del registro a la creación del cuerpo indígena: El archivo México indígena de la UNAM.” Alquimia: Sistema Nacional de Fototecas 51 (May–August 2014): 67–77. ———. “Los tipos sociales desde la austeridad del estudio.” Alquimia: Sistema Nacional de Fototecas 21 (May–August 2004): 14–26. Dussel, Enrique. “Eurocentrism and Modernity.” boundary 2 20, no. 3 (1993): 65–79. ———. “Europa, modernidad y eurocentrismo.” In La colonialidad del saber: Eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales, perspectivas latinoamericanas, edited by E. Lander, 41–54. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2000. ———. The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of “the Other” and the Myth of Modernity. New York: Continuum, 1995. Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990.

Earle, Rebecca. “‘Two Pairs of Pink Satin Shoes!!’ Race, Clothing, and Identity in the Americas (Seventeenth–Nineteenth Centuries).” History Workshop Journal 52 (Autumn 2001): 175–95. Edwards, Steve, ed. Art and Its Histories: A Reader. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Open University, 1999. Escobar, José. “Costumbres de Madrid: Influencia de Mercier en un programa costumbrista de 1828.” Hispanic Review 45, no. 1 (1977): 29–42. ———. “Costumbrismo: Estado de la cuestión.” In Romanticismo 6, Actas del VI Congreso, Nápoles, 27–30 de marzo de 1996: El costumbrismo romántico, 117–26. Rome: Centro Internacional de Estudios sobre el Romanticismo Hispánico–Instituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 1996. ———. “La crítica del costumbrismo en el XIX.” Insula 637 (2000): 5–7. ———. “La mimesis costumbrista.” Romance Quarterly 35 (1988): 261–70. Los españoles pintados por sí mismos. 2 vols. Madrid: I Boix Editor, 1843–44. Esparza Liberal, María José. “Las figuras de cera del Museo de América en Madrid.” In México en el mundo de las colecciones de arte: México moderno, edited by María Luisa Sabau García, 5:39–71. Mexico City: Azabache, 1994. Esposito, Matthew D. Funerals, Festivals, and Cultural Politics in Porfirian Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010. Estrada de Gerlero, Elena, ed. El arte y la vida cotidiana. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1995. Études prises dans le bas du peuple, ou Les cris de Paris. Paris: Etienne Fessard, 1737. Fane, Diana, ed. Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish America. New York: Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1996. Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. 1967. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. Reprint, New York: Grove Press, 1991. Farmer, John A., and Ilona Katzew, eds. New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery, 1996. Farwell, Beatrice. The Charged Image: French Lithographic Caricature, 1816–1846. Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1989. ———. The Cult of Images = Le Culte des Images: Baudelaire and the Nineteenth-Century Media Explosion. Santa Barbara: UC Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1977. Featherstone, Mike, ed. Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization, and Modernity. London: Sage Publications, 1990. Featherstone, Mike, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson, eds. Global Modernities. London: Sage Publications, 1995. Fernández, Justino. El arte del siglo XIX. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 1967.

144 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 144

11/17/17 3:29 PM

———. El arte moderno en México: Breve historia siglos XIX y XX. Mexico City: J. Porrúa e Hijos, 1937. ———. Arte moderno y contemporáneo de México. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 1952. ———. “José Martí como crítico de arte.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 15, no. 19 (1951): 7–48. ———. José Martí como crítico de arte. Mexico City: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla/Secretaría de Cultura, 2003. Fernández, Miguel Ángel. Coleccionismo en México. Monterrey: Museo del Vidrio, 2000. Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín. The Itching Parrot, El Periquillo Sarniento. Translated by Katherine Anne Porter. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1942. ———. The Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniento, Written by Himself for His Children. Translated by David Frye. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004. ———. El periquillo sarniento. 1831. Edited by Jefferson Rea Spell. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1996. Ferrez, Gilberto. Photography in Brazil, 1840–1900. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984. Fomento Cultural Banamex. Tipos y paisajes mexicanos del siglo XIX. Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1977. ———. Viajeros europeos del siglo XIX en México. Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1996. Ford, John. Ackermann (1783–1983): The Business of Art. London: Ackermann, 1983. Foster, David William, ed. Handbook of Latin American Literature. New York: Garland, 1987. Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972. ———. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. ———. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Pantheon, 1970. Fowler, Will. Santa Anna of Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. Les français peints par eux-mêmes: Encyclopédie morale du dix-neuvième siècle. 9 vols. Paris: L. Curmer, 1840–42. Franco, Jean. An Introduction to Spanish-American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Franits, Wayne. Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting: Its Stylistic and Thematic Evolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Frascina, Francis, Nigel Blake, Briony Fer, Tamar Garb, and Charles Harrison. Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Fraser, Ronald. Napoleon’s Cursed War: Spanish Popular Resistance in the Peninsular War, 1808–1814. London: Verso, 2008.

Fraunhar, Alison. “Marquillas Cigarreras Cubanas: Nation and Desire in the Nineteenth Century.” Hispanic Research Journal 9, no. 5 (2008): 458–78. Fuentes, Carlos. Where the Air Is Clear. Translated by Sam Hileman. New York: Dalkey Archive Press, 2004. Gabara, Esther. Errant Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and Peru. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. Gage, Thomas. Nueva relación que contiene los viajes de Tomás Gage en la Nueva España. Guatemala City: Biblioteca “Goathemala” de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala, 1946. Galí Boadella, Montserrat. “Artistas y artesanos franceses en el Mexico independiente.” Amérique Latine Histoire et Mémoire: Les Cahiers 17 (2009). http://alhim.revues.org/index3180.html. ———. Historias del bello sexo: La introducción del romanticismo en México. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 2002. Gámez de León, Tania. Rostro reflejado ante un espejo: Manuel Ocaranza, pintor, 1841–1882. Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, 2009. Gandhi, Leela. Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Gaona Rico, Óscar Franklim. Noticias iluminadas: Arte e identidad en el siglo XIX. Bogotá: Cultura, Recreación y Deporte, 2011. García-Barragán, Elisa. “El arte académico en el extranjero” and “Las figuras de cera en el Museo Goya de Castres.” In México en el mundo de las colecciones de arte: México moderno, edited by María Luisa Sabau García, 5:192–239 and 5:72–80, respectively. Mexico City: Azabache, 1994. ———. José Agustín Arrieta: Lumbres de lo cotidiano. Mexico City: Fondo Editorial de la Plástica Mexicana, 1998. García Sáiz, María Concepción. Las Castas Mexicanas: Un género pictórico americano. Milan: Olivetti, 1989. Garner, Richard L., and Spiro E. Stefanou. Economic Growth and Change in Bourbon Mexico. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993. Garone Gravier, Marina. “Nineteenth-Century Mexican Graphic Design: The Case of Ignacio Cumplido.” Design Issues 18 (Autumn 2002): 54–63. Garrido, Esperanza. “Presencia de Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez en Colombia.” In México en el mundo de las colecciones de arte: México moderno, edited by María Luisa Sabau García, 5:240–57. Mexico City: Azabache, 1994. Garrido, Esperanza, and Raul Arturo Díaz Sánchez. Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez: Pasión y destino. Toluca: Instituto Mexiquense de Cultura, 1993. Gascoigne, Bamber. How to Identify Prints: A Complete Guide to Manual and Mechanical Processes from Woodcut to Inkjet. 2nd ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2004.

145 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 145

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Giannandrea, Beatrice. Literatura y pintura en el costumbrismo argentino, siglo XIX: Écfrasis. Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Muller, 2009. Gies, David T., ed. The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Gil, Carlos B., ed. The Age of Porfirio Díaz: Selected Readings. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977. Gillespie, Jeanne L. “Gender, Ethnicity, and Piety: The Case of the china poblana.” In Imagination Beyond Nation: Latin American Popular Culture, edited by Eva P. Bueno and Terry Caesar, 19–40. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998. Gilliam, Albert. Travels in Mexico, During the Years 1843 and 1844. Aberdeen: G. Clark and Son, 1847. Girón, Nicole. “La idea de la ‘cultura nacional’ en el siglo XIX: Altamirano y Ramírez.” In En torno a la cultura nacional, edited by José Emilio Pacheco, 51–83. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1982. Glantz, Margo, ed. Del fistol a la linterna: Homenaje a José Tomás de Cuéllar y Manuel Payno en el centenario de su muerte, 1994. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1997. Glendinning, Nigel, ed. Studies in Modern Spanish Literature and Art: Presented to Helen F. Grant. London: Tamesis Books, 1972. González, Beatriz. El arte colombiano en el siglo XIX. Bogotá: Fondo de Cultura Cafetero, 2004. ———. Manual de arte del siglo XIX en Colombia. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, Ediciones Uniandes, 2013. González Echevarría, Roberto, and Enrique Pupo-Walker, eds. The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature. Vol. 1, Discovery to Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. González-Stephan, Beatriz. “Showcases of Consumption: Historical Panoramas and Universal Expositions.” In Beyond Imagined Communities: Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century Latin America, edited by Sara Castro-Klarén and John Charles Chasteen, 225–38. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003. González-Stephan, Beatriz, and Jens Andermann, eds. Galerías del progreso: Museos, exposiciones y cultura visual en América Latina. Santa Fe, Argentina: Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 2006. Gorostiza, Celestino. J. M. Rugendas en México, 1802–1855. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1959. Greenfeld, Liah. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. Griffiths, Antony. Prints for Books: Book Illustration in France, 1760–1800. London: British Library, 2004. Los gritos de Madrid. Madrid, 1798. Gruesz, Kirsten Silva. Ambassadors of Culture: The Transamerican Origins of Latino Writing. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. Gruzinski, Serge. Painting the Conquest: The Mexican Indians and the European Renaissance. Paris: Flammarion, 1992.

Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago. La exposición artística de 1881, escrita para “El Siglo XIX.” Mexico City: Imprenta de Ignacio Cumplido, 1881. ———. Impresiones de viaje: Viaje de Felipe S. Gutiérrez por México, los Estados Unidos, Europa y Sud-América. Mexico City: Tip. Literaria de Filomena Mata, 1885. ———. Tratado del dibujo y la pintura, con un apéndice de los diversos carácteres de las escuelas antigua y moderna. 1895. Mexico City: Fondo Regional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2006. Hale, Charles A. The Transformation of Liberalism in Late NineteenthCentury Mexico. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Jonathan Rutherford, 222–37. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990. ———. “The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity” and “Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities.” In Culture, Globalization, and the World System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity, edited by Anthony D. King, 19–40 and 41–68, respectively. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Hall, Stuart, and Paul du Gay, eds. Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage Publications, 1996. Hamnett, Brian. A Concise History of Mexico. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ———. Juárez. London: Longman, 1994. ———. Roots of Insurgency: Mexican Regions, 1750–1824. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Hanna, Alfred Jackson, and Kathryn Abbey Hanna. Napoleon III and Mexico: American Triumph over Monarchy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971. Hanson, Anne Coffin. Manet and the Modern Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977. ———. “Popular Imagery and the Work of Edouard Manet.” In French Nineteenth-Century Painting and Literature, edited by Ulrich Finke, 133–63. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. Harms, Alvin. José-María de Heredia. Boston: Twayne, 1975. Heads of the People, or Portraits of the English. Drawn by Kenny Meadows. 2 vols. London: Robert Tyas, 1840–41. Helferich, Gerard. Humboldt’s Cosmos: Humboldt and the Latin American Journey That Changed the Way We See the World. New York: Gotham Books, 2004. Helston, Michael. Painting in Spain During the Later Eighteenth Century. London: National Gallery Publications, 1989. Heredia, José María. Minerva periódico literario. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1972. Hernández-Durán, Ray. “Modern Museum Practice in NineteenthCentury Mexico: The Academy of San Carlos and la antigua escuela mexicana.” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 9 (Spring 2010): 1–18. Hernández Serrano, Federico. “Juan Moritz Rugendas y su colección

146 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 146

11/17/17 3:29 PM

de pinturas costumbristas.” Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 2 (1947): 463–72. ———. La obra del pintor alemán Johann Moritz Rugendas, 1802–1858, durante su estancia en México, 1831–1834. Mexico City: Merck, 1959. Hoesterey, Ingeborg, and Ulrich Weisstein, eds. Intertextuality: German Literature and Visual Art from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1993. Humboldt, Alexander von. Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe. Translated by E. C. Otté. Vol. 1. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1849. ———. Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain. The John Black translation (abridged). Edited by Mary Maples Dunn. New York: Knopf, 1972. ———. Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain: With Physical Sections and Maps. Translated from the original French by John Black. 4 vols. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1811. ———. Researches Concerning the Institutions and Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America: With Descriptions and Views of Some of the Most Striking Scenes in the Cordilleras. Translated by Helen Maria Williams. 2 vols. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, J. Murray and H. Colburn, 1814. ———. Views of Nature, or Contemplation on the Sublime Phenomena of Creation. Translated by E. C. Otté and Henry G. Bohn. New York: Arno Press, 1975. Hurtado Mendoza, Francisco, and Nydia Sarabia. Manuel Ocaranza y sus críticos. Michoacán: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1987. Ibsen, Kristine. Maximilian, Mexico, and the Invention of Empire. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2010. Ilg, Ulrike. “The Cultural Significance of Costume Books in Sixteenth-Century Europe.” In Clothing Culture, 1350–1650, edited by Catherine Richardson, 29–47. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. Instituto Nacional de Estudios Politicos, A.C. “El analfabetismo en México 1895 al año 2000.” http://www.inep.org/index.php /biblioteca-del-politico/4-shafritz-y-hyde-clasicos-de-laadministracion-publica. Irwin, William. “Against Intertextuality.” Philosophy and Literature 28 (October 2004): 227–42. Israel, J. I. Race, Class, and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 1610–1670. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. Johns, Elizabeth. American Genre Painting: The Politics of Everyday Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. Jones, Ann Rosalind, and Peter Stallybrass, eds. Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Jongh, Eddy de. “A Bird’s-Eye View of Erotica: Double Entendre in a Series of Seventeenth-Century Genre Scenes.” In Questions of

Meaning: Theme and Motif in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Painting, translated and edited by Michael Hoyle, 21–58. Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2000. ———. “Realism and Seeming Realism in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting.” In Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered, edited by Wayne Franits, 21–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Jordan, Winthrop D. White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968. Joseph, Gilbert M., and Timothy J. Henderson, eds. The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. Juárez López, José Luis. Las litografías de Karl Nebel: Versión estética de la invasión norteamericana, 1846–1848. Mexico City: Miguel Angel Porrúa, 2004. Jurado Rojas, Yolanda. El teatro de títeres durante el porfiriato: Un estudio histórico y literario. Tlaxcala: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2004. Kamps, Toby, coord. Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Twentieth-Century Mexican Art: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection. San Diego: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2000. Exhibition catalogue. Kasl, Ronda, and Suzanne L. Stratton. Painting in Spain in the Age of Enlightenment: Goya and His Contemporaries. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Spanish Institute, 1997. Exhibition catalogue. Katzew, Ilona. Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Katzew, Ilona, and Susan Deans-Smith, eds. Race and Classification: The Case of Mexican America. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Kennedy Troya, Alexandra. Imágenes de identidad: Acuarelas quiteñas del siglo XIX. Quito: Fonsal, 2005. Kern, Robert W. Liberals, Reformers, and Caciques in Restoration Spain, 1875–1909. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1974. King, Catherine, ed. Views of Difference: Different Views of Art. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Open University, 1999. Kris, Ernst, and Otto Kurz. Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist. 1934. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Kristeva, Julia. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Edited by Leon S. Roudiez. Translated by Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. ———. The Kristeva Reader. Edited by Toril Moi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. ———. Revolution in Poetic Language. Translated by Margaret Waller. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

147 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 147

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Kuznesof, Elizabeth Anne. “Ethnic and Gender Influences on ‘Spanish’ Creole Society in Colonial Spanish America.” Colonial Latin American Review 4, no. 1 (1995): 153–75. Ladd, Doris, The Mexican Nobility at Independence, 1780–1826. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1984. Lago, Tomás. Rugendas: Pintor romántico de Chile. Santiago: Universidad de Chile, 1960. Lane, Jill. Blackface Cuba, 1840–1895. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. Lara, Linda. “José Agustín Arrieta: Beyond the Quotidian in Nineteenth-Century Mexican Costumbrista Painting.” Master’s thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 2007. Lauster, Martina. Sketches of the Nineteenth Century: European Journalism and Its Physiologies, 1830–50. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Leask, Nigel. Curiosity and the Aesthetics of Travel Writing, 1770–1840. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Lee, Rensselaer W. Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967. León, Nicolás. Catarina de San Juan y la china poblana. Puebla: Altiplano, 1971. Leonardini, Nanda, and Luis Ortiz Arias. Manuel Ocaranza: El más original, atrevido y elegante de los pintores mexicanos. Lima: Seminario de Historia Rural Andina, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 2006. Levarie, Norma. The Art and History of Books. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 1995. Levine, Robert M. Images of History: Nineteenth- and Early TwentiethCentury Latin American Photographs as Documents. Durham: Duke University Press, 1989. Liebrecht, Henri, ed. Histoire du livre et de l’imprimerie en Belgique des origines à nos jours. 6 vols. Brussels: Musée du Livre, 1923–24. Linati, Claudio. Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique: Dessinés d’après nature par C. Linati. Brussels: Lithographie Royale de Jobard, 1828. ———. Costumes et moeurs de Mexique: Une collection de treinte-trois planches. London: Engelmann, Graf, Coindet and Cie, 1830. ———. Trajes civiles, militares y religiosos de Mexico. Edited and translated by César Macazaga Ordoño. Mexico City: Editorial Innovación, S.A., 1978. ———. Trajes civiles, militares y religiosos de Mexico (1828). Translated by Justino Fernández. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 1956. Linati, Claudio, Florencio Galli, and José María Heredia. El Iris: Periódico crítico y literario. 1826. Vols. 1–2. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1988. Lizaso, Felix. Martí: Crítico de arte. Havana: Comisión Nacional Cubana, 1953.

Logan, Irene, and Teresa Castello Yturbide. Rebozos de la colección de Robert Everts. Mexico City: Museo Franz Mayer/Artes de México, 1997. Lombardo de Miramón, Concepción. Memorias. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1980. Lomnitz-Adler, Claudio. Exits from the Labyrinth: Culture and Ideology in the Mexican National Space. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. London: Routledge, 2005. Löschner, Renate. Alexander von Humboldt: Inspirador de una nueva ilustración de América; Artistas y científicos alemanes en Sudamérica y México. Berlin: Instituto Ibero-Americano Patrimonio Cultural Prusiano, 1988. ———. Deutsche Künstler in Lateinamerika: Maler und Naturforscher des 19. Jahrhunderts illustrieren einen Kontinent. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1978. ———. Juan Mauricio Rugendas en México: Un pintor en la senda de Alejandro Humboldt. Berlin: Patrimonio Cultural Prusiano, 2002. ———. “Lateinamerikanische Landschaftsdarstellungen der Maler aus dem Umkreis von Alexander von Humboldt.” PhD diss., Technischen Universität Berlin, 1976. Lucio, Rafael. Reseña histórica de la pintura mexicana de los siglos XVII and XVIII. Mexico City: J. Abadiano, 1864. Lukasik, Christopher. Discerning Characters: The Culture of Appearance in Early America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Lynch, John. Bourbon Spain, 1700–1808. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Macías Gonzalez, Victor Manuel. “Sobre la construcción de la masculinidad a través de la iconografía porfiriana, 1861–1916.” In Hacia otra historia del arte en Mexico, vol. 2, La amplitud del modernismo y la modernidad (1861–1920), edited by Stacie Widdifield, 324–35. Mexico City: Conaculta, 2004. Maclean, Ian. The Renaissance Notion of Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intellectual Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Majluf, Natalia. “Pattern-Book of Nations: Images of Types and Costumes in Asia and Latin America, 1800–1860.” In Americas Society, Reproducing Nations: Types and Costumes in Asia and Latin America, ca. 1800–1860, 15–56. New York: Americas Society, 2006. Exhibition catalogue. Manrique, Jorge Alberto, ed. Historia del arte mexicano. Vol. 7. Mexico City: Salvat, 1982. Manthorne, Katherine Emma. Tropical Renaissance: North American Artists Exploring Latin America, 1839–1879. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989. Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A Cultural History. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 2015.

148 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 148

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Martí, José. Obras completas. Edited by Jorge Quintana. Caracas: Litho-Tip C.A. Ira. Transversal de Guaicaipuro, 1964. Massé Zendejas, Patricia. Cruces y Campa: Una experiencia mexicana del retrato tarjeta de visita. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2000. ———. Simulacro y elegancia en tarjetas de visita: Fotografías de Cruces y Campa. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1998. Masson, Ernesto. Olla podrida, condimentada en Mexico. Paris: Imprenta Hispano-Americana de Cosson, 1864. Mathes, Michael. Mexico on Stone: Lithography in Mexico, 1826–1900. San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1984. Mayer, Brantz. México, lo que fue y lo que es. 1844. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1953. ———. Mexico as It Was and as It Is. New York: J. Winchester New World Press, 1844. Maza, Francisco de la. Catarina de San Juan: Princesa de la India y visionaria de Puebla. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1993. McIntyre, Kellen Kee, and Richard E. Phillips, eds. Woman and Art in Early Modern Latin America. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Medvedev, P. N., and M. M. Bakhtin. The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship: A Critical Introduction to Sociological Poetics. Translated by Albert J. Wehrle. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. Meinhof, Ulrike H., and Jonathan Smith, eds. Intertextuality and the Media: From Genre to Everyday Life. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Mérida, Carlos. Trajes regionales mexicanos. Mexico City: Editorial Atlante, S.A., 1945. Mesa, José de. “The Flemish Influence in Andean Art.” In America: Bride of the Sun—Five Hundred Years of Latin America and the Low Countries, edited by Bernadette J. Bucher, 179–88. Antwerp: Royal Museum of Fine Arts, 1992. Exhibition catalogue. Mesonero Romanos, Ramón. Escenas matritenses por el curioso parlante (1836–1842). Madrid: Oficina de la Ilustración Española y Americana, 1881. ———. Panorama matritense: Cuadros de costumbres de la capital, observados y descritos por un curioso parlante. Vol. 1. Madrid: Imprenta de Repullés, 1835. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990. Exhibition catalogue. Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos: Tipos y costumbres nacionales, por varios autores. Mexico City: M. Murguía, 1854–55. Facsimile editions, Mexico City: Biblioteca Nacional y Estudios Neolitho, 1935; Mexico City: Librería de Manuel Porrúa, 1974. Michaud y Thomas, Julio. Album pintoresco de la República Mexicana. 1849–52. Mexico City: Grupo Condumex, 2000.

