Showing posts with label Santiago Rebull. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Santiago Rebull. Show all posts
Monday, February 24, 2020
From the Archives: An Interview with Alan Rojas Orzechowski About Maximilian's Court Painter, Santiago Rebull
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Monday, May 02, 2016
Notes on Artist Xavier González (1898-1993), "Moonlight Over the Chisos," and a Visit to Mexico City's Antigua Academia de San Carlos
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Curator Mary Bones gave me a fascinating interview about "The Lost Colony," which you can listen to here.)
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| [[ FAR WEST TEXAS ]] |
"MOONLIGHT OVER THE CHISOS," 1934
The artwork by Xavier González that most enchanted me was his magnificent "Moonlight Over the Chisos" of 1934. It was not in the show itself, however, but tucked into the top of the stairwell leading down to the museum's map collection-- not an ideal location, but no doubt one of the few available walls large enough to accommodate the massive 6 x 14 feet canvas.
"Moonlight Over the Chisos" is in the tradition of Mexican murals of the 1930s, although technically not a mural, as it is painted on canvas. (In no way do these two photos, snapped with my iPhone and pasted together with a screenshot, do this masterpiece justice. Alas, the painting is so large, I couldn't back up far enough to fit the whole of it into one shot.)
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(Dear reader, if you haven't hiked the Chisos, you have yet to live.)
XAVIER GONZÁLEZ IN MEXICO CITY (RESEARCH UNDERWAY...)
What also caught my attention was that González had studied art in Mexico City and precisely during the time of great muralists, among them, Diego Rivera. Mary Bones told me: "Xavier González spent many summers down in Mexico and Mexico City looking at the muralists."
Born in Almería, Spain in 1898, as a child Xavier González immigrated with his family to Mexico.
An important influence on his development as an artist was his maternal uncle, the academic painter José Arpa (1858-1952), a native of Spain who later divided his time between Mexico City and San Antonio-- and became a leading figure in the art community of the latter, running an art school out of the Witte Museum. According to the notes for "The Three Worlds of Jose Arpa y Perea" exhibition of 2015 from the website of the San Antonio Museum of Art, Arpa won the Rome Prize three times and had been offered the directorship of the Academia de San Carlos, but instead worked independently. In my notes from a visit to González's archive in the Smithsonian (box 4, unattributed article):
[José Arpa] received his early art training at the School of Fine Arts in Seville... His first success was in 1891, when his painting of Don Miguel de Manarra won first prize in the Madrid exhibition. Travels in Africa and Europe followed... the Spanish government sent for of his paintings to the first World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 as representative of the best of Spain.... shortly after that time the Mexican government sent a man-of-war to Spain and brought him to Mexico to assume charge of the academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City. He later declined the appointment, but remained for many years becoming enthralled with the light and color and movement of the country..."
At age thirteen (circa 1911) Xavier González was studying at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City. This was the same time that 15 year old David Siquieros, who was to became one of Mexico's greatest muralists, was also beginning his studies at San Carlos. (Did they take the same classes?)
In 1913 the violent stage Revolution intervened... I'm still a little foggy on the details of González's early life...
The Lost Colony catalog notes that González studied and worked as a mechanical engineer. In 1922 he was working in Iowa for a railroad. Later he studied at night and graduated from the Chicago Art Institute. In 1925, he was assisting his uncle José Arpa in his art school in San Antonio's Witte Museum and from 1927-29 he was teaching classes himself.
González became a US citizen in 1930 and the following year took a faculty position at Sophie Newcomb, the women's college now folded into Tulane University in New Orleans.
From "The Lost Colony" catalog:
"...much of the work was to be done en plein air with frequent trips to the Davis and Chisos Mountains"
> 1933 González in Paris, and also Mexico City (on a leave of absence from Sophie Newcomb College.)
> 1934-1939 González conducted sessions of the summer Art Colony.
> 1935 González married his student Ethel Edwards.
More about Xavier González:
> New York Times obituary;
> Texas State Historical Association;
> David Dike Gallery;
> Archives of American Art Xavier González papers --and also the papers of his wife, artist Ethel Edwards 1935-1999).
I hope to be able to dig into the archives at the Academia de San Carlos to find out when exactly González attended and with whom he studied. I am also curious to learn why his uncle José Arpa, after coming all the way from Spain, did not take the helm at the Academia de San Carlos.