Miller, Marilyn Grace. Rise and Fall of the Cosmic Race: The Cult of Mestizaje in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. Monsiváis, Carlos, Guadalupe Jiménez Codinach, Ricardo Pérez Escamilla, Fausto Ramírez, Roberto L. Mayer, and María Elena Altamirano Piolle. Casimiro Castro y su taller. Mexico City: Instituto Mexiquense de Cultura, Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1996. Montero, Oscar. José Martí: An Introduction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Montesinos, José F. Costumbrismo y novela: Ensayo sobre el redescubrimiento de la realidad española. Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1972. Morales y Marín, José Luis. Goya: A Catalogue of His Paintings. Translated by Muriel Feiner. Saragossa: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Luis, 1997. Moreno, Salvador. El pintor Pelegrín Clavé. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 1966. Moriuchi, Mey-Yen. “From ‘les types populaires’ to ‘los tipos populares’: Nineteenth-Century Mexican Costumbrismo.” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 12, no. 1 (2013): 1–24. Mörner, Magnus. Race Mixture in the History of Latin America. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. El Mosaico Mexicano, o Colección de amenidades curiosas e instructivas. 7 vols. Mexico City: Ignacio Cumplido, 1837–42. Moyssén, Xavier. “Manuel Serrano: Un pinto costumbrista del siglo XIX.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 16, no. 64 (1993): 67–74. ———. “La pintura en la provincial durante la primera mitad del siglo XIX.” In Historia del arte mexicano, edited by Jorge Alberto Manrique, 7:184–200. Mexico City: Salvat, 1982. Mraz, John. Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. ———. “Picturing Mexico’s Past: Photography and ‘Historia Gráfica.’” South Central Review 21, no. 3 (2004): 24–45. Museo Arqueológico de Madrid. Las figuras mexicanas de cera en el Museo Arqueológico de Madrid. Madrid: Unión Poligráfica, 1934. Exhibition catalogue. Museo del Barrio. Retratos: Two Thousand Years of Latin American Portraits. San Antonio: San Antonio Museum of Art, 2004. Exhibition catalogue. El Museo Mexicano, o Miscelánea pintoresca de amenidades curiosas e instructivas. 5 vols. Mexico City: Ignacio Cumplido, 1843–45. Museo Nacional de Arte. El escenario urbano de Pedro Gualdi, 1808–1857. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1997. ———. Nación de imágenes: La litografía mexicana del siglo XIX. Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte, 1994. Exhibition catalogue.

149 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 149

11/17/17 3:29 PM

———. Testimonios artísticos de un episodio fugaz (1864–1867). Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1995. Museum of Modern Art. Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art. Mexico City: Museum of Modern Art and the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de México, 1940. Exhibition catalogue. National Gallery of Art. Vermeer. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art; The Hague: Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, 1995. Exhibition catalogue. Navarrete, José Antonio. “Del tipo al arquetipo: Fotografía y tipos nacionales en América Latina; Segunda mitad del siglo XIX y comienzos del XX.” Fotografía Internacional 21 (January 2003): 34–42. Nebel, Carl. Viaje pintoresco y arqueológico sobre la parte más interesante de la República Mexicana, en los años transcurridos desde 1829 hasta 1834. Mexico City: Librería de Manuel Porrúa, 1963. ———. Viaje pintoresco y arqueolójico sobre la parte más interesante de la República Mejicana, en los años transcurridos desde 1829 hasta 1834. Paris and Mexico City: Paul Renouard, 1840. ———. Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la partie la plus intéressante du Mexique. Paris: Paul Renouard, 1836. Noble, Andrea. Photography and Memory in Mexico: Icons of Revolution. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010. Nuñez, Estuardo. “Juan M. Rugendas.” El Comercio (Lima), January 28, 1962. Nuñez y Domínguez, José de. Martí en México. Mexico City: Imprenta de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 1933. Ocasio, Rafael. Afro-Cuban Costumbrismo: From Plantations to Slums. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012. O’Gorman, Edmundo, and Justino Fernández. Documentos para la historia de la litografía en México. Mexico City: Imprenta Universitaria, 1955. Oles, James. Art and Architecture in Mexico. London: Thames and Hudson, 2013. Olivera, Ruth R., and Liliane Crété. Life in Mexico Under Santa Anna, 1822–1855. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. Ortíz Macedo, Luis. Édouard Pingret: Pintor romántico del siglo XIX. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2004. ———. Édouard Pingret: Un pintor romántico francés que retrató el México del mediar del siglo XIX. Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1989. Ortiz Monasterio, Pablo. Mexico: The Revolution and Beyond; Photographs by Agustín Victor Casasola, 1900–1940. New York: Aperture Foundation, 2003. Pacheco, Francisco. Arte de la pintura. 1649. Edited by Bonaventura Bassegoda i Hugas. Madrid: Cátedra, 1990. Pagden, Anthony. European Encounters with the New World, from Renaissance to Romanticism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Palou Pérez, Pedro Ángel. Identidad de Puebla esencia de mexicanidad:

José Agustín Arrieta. Puebla: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 2002. Panofsky, Erwin. Idea: A Concept in Art Theory. 1924. Translated by Joseph S. Peake. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1968. Parcero, Maria de la Luz. Condiciones de la mujer en México durante el siglo XIX. Mexico City: Instituto de Antropología e Historia de México, 1992. Patt, Beatrice P., and Martin Nozick. Spanish Literature, 1700–1900. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1989. Payno, Manuel. Los bandidos de Río Frío. 1889–91. Edited by Antonio Castro Leal. 5 vols. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1945. ———. Sobre mujeres, amores y matrimonios. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1984. ———. Tardes nubladas: Colección de novelas. Mexico City: F. Díaz de Leon y Santiago White, 1871. ———. “Viaje a Veracruz en el invierno de 1843.” In El Museo Mexicano, o Miscelanea pintoresca de amenidades curiosas e instructivas, 3:56–61. Mexico City: Ignacio Cumplido, 1843. Paz, Octavio. El laberinto de la soledad. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1972. ———. The Labyrinth of Solitude. Translated by Lysander Kemp, Yara Milos, and Rachel Phillips Belash. London: Penguin Books, 1990. Peloso, Vincent C., and Barbara A. Tenenbaum, eds. Liberals, Politics, and Power: State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. Peñas Ruiz, Ana. “Aproximación a la literatura panorámica española (1830–1850).” Interférences Littéraires / Literaire Interferenties: Multilingual e-Journal for Literary Studies (May 2012): 77–108. ———. El artículo de costumbres en España (1830–1850). Vigo: Editorial Academia del Hispanismo, 2015. ———. “Artículos de costumbres y fisiologías literarias: Espejos y espéculos de la sociedad (1830–1850).” In Literatura i espectacle / Literatura y espectáculo, edited by Rafael Alemany Ferrer and Francisco Chico Rico, 433–47. Alicante: Universidad de Alicante, 2012. ———. “Entre literatura y pintura: Poética pictórica del artículo de costumbres.” In Literatura ilustrada decimonónica: 57 perspectivas, edited by Borja Rodríguez Gutiérrez and Raquel Gutiérrez Sebastián, 625–37. Santander: Universidad de Cantabria, 2011. ———. “Revisión del costumbrismo hispánico: Una historia cultural transnacional.” In Revisitar el costumbrismo: Cosmopolitismo, pedgagogías y modernización en Iberoamérica, edited by Kari Soriano Salkjelsvik and Felipe Martínez-Pinzón, 31–52. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2016. Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell. Lithography and Lithographers: Some Chapters in the History of the Art. London: T. F. Unwin, 1915.

150 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 150

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Pérez de Salazar y Solana, Javier. José María Velasco y sus contemporáneos. Monterrey: Perpal, 1982. Pérez Montfort, Ricardo. Estampas de nacionalismo popular mexicano: Diez ensayos sobre cultura popular y nacionalismo. Tlalpan: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 2003. Pérez Salas, María Esther. Costumbrismo y litografía en México: Un nuevo modo de ver. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 2005. ———. “Genealogía de Los mexicanos pintados por sí mismos.” Historia Mexicana 48, no. 2 (1998): 167–207. ———. “La imprenta de Nebel en el costumbrismo mexicano.” In Alemania y el México independiente: Percepciones mutuas, 1810–1910, edited by Karl Kohut, Alicia Mayer, Brígida von Mentz, and María Cristina Torales, 91–114. Mexico City: Editorial Herder, 2010. ———.“Los secretos de una empresa exitosa: La imprenta de Ignacio Cumplido.” In Constructores de un cambio cultural: Impresoreseditores y libreros en la ciudad de México, 1830–1855, edited by Laura Suárez de la Torre, 101–81. Mexico City: Instituto Mora, 2003. Pérez Salazar, Francisco. Historia de la pintura en Puebla. Edited by Elisa Vargas Lugo. Mexico City: Imprenta Universitaria, 1963. Perry, Laurens Ballard. Juárez and Díaz: Machine Politics in Mexico. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1978. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Masters of Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1984. Exhibition catalogue. Pierce, Gretchen Kristine, and Áurea Toxqui. Alcohol in Latin America: A Social and Cultural History. Phoenix: University of Arizona Press, 2014. Plamenatz, John. “Two Types of Nationalism.” In Nationalism: The Nature and Evolution of an Idea, edited by Eugene Kamenka, 22–36. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1973. Pollock, Griselda. Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism, and Histories of Art. London: Routledge, 1988. Poole, Deborah. Vision, Race, and Modernity: A Visual Economy of the Andean Image World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge, 1992. Prieto, Guillermo. Cuadros de Costumbres 1. Vol. 2 of Obras Completas. Edited by Boris Rosen Jélomer. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1993. ———. “Literatura nacional: ‘Cuadros de costumbres’ y ‘Ojeada a varios lugares de la républica.’” Revista Científica y Literaria de México 1 (1845): 27–29, 85–88. ———. Memorias de mis tiempos, 1828 a 1840. 2 vols. Mexico City: Editorial Patria, S.A., 1948. ———. “Ocho días en Puebla: Impresiones profundas de viaje

arquitectónico, sentimental, científico y estrambótico de ‘Fidel’ Guillermo Prieto.” 1849. In Pedro Ángel Palou Pérez, Identidad de Puebla esencia de mexicanidad: José Agustín Arrieta, 29–31. Puebla: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 2002. ———. Ocho días en Puebla: Impresiones profundas de viaje arquitectónico, sentimental, científico y estrambótico de Fidel Guillermo Prieto. 4 vols. Mexico City: Vargas Rea, 1944. Pupo-Walker, Enrique. “The Brief Narrative in Spanish America: 1835–1915.” In The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature, vol. 1, Discovery to Modernism, edited by Roberto González Echevarría and Enrique Pupo-Walker, 490–535. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ———. “El cuadro de costumbres, el cuento y la posibilidad de un deslinde.” Revista Iberoamericana 44 (1978): 1–15. Quijano, Aníbal. “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality.” Cultural Studies 21, nos. 2–3 (March 2007): 168–78. ———. “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America.” Nepentla: Views from the South 1, no. 3 (2000): 533–80. ———. “Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America.” International Sociology 15, no. 2 (2000): 215–32. ———. Dominación y cultura. Lima: Mosca Azul, 1980. Quintero, María Cristina. “Mirroring Desire in Early Modern Spanish Poetry: Some Lessons from Painting.” In Writing for the Eyes in the Spanish Golden Age, edited by Frederick A. de Armas, 85–108. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2004. Quirarte, Martín. Historiografía sobre el imperio de Maximiliano. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1993. Rama, Angel. La ciudad letrada. Hanover, N.Y.: Ediciones del Norte, 1984. ———. The Lettered City. Edited and translated by John Charles Chasteen. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996. ———. Transculturación narrativa en América Latina. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1982. Ramírez, Fausto. Arte del siglo XIX en la ciudad de México. Madrid: Editorial La Muralla, 1984. ———. “The Nineteenth Century.” In Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries, 499–510. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990. Exhibition catalogue. ———. La plástica del siglo de la independencia. Mexico City: Fondo Editorial de la Plástica Mexicana, 1985. ———. “La visión europea de la América tropical: Los artistas viajeros.” In Historia del arte mexicano, edited by Jorge Alberto Manrique, 7:138–63. Mexico City: Salvat, 1982. Ramírez, Fausto, and Angélica Velázquez. “Lo circunstancial, transcendido: Dos respuestas pictóricas a la constitución de 1857.” Memoria del Museo Nacional de Arte 2 (Spring–Summer 1990): 4–29. Ramírez, Jenny O. “Nurture and Inconformity: Arrieta’s Images of Women, Food, and Beverage.” In Woman and Art in Early Modern

151 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 151

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Latin America, edited by Kellen Kee McIntyre and Richard E. Phillips, 207–20. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Ramos, Julio. Divergent Modernities: Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Translated by John D. Blanco. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. Reina Palazón, Antonio. “El costumbrismo en la pintura sevillana del siglo XIX.” Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2016. http://bib.cervantesvirtual.com/portal/romanticismo/actas _pdf/romanticismo_6/reina.pdf. ———. Pintura costumbrista en Sevilla (1830–1870). Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, 1979. Renan, Ernest. “What Is a Nation?” 1882. In Nation and Narration, edited by Homi K. Bhabha, 8–22. London: Routledge, 1990. Ribeiro, Aileen. “Fashioning the Feminine: Dress in Goya’s Portraits of Women.” In Goya: Images of Women, edited by Janis A. Tomlinson, 71–88. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2002. Exhibition catalogue. Richardson, Catherine, ed. Clothing Culture, 1350–1650. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. Richert, Gertrud. Johann Moritz Rugendas: Ein Deutscher Maler des XIX. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: Rembrandt-Verlag, 1959. ———. Johann Moritz Rugendas: Ein deutschermaler in Ibero-Amerika. Munich: Filser-Verlag, 1952. Rishel, Joseph J., and Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt, eds. The Arts in Latin America, 1492–1820. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art; Mexico City: Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, 2006. Exhibition catalogue. Robertson, Roland. “Glocalization: Time-Space and HomogeneityHeterogeneity.” In Global Modernities, edited by Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson, 25–44. London: Sage Publications, 1995. Robinson, Franklin W. Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre Painting of the Golden Age. New York: Abner Schram, 1974. Rodríguez Prampolini, Ida, ed. La crítica de arte en México en el siglo XIX. 3 vols. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 1997. Romero de Terreros, Manuel. Catálogo de las exposiciones de la antigua Academia de San Carlos. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 1963. ———. “México visto por pintores extranjeros del siglo XIX.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 7, no. 28 (1959): 33–46. Rosman, Silvia N. Being in Common: Nation, Subject, and Community in Latin American Literature and Culture. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2003. Rubio Cremades, Enrique, and María Angeles Ayala, eds. Antología costumbrista. Barcelona: El Albir, S.A. 1985. Rugendas, Johann Moritz. El México luminoso de Rugendas. Edited by

Mario de la Torre, with a prologue by Stanton Catlin and essays by Renate Löschner and Xavier Moyssén. Mexico City: Cartón y Papel de México, 1985. ———. Voyage pittoresque au Brésil. Translated by M. de Golbéry. Paris: Englemann, 1835. Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993. ———. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. ———. The World, the Text, and the Critic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983. Sámano Verdura, Karina. “El indígena en la fotografía: Tipos físicos y populares en el siglo XIX en México.” Alquimia: Sistema Nacional de Fototecas 51 (May–August 2014): 23–41. Santamaría, Francisco Javier. Diccionario de mejicanismos. 1959. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1974. Sarmiento Domingo, Faustino. “Tres cartas a Rugendas.” Revista Chilena de Historia y Geografia 126 (1958): 205–10. Sartorius, Carl. Mexiko: Landschaftsbilder und Skizzen aus dem Volksleben von Sartorius mit Stahlstichen voraüglicher Meister nach Original-Aufnahmen von Moritz Rugendas. Darmstadt: Lange, 1859. Sarup, Madan. Identity, Culture, and the Postmodern World. Edited by Tasneem Raja. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. Schwartz, Marcy E., and Mary Beth Tierney-Tello. Photography and Writing in Latin America: Double Exposures. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. Schwartz, Stuart B. “Colonial Identities and the Sociedad de Castas.” Colonial Latin American Review 4, no. 1 (1995): 185–201. Seed, Patricia. “Social Dimensions of Race: Mexico City, 1753.” Hispanic American Historical Review 62, no. 4 (1982): 569–606. Segre, Erica. Intersected Identities: Strategies of Visualization in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Mexican Culture. New York: Berghahn Books, 2007. Serequeberhan, Tsenay. “The Critique of Eurocentrism and the Practice of African Philosophy.” In Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader, edited by Emmauel Chukwudi Eze, 141–61. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. Serrano-Barquín, Hector. Relectura de la colección de dibujos del Institutense Felipe S. Gutiérrez: Una crónica visual de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2002. Sluijter, Eric. “Didactic and Disguised Meanings? Several Seventeenth-Century Texts on Painting and the Iconological Approach to Northern Dutch Paintings of This Period.” In Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered, edited by Wayne Franits, 78–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ———. Seductress of Sight: Studies in Dutch Art of the Golden Age. Zwolle: Waanders, 2000. Smith, Bernard. European Vision and the South Pacific, 1768–1850: A

152 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 152

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Study in the History of Art and Ideas. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960. Sommer, Doris. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Soriano, Kari Salkjelsvik, and Felipe Martínez-Pinzón, eds. Revisitar el costumbrismo: Cosmopolitismo, pedagogías y modernización en Iberoamérica. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2016. Souter, Gerry. Diego Rivera: His Art and His Passions. New York: Parkstone International, 2007. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Steiner, Wendy. “Intertextuality in Painting.” American Journal of Semiotics 3, no. 4 (1985): 57–66. Stulik, Dusan C., and Art Kaplan. Salt Print: The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 2013. Sullivan, Edward. The Language of Objects in the Art of the Americas. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Summers, Doris. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Tejada, Roberto. National Camera: Photography and Mexico’s Image Environment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Tenenbaum, Barbara A. “Manuel Payno, Financial Reform, and Foreign Intervention in Mexico, 1855–1880.” In Liberals, Politics, and Power: State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America, edited by Vincent C. Peloso and Barbara A. Tenenbaum, 212–34. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio. Mexico at the World’s Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Thompson, Carl. The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing. London: Routledge, 2016. ———. Travel Writing. London: Routledge, 2011. Tomlinson, Janis A. Francisco Goya y Lucientes. London: Phaidon, 1994. ———, ed. Goya: Images of Women. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2002. Exhibition catalogue. ———. Goya in the Twilight of Enlightenment. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Toner, Deborah. “Xochitl’s Bar: Pulquerías and Mexican Costumbrismo.” Art and Architecture of the Americas 8 (2010): 1–16. Toussaint, Manuel. La litografía en México en el siglo XIX. Mexico City: Estudios Neolitho, 1934. Tovar de Teresa, Guillermo. Pintura y escultura en Nueva España (1557–1640). Mexico City: Grupo Azabache, 1992. Toxqui, Áurea. “Breadwinners or Entrepreneurs? Women’s Involvement in the Pulquería World of Mexico City, 1850–1910.” In Alcohol in Latin America: A Social and Cultural History, edited by