A VISIT TO THE ANTIGUA ACADEMIA DE SAN CARLOS
(Not to be confused with the Museo San Carlos, different building, different neighborhood. Uyy, Mexico City is endlessly endless.)
Herewith a batch of notes, GIFs, photos and brief videos from my recent visit to the Antigua Academia de San Carlos which now serves as the National University (UNAM) campus for masters and doctoral degrees in the fine arts. Art history professor Dante Díaz Mendieta leads tours on the last Wednesday of each month. (For details scroll down to the end of this post.)
You'll find the Antigua Academia de San Carlos a short walk behind the National Palace, at the corner of Moneda and Academia Streets (Calle Moneda y Calle Academia). This GIF shows my approach from Moneda, the National Palace along the right, then the terracotta-colored neoclassic Italianate façade of the Academia de San Carlos.
(Sometimes blogger is glitchy with GIFs; if it doesn't work, just hit refresh in your browser).
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| [[APPROACHING THE ANTIGUA ACADEMIA SAN CARLOS FROM CALLE MONEDA]] |
The site of the Academia de San Carlos has been continually occupied for almost 500 years. The land once backed the Aztec emperor Moctezuma's palace, Casas Nuevas. After the Conquest the parcel became the property of the Church; the original building arose as a hospital specializing in syphilis patients.
Classes began in 1781 and the Academia de las Nobles Artes de San Carlos de la Nueva España, offering instruction in architecture, engraving, painting, and sculpture, was officially inaugurated in 1785.
The oldest fine arts academy in the Americas, San Carlos has been in almost continuous operation for 235 years. It closed in 1822, during the cash-strapped years of the First Empire, and not until 1843 did it reopen, when Santa Anna, in a moment of inspiration, joined it to the lottery which became known as the Lotería de San Carlos. According to the Mexican Lottery website (my translation):
The San Carlos Lottery utilized its income to acquire important artworks, provide scholarships for the Academia de San Carlos, and to bring important teachers to Mexico among them, the painter Pelegrín Clave, sculptor Manuel Vilar, landscape painter Eugenio Landesio and architect Javier Cavallari... Thanks to this lottery's economic success it was possible to address other large and urgent needs of the general population in a time of foreign invasions and civil wars that left in the country in circumstances of chronic poverty."
The dome was manufactured in France. Note the Art Nouveau ojos de buey or oval windows, also designed by Rivas Mercado for the section added to help support the dome's weight. Part of the tour included a jazz concert by Los Cuatro Saxofones (The Four Saxophones).
Antonio Rivas Mercado was one of the few Mexican architects favored with contracts for major national construction projects. But he was a French-trained architect, a follower of the Paris beaux-arts style, who had lived in London and Paris for many years." (p. 22)
Here is a much better video made by the university (about 7 minutes, in Spanish):
Winged Victory represents the goddess Nike. Most Mexicans, familiar with the American sports shoe brand, pronounce Nike to rhyme with bike. Professor Díaz Mendieta set his audience straight. In Spanish Nike is pronounced Nee-keh. She is the symbol of the Academia de San Carlos. The other 19th century plaster casts of iconic Greek and Renaissance sculptures, including Michelangelo's Moses and head of David, are not for decoration but for the students to copy.
This handsome gallery of walnut wood and gold leaf features a ceiling decorated with portraits of artists and scientists including Copernicus and Raphael. A few of the heads fell off during the 1985 earthquake. There was little light by this time, alas; the colors in this room are actually rich and brilliant.
And this is the Centennial Gallery, decorated in the then fashionable Frenchified festoonerie for the academy's 100th anniversary.
Voila, Weltschmerzerie and sparkly donuts:
Finally, here is a GIF of Professor Díaz Mendieta wrapping up the tour in the torreo or bullring, an original classroom. The torreo was used not for making art but teaching theory and history of art. No doubt Diego Rivera addressed students here, as did his professor, Santiago Rebull, and many more in a long list of Mexico's greatest artists.
Finally, here is a GIF of Professor Díaz Mendieta wrapping up the tour in the torreo or bullring, an original classroom. The torreo was used not for making art but teaching theory and history of art. No doubt Diego Rivera addressed students here, as did his professor, Santiago Rebull, and many more in a long list of Mexico's greatest artists.