Gretchen Kristine Pierce and Áurea Toxqui, 104–30. Phoenix: University of Arizona Press, 2014. ———. “‘El recreo de los amigos’: Mexico City’s Pulquerías During the Liberal Republic (1856–1911).” PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2008. Trusted, Marjorie. The Arts of Spain: Iberia and Latin America, 1450–1700. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2007. Tylor, Edward Burnett. Anahuac, or Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern. 1861. New York: Bergman, 1970. Tytler, Graeme. Physiognomy in the European Novel: Faces and Fortunes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. Ucelay Da Cal, Margarita. Los españoles pintados por sí mismos. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1951. Urquieta, Luis Alvarez. “El pintor Juan Mauricio Rugendas.” Boletín de la Academia Chilena de la Historia 12 (1940): 5–36. Valadés, José C. Maximiliano y Carlota en México: Historia del segundo imperio. Mexico City: Editorial Diana, 1976. Valdés, Dennis Nodin. “The Decline of the Sociedad de Castas in Mexico City.” PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1978. Vasconcelos, José. The Cosmic Race: A Bilingual Edition. Translated by Didier T. Jaén. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Vaughan, Mary Kay. “Primary Education and Literacy in NineteenthCentury Mexico: Research Trends, 1968–1988.” Latin American Research Review 25, no. 1 (1990): 31–66. Vaughan, Mary Kay, and Stephen W. Lewis, eds. The Eagle and the Virgin: National and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. Vecellio, Cesare. The Clothing of the Renaissance World: Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas; Cesare Vecellio’s “Habiti antichi et moderni.” Translated by Margaret F. Rosenthal and Ann Rosalind Jones. London: Thames and Hudson, 2008. Velázquez Guadarrama, Angélica. “Castas o marchitas: El amor del colibrí y La flor muerta de Manuel Ocaranza.” Anales del Insituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 20, no. 73 (1998): 125–59. ———. “Clase y género en la pintura costumbrista.” In Hacia otra historia del arte en México, vol. 2, La amplitud del modernismo y la modernidad (1861–1920), edited by Stacie Widdifield, 137–58. Mexico City: Conaculta, 2004. ———.“Pervivencias novohispanas y tránsito a la modernidad.” In Pintura y vida cotidiana en México, 1650–1950, edited by Gustavo Curiel, Fausto Ramírez, Antonio Rubial and Angélica Velázquez, 245–352. Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1999. ———.“La representación de la domesticidad burguesa: El caso de las hermanas Sanromán.” In Hacia otra historia del arte en México, vol. 1, De la estructuración a la exigencia nacional (1780–1866), edited by Esther Acevedo, 122–45. Mexico City: Conaculta, 2001. Velázquez Guadarrama, Angélica, Fausto Ramírez, and Rafael Sámano Roo. Entre romanticismo y realismo: Pintura costumbrista

153 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 153

11/17/17 3:29 PM

sentimental de Manuel Ocaranza (1841–1882). Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte, 1995. Veliz, Zahira. Artists’ Techniques in Golden Age Spain: Six Treatises in Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. ———. “The Authority of Prints in Early Modern Spain.” Hispanic Research Journal 9, no. 5 (2008): 416–36. Vermeylen, Filip. “Exporting Art Across the Globe: The Antwerp Art Market in the Sixteenth Century.” Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 50 (1999): 13–25. Vigil, José María. Poetisas mexicanas: Siglos XVI, XVII, XVIII y XIX. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1977. Waieboer, Adriaaen E., Wayne Franits, Linda Stone-Ferrier, Pieter Roelofs, and Marijn Schapelhouman. Gabriel Metsu. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Waldeck, Fredéric de. Viaje pintoresco y arqueológico a la provincia de Yucatán. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1966. ———. Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la province d’Yucatan (Amérique Centrale), pendant les années 1854 et 1856. Paris: Bellizard Dufour, 1838. Ward, Henry George. Mexico. 2 vols. London: H. Colburn, 1829. Wasserman, Mark. Everyday Life and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Mexico: Men, Women, and War. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000. Watson-Espener, Maida Isabel. El cuadro de costumbres en el Perú decimonónico. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1979. Wechsler, Judith. A Human Comedy: Physiognomy and Caricature in Nineteenth-Century Paris. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Widdifield, Stacie G. “Dispossession, Assimilation, and the Image of the Indian in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexican Painting.” Art Journal 49, no. 2 (1990): 125–32.

———. The Embodiment of the National in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexican Painting. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996. ———. “El impulso de Humboldt y la mirada extranjera sobre México” and “El indio re-tratado.” In Hacia otra historia del arte en México, vol. 1, De la estructuración a la exigencia nacional (1780–1866), edited by Esther Acevedo, 257–71 and 241–56, respectively. Mexico City: Conaculta, 2001. ———. “Modernity and Tradition: Strategies of Representation in Mexico.” In Local/Global: Women Artists in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Deborah Cherry and Janice Helland, 245–64. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Wilkins Kendall, George. The War Between the United States and Mexico, Illustrated. New York: D. Appleton, 1851. Williams, Patrick, and Laura Chrisman, eds. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Wilson-Bareau, Juliet, ed. Goya: Truth and Fantasy; The Small Paintings. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Exhibition catalogue. Worton, Michael, and Judith Still, eds. Intertextuality: Theories and Practices. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990. Yañez-Barnuevo, Luís. Juan Mauricio Rugendas en México: Viaje pintoresco, 1831–1834. Madrid: Museo de América, 1986. Zanardi, Tara. Framing Majismo: Art and Royal Identity in EighteenthCentury Spain. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2016. Zavala, Adriana. Becoming Modern, Becoming Tradition: Women, Gender, and Representation in Mexican Art. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2010. Zerubavel, Eviatar. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life. New York: Free Press, 1991. ———.“Lumping and Splitting: Notes on Social Classification.” In “Lumping and Splitting,” edited by Richard H. Hall, special issue, Sociological Forum 11, no. 3 (1996): 421–33.

154 / Bibliography

Moriuchi book.indb 154

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Abenamar, 71 academy, 8. See also Academy of San Carlos Colombian, 138 n. 38 Mexican, 2, 32, 100, 129 Academy of San Carlos, 8, 12, 81–82 Arrieta, José Agustín, 83–84, 90 Cruces y Campa, 124 Cuellar, Tomás de, 76 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 96–97, 103–5 Pingret, Édouard, 52–53, 57 Sanromán, Josefa and Juliana, 105–6, 108, 112 Serrano, Manuel, 92–93 Acevedo, Esther, 5 Addison, Joseph, 63–64 African(s), 6, 11–12, 23–24, 27 types, absence of, 70 Agontía, L., 92 aguador. See water carrier Aguador (Charnay), 118, 119, 120 Aguador (Cruces y Campa), 125, 126, 127 Aguador (Pingret), 7, 16, 17, 53–54 Aguador, El (Alenza), 72 Aguador, El (Iriarte), 73 Aguador, Porteur d’eau (Linati), 7, 14, 15, 34–35, 118 Aguilar Ochoa Arturo, 117, 124–25 albarazado, 12, 18 albina y español, nace torna atrás, De (unknown), 26–27, 27 albino(a), 18–19, 26–28 Álbum de la Mujer, El (Gasso y Vidal), 112 Álbum fotográfico mexicano (Charnay), 117 albums. See also Heads of the People; français peints par eux mêmes, Les; españoles pintados por sí mismos, Los; mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los; panoramic literature lithographic, 39, 117 photographic, 66, 115–18, 122, 127 of types, 61, 66–75, 79, 98, 130. Alemany y Bolufer, José, 4 Alenza, Aguador, El, 72 almuerzo, El (Arrieta). See chinaco y la china, El Alpers, Svetlana, 85 Altamirano, Ignacio Manuel, 103, 113 ambivalence, 13 Anderson, Benedict, 21 anglais peints par eux mêmes, Les, 67. See also Heads of the People

Moriuchi book.indb 155

anthropology, 121–22 archetypes, 13, 122 Arias, Juan de Dios, 20, 69 Arrieta, José Agustín, 8, 18, 54, 83–92, 112 china, 24–26, 74 chinaco y la china, El, 88–89, 89 China poblana, 85, 86, 122, 130 Cocina poblana, 24, 25, 26, 85 Escena popular de mercado con soldado, 7, 85, 87, 88, 90 gender, 24–26 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago and, 97–98, 102–3 Interior de una pulquería, 90, 91 kitchen, 24–25 mendigo, El, 84–85, 86, 89 racialized social spaces, 21–28, 85 patrons, 26, 89–90, 138 n. 18 Pingret, Édouard and, 54 Sanromán, Josefa and Juliana and, 105 Serrano, Manuel and, 96 sorpreza, La, 21, 22, 23, 29, 85, 88 Tertulia en una pulquería, 90, 91, 94 Velázquez, Diego and, 90 Vendedora de frutas y vieja, 26 art criticism, 103–9 Asalto a una diligencia (Serrano), 96 Aubert, François, 116–17, 120–25, 127, 130 Cargador de cazuelas, 120–22, 122 China poblana, 122–24, 124 Maximilian, Emperor, 120 Tortilleras, 122–23, 123, 124 Vendedor, 120–21, 121, 122 Baile y cochino (Cuéllar). See Having a Ball Balzac, Honoré de, 68, 76 bandidos de Río Frío, Los (Payno), 75, 96 bandits, 96 barcino, 7, 12, 18–19 barcino y cambuja, nace calpamulato, De (Islas), 7, 18, 19 Barrón y Carrillo, Manuel, 96 Baudelaire, Charles, 62–63 spirit of, 47 beggar, 49, 84–86, 88, 90, 102–3. See also lépero Bello family, 26, 89–90, 138 n. 18 Bello y Acedo, José Mariano, 26, 138 n. 18 Bello y González, José Luís, 26, 138 n. 18 Bello y Zetina, José Luis, 26, 138, n. 18

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Benjamin, Walter, The Arcades Project, 4, 67 Bhabha, Homi, 13, 29 blood mending, 27–28 bodegones, 83, 89 Bonpland, Aimé, 31 bosquejos, 4, 62 Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme, Physiologie du goût, 68 buñuelos, 16, 18, 93–94 Bustamante, Anastasio, 51, 135 n. 47 cabinet of curiosities, 35, 40, 44, 46, 64 Cabrera, Francisco, 85 Cabrera, Miguel, 12 caída de los ángeles rebeldes, La (Gutiérrez), 97 Calderón de la Barca, Fanny, 43, 51, 57 calpamulato, 7, 12, 18–19 cambujo(a), 7, 14–15, 21 Campillo, Andrés, 69 Carbó, José M., 92 cargador, 98–99, 116, 120, 122 Cargador, hombre y mujer de pueblo (Gutiérrez), 98, 99 Cargador de cazuelas (Aubert), 120–22, 122 Carrera, Magali, 5 carte de visite, 9, 115, 117, 120, 124. See also tarjetas de visita Casarín, Alejandro, 104 casta (mixed race), 5–7 nomenclature, 11–12, 21, 70, 129 system, 3, 70 casta painting, 5–8, 11–12 Cabrera, Miguel, 12 costumbrismo, relationship to, 7–8, 11–14, 16–29, 85 hierarchy, 12, 34, 70, 129 Islas, Andrés de, 7, 14, 15, 17–18, 19, 23, 24 kitchen, 24–26 patronage, 13 Rugendas and, 47, 49 castizo, 12 castizo, lo. See spanishness Catlin, Stanton, 46 celestina, 24, 88, 133 n. 29 Cervantes, Paz, 53, 136 n. 56 Charles III, 82 Charles IV, 31, 82 Charnay, Claude Désiré, 116–20, 124–25 Aguador, 118, 119, 120 Escríbano, 118, 119 Vendedor de canastas (Charnay), 117–18, 119, 120 Vendedor de ollas, 117–18, 118, 120 charro, 88, 90 Chávez Morado, José, 5 chiera, 64–65 Chiffonnier (Ragpicker) (Manet), 67 china. See china poblana chinaco, 75–76, 88–89, 94, 120

chinaco y la china, El (Arrieta), 88, 89 china poblana, 24–26, 28–29, 130, 132 n.20 Arrieta, José Agustín, 24–26, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90–91 Aubert, François, 122–24, 124 Calderón de la Barca, Fanny, 43, 57 chiera and, 65 dress, 43 Kahlo, Frida, 83 Magic Lantern, The, 75 mexicanos pintados por sí mismo, Los, 70, 74–75, 77 Nebel, Carl, 42–43 photography, 116–17, 120, 123–24 Pingret, Édouard, 8, 57, 58 reputation, 57 Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 49 Serrano, Manuel, 92, 94–96 China poblana (Arrieta), 85, 86 China poblana (Aubert), 122–24, 124 China poblana (Pingret), 8, 57, 58 chino, 7, 14–15 chino e india, nace cambujo, De (Islas), 7, 14, 15 Cites et ruines américaines (Charnay), 117 class, 2, 7, 9, 14, 16, 29. See also hierarchy; lower classes; popular types; race; social status; types Clavé, Pelegrín, 53, 105 clothing beggar, 84, 103 in casta painting, 12 femininity, 42 lower classes, 36, 43–44, 54, 88, 117–18, 122 as marker of difference, 35, 66–67, 136 n. 20 ranchero, 65 social status, 98, 106 sumptuary laws, 136 n. 20 water carrier, 14, 16, 70, 118 Cocina poblana (Arrieta), 24, 25, 26, 85 colonialism, 2–3, 129 coloniality of power, 3 colonial mimicry, 13 comal, 36, 44, 54, 125 conservatives, 82, 103, 132 n. 2 contact zone, 5, 32, 43, 51, 59 contrapposto, 37, 39, 44 convalecencia, La (Sanromán, Josefa), 108, 110, 111 Cope, Douglas, 28 Cordero, Juan, 53 Cortés, Hernán, 39, 78 Cortina, Leonor, 105 cosmopolitanism, 8 Cosmos, A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (Humboldt), 31 costumbres, 4, 92. See also cuadros de costumbres costumbrismo. See also Arrieta, José Agustín; Aubert, François; Charnay, Claude Désiré; costumbrista; Cruces, Antíoco and Luis Campa; cuadros de costumbres; Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago; mexicanos

156 / index

Moriuchi book.indb 156

11/17/17 3:29 PM

pintados por sí mismos, Los; photography; Sanromán, Josefa and Juliana; Serrano, Manuel; types casta painting, relationship to, 7–8, 11–14, 16–29, 85 Colombian, 103 colonialism and, 3 definition, 1–2 image and text, 8–9, 62–75 literary, 8, 61–79 Mexican modernism, relation to, 5, 131 origins, 4 patronage, 13 scholarship, 4–5 transnationalism, 4 typecasting, 4 costumbrista. See also albums; costumbrismo; cuadros de costumbres; mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los; photography; traveler-artists; types Arrieta, José Agustín, 8, 18, 54, 83–92, 112 artists, 2, 9, 61, 72, 79 Mexican, 81–113 scholarship, 5 traveler-artists and, 21 drawings, 33, 97–99 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 96–105 literature, 61–79 movement, 4, 8–9, 62, 83 novel, 61, 75–79, 113 painting, 11–29, 40, 47–49, 81–113 periodicals, 61–66 photography, 115–127 Pingret, Édouard, 52–57 Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 47–50 Sanromán, Josefa and Juliana, 105–12 scenes, 40, 46, 53, 57, 92, 98, 108 Serrano, Manuel, 8, 83, 92–96, 113, 130 writers, 16, 18, 20–21, 61–79, 84 costume book, 14, 33, 35, 38, 43–44, 66 Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique (Linati), 14, 18, 33–35, 38, 40 Couto, Bernardo José, 82 cries (gritos), 66–67 criollo(a), 2, 5, 22–23, 34, 130 Linati, Claudio, 37–38 mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los, 70 Nebel, Carl, 40–41, 43 Paz, Octavio, 81 Cruces, Antíoco and Luis Campa, 124–27 Aguador, 125, 126, 127 Mujer moliendo nixtamal, 125, 126, 127 cuadros de comedor, 84 cuadros de costumbres, 54, 62, 68, 71–72, 81, 106. See also costumbres Cuéllar, José Tomás de, 61, 75–79 cultural capital, 5, 40 cultural identity, 3, 13, 68, 130–31. See also Hall, Stuart Currie, Mark, 3

daguerreotype, 115 Daubigny, Charles-François, 68 Daumier, Honoré, 68 David, Jacques Louis, 33, 52, 97 Delacroix, Eugène, 46, 52 despedida del jóven indio, La (Gutiérrez), 98, 100 día de los muertos, 101 Díaz, Porfirio, 2, 78 Díaz del Castillo, Bernal, 39 difference. See also clothing; traveler-artists cognitive sociologists, 59 Currie, Mark, 3 similarity and, 3, 5, 7, 9, 44, 59 Bhabha, Homi, 29 Foucault, Michel, 59 Hall, Stuart, 13 literature, 61–79 travel, 33 universality and, 3, 13 Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 52 Dispute de deux indiennes (Linati), 34, 36 Dominguez Roche, José María, 103 Dou, Gerrit, 25 Dubufe, Édouard Louis, 52 Dutch Golden Age, 25 Écrivain public, sur la grand’place à Mexico (Escríbano público o Evangelista) (Linati), 19 Enlightenment, 12, 82 Escena popular de mercado con soldado (Arrieta), 7, 85, 87, 88 Escríbano (Charnay), 118, 119 escríbano, 18–21, 35, 118–19 españoles pintados por sí mismos, Los, 1, 54, 68–72 español y morisca, nace albino, De (Islas), 18, 19 español y negra, nace mulata, De (Islas), 23, 24, 50 Etienne de Jouy, Victor-Joseph, 63 evangelista. See escríbano female. See also china poblana; clothing; gender relations; identity; kitchen; Sanromán, Josefa and Juliana; tortilleras; types artists, 105–13 passion, 90 private realm of, 24 feminine world, 24 Fernández, Justino, 5 Fernández de Lizardi, José Joaquín, El periquillos sarniento, 75 fisiologías. See cuadros de costumbres; physiologies flâneur, 63 Foucault, Michel, 53, 59 français peints par eux mêmes, Les, 1, 54, 67–68 French intervention of Mexico, 2, 103, 117, 132 n.2 Frías y Soto, Hilarión, 16, 69, 71, 74 Frick Collection, 112 Fuente de la Alameda central (Rugendas), 47, 48, 49

157 / index

Moriuchi book.indb 157

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Gall, Franz Joseph, 63–64 García Cubas, Antonio, 6 Garrido, Esperanza, 102 Gasso y Vidal, Leopolda, 112 Gavarni, Paul, 67–68 gaze, colonial, 13, 16, 29 gender identity. See female; gender relations; identity gender relations, 8, 21, 39, 66 in Arrieta, José Agustín, 24, 85–92 in Sanromán, Juliana and Josefa, 105–12 gender roles. See gender relations genre painting, 2, 81–82, 104. See also prints Dutch, 6, 25–26, 88, 98, 106, 111 Alpers, Svetlana, 85 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 98, 104–5 Pingret, Édouard, 53 Sanromán, Juliana and Josefa, 106–11 Velázquez, Diego, 90 Gente de tierra caliente entre Papantla y Misantla (Nebel), 39, 44, 45 Géricault, Théodore, 52 Goya y Lucientes, Francisco José de, 26, 68–69 Attack by Robbers, 96 Portrait of Doña Antonia Zárate, 40–41 Portrait of the Duchess of Alba, 68 Grandville, Jean Jacques, 67–68 grisette, 29, 43, 74 Groot, José Manuel, 103 Guerrero, Vicente, 51, 135 n. 47 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 8, 83, 92, 96–105, 130 Arrieta, José Agustín and, 97–98, 102–3 art criticism, 92–93, 103–5, 113, 130 caída de los ángeles rebeldes, La, 97 Cargador, hombre y mujer de pueblo, 98, 99 despedida del jóven indio, La, 98, 100 Impresiones de viaje: Viaje de Felipe S. Gutiérrez por México, los Estados Unidos, Europa y Sud-América, 97 Indias de Oaxaca, 100, 101, 101–2, 123 Indias disputándose una tortilla, 102 juramento de Bruto, El, 97 Mendigo, 102, 102–3 Mujer indígena con cempasúchil, 100, 100–101 Personajes costumbristas, 98, 99, 106 Sanromán, Juliana and Josefa and, 105–6, 112 Serrano, Manuel and, 92–93 Tratado del dibujo y la pintura, 104 watercolors, 98–99, 112 Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo (Vecellio), 35 Hacendado: Criollo propietario (Linati), 37, 37–38 Haghenbeck, Carlos, 111 Haghenbeck y de la Lama, Antonio, 112 Hall, Stuart, 3, 13, 130 Hamnett, Brian, 83 Having a Ball (Cuéllar), 78

Heads of the People, 1, 67–68 Heredia, Joaquín, Puesto de chía en semana santa, 64, 65 Rancheros, 65–66, 66 Heredia, José María, 134 n. 9 Hidalgo, Miguel, 6, 34, 134 n. 8 hierarchy. See also criollo; lower classes; occupations; popular types; racialized social spaces; social status; types class, 71, 96, 98 gender, 21, 41 socioracial, 2, 5, 21, 41, 79, 129 in albums of types, 69–74 in casta painting, 12–14, 18, 28–29, 47 Linati, Claudio, 34 photography, 116–27 hombres letrados, 13, 117 huipil, 14, 44, 100, 102, 135 n. 34 Humboldt, Alexander von, 8, 31–32, 39, 46, 71, 134 n.1 Cosmos, A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, 31 Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, 39 Hunt, Leigh, 67 identity. See also clothing; costumbrismo; costumbrista; cultural identity; Stuart Hall; occupations; types construction, 2–3, 9, 32, 83 female, 112. See also china poblana; Sanromán, Juliana and Josefa formation, 3, 29, 79 gender, 8, 35 Mexican, 2–4, 76, 79, 108, 131 Cruces, Antíoco and Luis Campa, 125 cultivated, 96 landscape painting, 83 mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los, 122 pride, 113 traveler-artists, contribution to, 32, 117 national, 2–5, 61–62, 79, 113 albums, 61–62, 67–68 body and, 66 Cuéllar, Tomás de, 75–76 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 105, 113 mixed race, 25–26 photography, 9, 117, 127 Plamenatz, John, 61–62 print capitalism, 79 Sánchez Solís, Felipe, 100 Velasco, José María, 83 Paz, Octavio, 81 personal, 115–16, 127 racial, 85 regional, 35 similarity and difference, 2–3, 5, 33, 61 social, 85 Spanish, 40, 68 idleness, 38. See also lazy