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| [[ PROFESSOR DANTE DIAZ MENDIETA IN EL TORREO, OR THE BULLRING, THE CLASSROOM AT THE ANTIGUA ACADEMIA DE SAN CARLOS ]] |
The desks are notably narrower than in classrooms today. The room (was it windowless?) felt a smidge creepy.
SIDEBAR (FROM ONE VERY MACHO MUNDO):
A FEW OF THE NOTABLE ARTISTS OF THE ACADEMIA DE SAN CARLOS, BY DATE OF BIRTH
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| [[MANUEL TOLSA, AN ARCHITECT AND SCULPTOR WHO MERITS AT LEAST 378 BLOG POSTS]] |
Santiago Rebull (1829-1902)
José María Velasco (1840-1912)
Antonio Rivas Mercado (1853-1927)
Jesús Fructuoso Contreras (1866-1902)
Dr. Atl (Gerardo Murillo) (1875-1964)
José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949)
Diego Rivera (1886-1957)
Saturnino Herrán (1887-1918)
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| [[ SANTIAGO REBULL, MAXIMILIAN'S COURT PAINTER; LATER ONE OF DIEGO RIVERA'S PROFESSORS AT THE ACADEMIA DE SAN CARLOS ]] |
Xavier González (1898-1993)
Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991)
¿FANTASMAS?
POR SUPUESTO, AMIGOS
The great glass dome had gone dark when Professor Díaz Mendieta concluded on the wicked note that of course there are ghosts in here: a little girl who laughs; loud knocks; and, as the nightwatchman swears, on occasion in the wee hours of the night, moving from one side of the entrance foyer and disappearing into the opposite wall, a procession of monks holding torchlights.
Recently the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) conducted an excavation that turned up 17 bodies. Presumably these were not of art students but syphilis patients of the 18th, 17th, or even 16th century.
¿Y LA FRIDA?
It's impossible to talk about Mexican artists without mentioning Frida Kahlo. No, Professor Díaz Mendieta answered the question, Frida did not take classes at the Academia de San Carlos; at that time it was for men only, but Frida hung out here (andaba aquí) with her sweetheart, Diego Rivera.
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| [[ DIEGO RIVERA AND FRIDA KAHLO ]] |
In a future blog post I will talking about González's wife Ethel Edwards; also about noted Texas regionalist painter Julius Woeltz (1911-1956), a student of González's who taught at the summer art colony at Sul Ross and who accompanied González on some of his trips to paint in Mexico City in 1934 and 1935. (Woeltz also served as best man at González's wedding.) I hope to also unearth more about Woeltz in the archives of the Academia de San Carlos. Stay tuned. Curator Mary Bones also talks about these and many other artists of the "Lost Colony" in my "Marfa Mondays" podcast interview. Again, that recording and transcript are available free here.
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On the last Wednesday of every month, at 7 PM, UNAM art history professor Dante Díaz Mendieta offers a free tour, no reservations required. (In Spanish, of course.) Check for updates on the Facebook pages "Difusion San Carlos" or "GestionCulturalSanCarlos" or call tel. 5522-0630 ext 228.
A tour of the Academia de San Carlos is also included in the annual Festival del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México. The 2016 Festival concluded in March; look for it again in 2017.
Your comments are always welcome.
And I invite you to sign up for my every other monthly-ish newsletter.
There will be podcasts. And there will be more about Xavier González.
Monday, February 02, 2015
An Interview with Mexican Historian Alan Rojas Orzechowski about Painter Santiago Rebull, "One of the Most Creative Minds of the Academic Movement"
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He was Maximilian's Court Painter, a leading figure in 19th century Mexican painting, and one of the important influences on Diego Rivera, yet few people have heard of Santiago Rebull— until now.
He was Maximilian's Court Painter, a leading figure in 19th century Mexican painting, and one of the important influences on Diego Rivera, yet few people have heard of Santiago Rebull— until now.
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| Santiago Rebull: The Outlines of a Story at the Museum of the Diego Rivera Mural in Mexico City Through February 15, 2015 |
If you're anywhere near Mexico City, make the effort to come in and visit the Santiago Rebull show at the Museo Mural Diego Rivera. >>More information here.<< For those aficionados of the history of the French Intervention, and in particular the brief reign of Maximilian von Habsburg as Emperor of Mexico, this is an especially important show not to miss, for Rebull was Maximilian's Court Painter and, interestingly, one of the few individuals close to the monarchy who managed to remain in Mexico and even thrive in subsequent decades under the Republic.