158 / index

Moriuchi book.indb 158

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Impresiones de viaje: Viaje de Felipe S. Gutiérrez por México, los Estados Unidos, Europa y Sud-América (Gutiérrez), 97 independence, Mexican, 1–2, 6, 12, 34, 134, n. 8, 135 n. 47 casta nomenclature after, 70 Cuéllar, Tomás de, 74–75 indian, 5, 104. See also blood mending; Barca, Fanny Calderón de la; casta painting; china poblana; Cope, Douglas; indigenous; Linati, Claudio; mestizo(a); mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los; mixed race; Nebel, Carl; Pingret, Édouard; Sánchez Sólis, Felipe; Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago Indias de Oaxaca (Gutiérrez), 101, 101–2 Indias disputándose una tortilla (Gutiérrez), 102 indigenous, 3, 115–18, 121–22, 129, 131. See also indian; lower classes; pulque; types biases, 36 dress, 83 Hidalgo, Miguel, 6 lineage, 94 in Nebel, Carl, 40, 42, 44 newspapers, 21 in Pingret, Édouard, 52, 54 racial mixing, 11 in Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 46 women, 24 Interior de cocina poblana (Pingret), 8, 54, 55 Interior del estudio de una artista (Sanromán, Josefa), 108, 109 Interior de una pulquería (Arrieta), 90, 91 intertextuality, 6–7, 9, 16, 116 Iriarte, Hesiquio, 20, 69 Aguador, El, 73 china, La, 77 Iris, El, 33 Islas, Andrés de, 16, 20, 133 n. 2 barcino y cambuja, nace calpamulato, De, 7, 18, 19 chino e india, nace cambujo, De, 7, 14, 15 español y morisca, nace albino, De, 18, 19, 20 español y negra, nace mulata, De, 23, 23–24, 50 tente en el aire y mulata, nace albarazado, De, 18 scribe, 18–20 Iturbide, Agustín de, 2, 33 Izquierdo, María, 5, 131 jarabe, El (Serrano), 94, 95, 96 Jerrold, Douglas, 67 Johannot, Antoine, 68 Juárez, Benito, 2, 132 n. 2 juego de rayuela, El (Serrano), 94, 95, 96 juramento de Bruto, El (Gutiérrez), 97 Kahlo, Frida, 5, 83, 131 Katzew, Ilona, 5–6, 12 Kaufmann, Angelica, 108 kitchen, 24, 28, 74, 125 in Arrieta, José Agustín, 24–26, 85 in Pingret, Édouard, 8, 54–55

Kristeva, Julia, 7, 116 Lavater, Johann Kaspar, 63–64 lazy, 38, 94. See also lépero Lenclos, Ninon de, 78 lépero, 38, 49, 51, 75 Lépero (Linati), 38, 38–39 liberal (politics), 2, 94, 103, 113, 132 n. 2 conservatives, and, 82, 103 Cuéllar, Tomás de, 75 Linati, Claudio, 33–34, 38, 44 Payno, Manuel, 62, 84 Prieto, Guillermo, 62 Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 51, 62 Linati, Claudio, 7, 33–39, 59, 94, 98. See also costume books; lithography; traveler-artist aguador (water carrier), 7, 14–16, 34–35, 70, 118 Aguador, Porteur d’eau, 7, 15 Costumes civils, militaires et réligieux du Mexique, 14, 18, 33–35, 38, 40 Dispute de deux indiennes, 34, 36 Écrivain public, sur la grand’place à Mexico (Escríbano público o Evangelista), 18, 19, 20 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago and, 98 Hacendado: Criollo propietario, 37, 37–38 Lépero, 38, 38–39 Nebel, Carl and, 33, 38–40, 43–44, 54, 59 photographers and, 117–18, 120, 122–23 Pingret, Édouard and, 54 scribe (escríbano), 18, 19, 20, 35, 118 Tortilleras, 34, 36, 37, 40, 44, 54, 122–23 lithograph, 6–9, 46, 54. See also Linati, Claudio; lithography; prints albums, 130, 134 n. 24, 134 n. 25 in costumbrista literature, 65–79, 122, 125 Nebel, Carl, 39–40, 43, 47, 134 n. 25 photography and, 117–18, 120 lithography, 5–6, 8, 14, 32–33, 63, 136 n. 8. See also Linati, Claudio; lithograph; prints lobo(a), 7, 12, 21 Lomnitz Adler, Claudio, 70 López Morillas, Juan, 62–63 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 100, 138 n.37 lower classes, 16, 129–30. See also Arrieta, José Agustín; clothing; Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago; hierarchy; mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los; occupations; popular types; Serrano, Manuel; types albums of types, 71 photography and, 115–27 stereotypes, 12, 21, 39, 53 upper classes and, 18, 98, 105, 112 Lucio, Rafael, 92, 135 n. 55, 138 n. 18 Maes, Nicolas, 111, 113 magic lantern, 1, 75–76 Magic Lantern, The (José Tomás de Cuéllar), 61, 75–79 maja, 29, 40–41, 43, 68–69, 74, 137 n. 26

159 / index

Moriuchi book.indb 159

11/17/17 3:29 PM

maja, La (Vallejo), 68–69, 69 Malinche, La, 78 Manet, Édouard, 51, 67, 132 n. 2 mantilla, 28, 40–42, 47–48, 50, 68–69 mantilla, La (Nebel), 40, 41, 42–43, 135 n. 25 manto, 37–38, 65 marigold, 100–101 marketplace, 24, 28, 98, 112 Martí, José, 103 Masson, Ernest, 52 matrimonio feliz, Un (Arrieta). See chinaco y la china, El Maximilian, Emperor, 2, 115, 117, 120, 132 n. 2, 140 n. 13. See also French intervention Mayer, Brantz, Mexico as It Was and as It Is, 14–16, 18, 20, 70 Meadows, Joseph Kenny, 67 Meissonier, Jean-Louis Ernest, 68, 104 Memorias de mis tiempos (Prieto), 75 Mendigo (Gutiérrez), 102, 102–3 mendigo, El (Arrieta), 84, 86, 89 Mercier, Louis-Sébastien, 63 mestizaje, 26, 131 mestizo(a), 6, 11–12, 21, 23–24, 88 china poblana, 24–26, 42, 74–75, 132 n. 20 mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los, 70 Nebel, Carl, 8, 71 Paz, Octavio, 81 metate, 36, 44, 122, 125 Mexican-American War, 132 n.1, 134 n. 21 mexicanidad, 127, 131, 140 n. 22 Mexican identity. See identity Mexicanness, 26, 131. See also mexicanidad mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los, 1, 8, 54, 61, 79 album of types, 69–75 aguador (watercarrier), 16, 70–72, 73, 74, 118 china poblana,70, 74–75, 77 escríbano (evangelista), 20, 21, 118 frontispiece, xiv, 1, 69 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago and, 98 magic lantern, 76 periodicals and, 64, 66 photography and, 117–20, 122, 124 ranchero, 70, 72–74 Mexique, 1858-1861: Souvenirs et impressions de voyage, Le (Charnay), 117 miscegenation, 6, 9, 11, 26, 94, 133 n. 1 in casta painting, 28–29, 47, 70 poverty and, 38 mixed race, 9, 28–29, 129. See also china poblana; mestizo(a); miscegenation Arrieta, José Agustín, 21, 26 casta painting, 6, 12–14 Linati, Claudio, 34, 39 literature, 65, 70, 75, 79 Nebel, Carl, 42 Pingret, Édouard, 53

Serrano, Manuel, 94 water carrier, 16 modernism, 54, 131 Modernism, Mexican, 5, 105 modernity, 47, 62–63, 127, 130. See also Baudelaire, Charles mole poblano, 25, 84–85, 88 Monnier, Henry, 68 Montenegro, Roberto, 5 Morelos, José María, 33–34, 134 n. 8 morisco(a), 12, 18–19, 26–27 mosaico mexicano, El, 61–64, 66 Moyssén, Xavier, 92 Mraz, John, 116 Mujer indígena con cempasúchil (Gutiérrez), 100, 100–101 Mujer moliendo nixtamal (Cruces y Campa), 125, 126, 127 mulatto(a), 11–12, 18, 23, 26, 50 in Gente de tierra caliente entre Papantla y Misantla (Nebel), 44–45 Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban, 26 Museo Casa de la Bola, 112 Museo Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, 98 Museo José Luís Bello y González, 26 Museo José Luís Bello y Zetina, 26 museo mexicano, El, 61–62, 64–66, 69, 72, 75 Músico de Veracruz (Pingret), 54, 56, 57 Napoleon, 33 national art, 103–5, 113 national identity. See identity nationalism, 5, 8, 21, 79, 97, 127 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 97–105 Plamenatz, John, 61–62, 130 Spanish, 68 Velasco, José María, 83 National School of Fine Arts, Bogotá, 100 Nebel, Carl, 32–33, 39–45, 54, 59 Gente de tierra caliente entre Papantla y Misantla, 39, 44, 45 Linati, Claudio and, 38–39, 44 mantilla, La, 40, 41, 42–43, 135 n. 25 photographers and, 117–18, 120, 122–23 Pingret, Édouard and, 57 Poblanas, 42, 42–43, 57 Rugendas, Johann Moritz and, 47, 135 n. 25 Tortilleras, 8, 44, 45, 54, 71 Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la partie la plus intéressante du Mexique, 39 neoclassical, 2, 53, 113 Nebel, Carl, 44 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 96–97 neoclassicism, 8, 32, 81–82 Pingret, Édouard, 52 Oath of the Horatii (David), 97 Obregón, José, 92, 138 n. 25 occupations, 2, 9, 12–21, 129–30. See also lower classes; popular types; types

160 / index

Moriuchi book.indb 160

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Linati, Claudio, 34 in photography, 116–27 Ocho días en Puebla (Prieto), 84 Orozco, José Clemente, 131 ostentation, 38, 78 Other and othering, 3, 5, 28 Bhabha, 13 Magic Lantern, The, (Cuéllar), 75 Pingret, Édouard, 52 poblana, 43 traveler-artists, 33, 36, 39, 59 otherness, 13, 29 Pagden, Anthony, 39 panoramic literature, 4–5, 61, 66–76 Parián, 18, 133 n.21 passing (race), 78–79 Payno, Manuel, 62, 64, 88, 102 Los bandidos de Río Frío, 75, 96 Viaje a Veracruz en el invierno de 1843, 84 Paz, Octavio, 81 peninsulares, 38 Pérez Salas, María Esther, 5 Pérez Salazar, Francisco, 85 periodicals, 7, 21, 61–66, 75, 78–79. See also costumbrista literature periquillo sarniento, El (Fernández de Lizardi), 75 Personajes costumbristas (Gutiérrez), 98, 99, 106 photography, 6, 8, 32, 115–27, 130. See also costumbrista photography Cuéllar, Tomás de, 76 ethnographic, 121–22 phrenology, 63–64, 79 physiognomy, 63–64, 79 physiologies, 6, 54, 67–68, 136 n. 60 picturesque, 2, 29, 59, 62, 113, 130 Calderón de la Barca, Fanny, 51 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 102 literature, 66 Nebel, Carl, 40, 44 photography, 116 Pingret, Édouard, 16, 53, 57 Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 54 Serrano, Manuel, 92–96 Pingret, Édouard, 33, 52–59, 70, 92, 98 Aguador (Water carrier), 7, 16, 17, 53–54 China poblana, 57, 58, 85, 122–23, 130 Interior de cocina poblana, 8, 54, 55 Linati and, 54 Músico de Veracruz, 54, 56, 57 Nebel and, 57 photography and, 122–23 Rugendas and, 54, 57 Tlachiquero, 54, 56, 57 Plamenatz, John, 61–62, 70, 79, 130 Plaza Mayor, 18, 133 n. 21

poblana. See also china poblana Poblanas (Nebel), 42, 42–43, 57 Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (Humboldt), 39 pollo(a) (dandy), 75–76, 78 Pombo, Rafael, 138 n. 38 popular types, 4, 6, 8, 13, 81, 130. See also lower classes; mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los; racialized social spaces; types collections of, 61, 66–75 Cuéllar, Tomás de, 76–79 photography, 116–27 Porfiriato, 2, 76 portrait, 6, 12, 90 Arrieta, José Agustín, 84 Cuéllar, Tomás de, 78 Goya, Francisco, 40, 68 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 96, 103–4 Linati, Claudio, 33 photography, 122, 124 Pingret, Édouard, 52–53 Sanromán, Juliana and Josefa, 106, 108 viceregal, 28 portraiture, 2, 4, 28 positivism, 132 n. 6 postcolonial, 3, 13, 28, 32 Pratt, Mary Louise, 5, 32 Pre-Columbian, 52, 81–82, 94, 113 Charnay, Claude Désiré, 117 Nebel, Carl, 38, 40 Prieto, Guillermo, 62–64, 75, 84–85, 88, 102 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago and, 92–93 principle of attachment (Pagden), 39 print capitalism, 21, 79 prints, 94, 103, 112 European, 26, 82, 105 photographic, 9, 117, 127 Procesión de la Virgen del Rosario en la Ciudad de México (Rugendas), 48, 49 propaganda, art as, 47, 96, 115, 117, 130 Puebla, 44 Arrieta, José Agustín, 24–26, 83–85, 89–90, 97 Bello family, 26, 89–90 poblana, 24, 42 Serrano, Manuel, 92 Puesto de chía en semana santa (Heredia), 64, 65 pulque, 44, 54, 57, 90, 94–95, 138 n. 25. See also Tlachiquero pulquería, 90, 94–95 Quijano, Aníbal, 3 race, 2–4, 6, 22–23, 29, 78–79. See also African; indian; indigenous; mixed race; social status; stereotypes; typecasting; types archetypal figures, 116 black, 28 commingling of, 47, 52

161 / index

Moriuchi book.indb 161

11/17/17 3:29 PM

race (continued) ethnography, 121 invisibility, 11 occupation and, 95 physiognomy, 64 separation of, 47 visibility, 11 racial conflict, 22–24, 29 racialized social spaces, 11–29, 85 Rafael de Rafael, 106 Ramírez, Fausto, 5 Ramírez, Ignacio, 69, 103 Ramírez, Jenny, 24 Ramos Martínez, Alfredo, 5, 131 ranchero (rancher), 40, 42–43, 49, 92 costume, 37, 70 in mexicanos pintados por sí mismo, Los, 70, 72–75 in Museo Mexicano, El, 64–65, 66 realism, 4, 6, 32, 74, 83, 85 rebozo in Arrieta, José Agustín, 21–22, 24, 88 Calderón de la Barca, Fanny, 43, 51 chiera, 65 china poblana, 42–43, 57, 74, 116 in Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 98 in Pingret, Édouard, 54, 57 in Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 47 in Serrano, Manuel, 94 tortilleras, 122, 125 regionalism, 83 Regnault, Jean-Baptiste, 52 reina del Mercado, La (Rugendas), 49–50, 50 Rembrandt, 108 Renaissance, 113 Restoration (Juárez), 2 Revilla, Domingo, 65 Revolution, Mexican, 127, 132 n. 6 Rincón Gallardo, Guadalupe, 53 Rivera, Diego, 5, 131 Rivera, José María, 69, 72, 74–75 romanticism, 4, 6, 32, 46–47, 68 Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History, 120 Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 32–33, 46–52, 59 Fuente de la Alameda central (Rugendas), 47, 48, 49 Nebel, Carl and, 47, 135 n. 25 Pingret, Édouard and, 54, 57, 92 Procesión de la Virgen del Rosario en la Ciudad de México, 48, 49 reina del mercado, La, 49–50, 50 Voyage pittoresque au Brasil, 46 Said, Edward, 52–53 Saint Teresa of Avilá, 108 Sala de música (Sanromán, Juliana), 106, 107, 108 Sámano Verdura, Karina, 121

Sánchez Solís, Felipe, 98, 100, 138 n. 36 San Juan, Catarina de, 24 Sanromán, Josefa, 8, 83, 105–12, 130 convalecencia, La, 108, 110, 111 Interior del estudio de una artista, 108, 109 Sanromán, Juliana, 8, 83, 105–12, 130 Sala de música, 106, 107, 108 Santa Ana, Manuel M. de, 68–69 Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 2, 51–52, 90, 97 Sartorius, Carl Christian, México, sus paisajes y sus tipos, 46 scribe. See escríbano Segre, Erica, 64 señoritas pintoras, 112 Serrano, Manuel, 8, 83, 92–96, 113, 130 Asalto a una diligencia, 96 jarabe, El, 94, 95, 96 juego de rayuela, El, 94, 95, 96 Vendedor de buñuelos, 18, 93, 93–94 similarity and difference. See difference slave, 24, 70 slavery, 70 social differentiation, 5 social observation, 4 social status, 4, 18, 21, 28, 34. See also class; hierarchy; race clothing and, 35 to elevate, 100 higher, 98, 113 reaffirm, 113, 124 sociofamilial, 5, 11 sociologists, cognitive, 57 socioracial, 11. See also class; popular types; types hierarchy, 5, 34, 41 sorpreza, La (Arrieta), 21, 22, 29, 85, 88 Spanishness (lo castizo), 40 Spectator (Addison and Steele), 63 Steele, Richard, 63 Steiner, Wendy, 7 stereotypes, 3, 9, 13, 28, 32, 57. See also casta; casta painting; costumbrismo; costumbrista; lower classes; popular types; race; racialized social spaces; typecasting; types Bhabha, Homi, 13 Nebel, Carl and Claudio Linati, 39, 44 studio, artist, 27–28, 33, 84, 108 photographic, 115–16, 120, 122, 124, 127 subaltern, 39, 124, 127 sumptuary laws, 67, 136 n. 20 Tamayo, Rufino, 131 tarjetas de visita, 9, 115–6, 124–7. See also carte de visite Tatler (Addison and Steele), 63 tavern, 90, 94. See also pulquería Tehuantepec, 35 Teniers the Younger, David, 26 tente en el aire y mulata, nace albarazado, De (Islas), 18

162 / index

Moriuchi book.indb 162

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Tertulia en una pulquería (Arrieta), 90, 91, 94 Thackeray, William M., 67 tipos populares, 4, 61, 127. See also popular types; types Tlachiquero (Pingret), 54, 56, 57 torero, 68, 74 tornaatrás (throwback), 7, 26–28 Torres Méndez, Ramón, 103 Tortilleras (Aubert), 122–24, 123, 126 Tortilleras (Nebel), 8, 40, 44, 45, 54, 71 Tortilleras (Linati), 34, 36, 37, 40, 44, 54, 122–23 Tovar, Pantaleón, 69 Toxqui, Áurea, 94–95 transculturation, 5, 32, 134 n. 5 Tratado del dibujo y la pintura (Gutiérrez), 104 traveler-artist, 3–4, 8, 31–59, 129. See also Linati, Claudio; Nebel, Carl; Pingret, Édouard; Rugendas, Johann Moritz Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 97–98 Mexican artists and, 83 photography, 117–18 poblana, 42–43, 74 traveler-writer, 8, 14, 16, 21 travel writing, 5 Traviès, Charles Joseph, 67 Triumph of Bacchus, The (Velázquez), 90, 113 Turner, J.M.W., 46 types, 34. See also china poblana; costumbrismo; costumbrista; female; mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los; popular types; ranchero; water carrier albums of, 61, 66–75 female, 40, 42, 105–12, 122 in harmony, 47 in literature, 61–79 in painting, 82–113 in photography, 115–27 racial and social, 3, 8, 13, 16, 29 typecasting, 4–6, 11, 13, 29, 124, 129. See also stereotypes and colonial gaze, 16 Unamuno, Miguel de, 4 universalism, 3 universality. See difference upper classes, 9, 12, 34, 71, 98, 112 Díaz Porfirio, 78 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 95–96 Paz, Octavio, 81

photography, 116, 122 Sanromán, Juliana and Josefa, 105–12 vagabond. See lépero Valle de México (Velasco), 104 Vasconcelos, José, 131 Vecellio, Cesare, 35 veil. See mantilla Velasco, José María, 83, 104 Velázquez, Diego, 90, 108, 113 Velázquez, Eugenio Lucas, 96 Velázquez Guadarrama, Angélica, 5, 106, 108, 111 Vendedor (Aubert), 120–21, 121, 122 Vendedora de frutas y vieja (Arrieta), 26 Vendedor de buñuelos (Serrano), 18, 93, 93–94 Vendedor de canastas (Charnay), 117–18, 119,120 Vendedor de ollas (Charnay), 117–18, 118,120 vendor, 20 food, 7, 16, 20–21, 26, 104 Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 49, 51 Serrano, Manuel, 94–95 in photography, 115–27 street, 66, 92, 112 Vermeer, Johannes, 111 Viaje a Veracruz en el invierno de 1843 (Payno), 84 Victoria, Guadalupe, 2, 33–34, 134 n. 8 Vigée Le Brun, Elisabeth, 108 Vilar, Manuel, 53 Virgin of Guadalupe, 6, 94 Voyage pittoresque au Brasil (Rugendas), 46 Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la partie la plus intéressante du Mexique (Nebel), 39–40 water carrier, 7, 14–17, 21, 29, 112. See also casta painting; Linati, Claudio; Pingret, Édouard; popular types; types españoles pintados por sí mismos, Los, 70–71, 72 Gutiérrez, Felipe Santiago, 97 mexicanos pintados por sí mismos, Los, 16, 70–72, 73, 74, 98 Museo Mexicano, El, 64 in photography, 116–19, 122, 125–27 Widdifield, Stacie, 5, 82, 103 Zamacois, Niceto de, 69 Zanardi, Tara, 40 Zavala, Adriana, 5, 90, 106 Zurbarán, Francisco de, 26

163 / index

Moriuchi book.indb 163

11/17/17 3:29 PM

Typeset by bessas & ackerman Printed and bound by pacom Composed in chaparral pro Printed on hansol matte art Bound in dong a

Moriuchi book.indb 164

11/17/17 3:29 PM