Herewith, my interview with the show's curator, Mexican historian Alan Rojas Orzechowski.
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Santiago Rebull
Self-portrait, 1852
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C.M. MAYO: What gave you the idea for the show?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The exhibition Santiago Rebull: Los contornos de una historia (Santiago Rebull: The Outlines of a Story) presented in the Museo Mural Diego Rivera is our own way to pay homage to one of the most creative minds of the Academic Movement in Mexico, an illustrious painter and educator who molded the minds of pupils such as Roberto Montenegro, Ángel Zárraga and Diego Rivera.
As an outstanding teacher, he taught Diego Rivera as a young student in the San Carlos Academy of Arts. Rivera in return, always considered him as a mentor and guide, respecting him as both, as an instructor and fellow artist. Exploiting this connection, the Museo Mural Diego Rivera and external curator Magaly Hernández, thought suitable to present an exhibition which honored Rebull´s artwork, underlining his influence on Rivera and his generation.
CMM: How did Santiago Rebull, so close to Maximilian, manage to remain in Mexico and continue working as a successful artist for decades afterwards?
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Santiago Rebull
La muerte de Marat, 1875
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ARO: I personally think that it was his undeniable talent as an artist which enabled him to continue teaching in San Carlos Academy during three more decades. In the immediate years after Maximilian's fall he did receive severe reproaches from fellow artists and local newspapers as a monarchist and “afrancesado” (pro-French), but he carried on painting members of the political, economic and cultural elite. As a testament of this, the portraits of Presidents Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz are shown in the exhibition. Both pieces are dated in the 1870s, less than a decade after the monarch´s disgrace.
He retained his position as a teacher in San Carlos and also imparted drawing lessons to female pupils in the Colegio de Vizcaínas which was the only female and secular school in Mexico throughout the XVIII and XIX centuries. Along with his academic career, he remained a prolific painter, authoring remarkable pieces such as La muerte de Marat (Marat's Death) and several portraits.
CMM: What has been the reaction from art historians and historians of the Second Empire?
ARO: The Academic reaction towards the Second Empire, from both, historians and art historians, has changed through time. During the first half of the XX Century, the posture was very much aligned to the official history, characterized by a nationalist stance in which Maximilian was portrayed as an invader and many of his actions as an imposition to Mexicans. Nevertheless, this has shifted to a fascination for both, Maximilian and Charlotte, partly thanks to literature. Examples of this are the book Noticias del Imperio (News from the Empire) by Fernando del Paso or The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by C.M. Mayo.
Historians have now a much more benevolent gaze to the Second Empire, emphasizing on Maximilian's liberal measures that assisted the indigenous groups and regulated Ecclesiastic influence on civilians—which certainly made him unpopular with his original supporters.
Art historians tend to be cautious with their judgments, stressing the continuity on San Carlos Academy trough its curriculum, academic cluster and board, all of them dramatically modified with the Republic's restoration. For instance, Eduardo Báez Macías, in his volume History of the National School of Fine Arts (Old San Carlos Academy), mentions Maximilian's patronizing attitude towards Mexican art, believing it to be provincial to what he was used to in Europe.
My personal view is the opposite. Maximilian was a very intelligent ruler, he was aware of the necessity of his government's legitimacy, and knew that the main way to achieved it was through art and Court protocol. In the first case, he arose from the liberal vs. conservative's discussion over national heroes and entrusted several talented young artists to create a portrait gallery of the libertadores, including characters such as Hidalgo and Iturbide along. Also, in several Imperial projects he preferred to employ talented Mexican students over well-known established European teachers as Eugenio Landesio or Pelegrín Clavé.
CMM: Which of all the 68 pieces do you consider the most essential for understanding Rebull and his place in Mexican art?
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| Santiago RebullLa muerte de Abel, 1851 |
ARO: Santiago Rebull is one of the most relevant XIX century painters in Mexico's history. He is a fundamental artist of the Academicism generation, and keystone to understanding the shift in the Art Scene towards the Vanguards and the Mexican Painting School of XX century, since he was an inexhaustible teacher to many of its participants.
One of Santiago Rebull's anchor pieces is La muerte de Abel (Abel's Death). It was painted in 1851 and earned him a scholarship to travel to Rome. He there attended the San Lucas Academy, a conservative catholic art school that followed the principles of the Nazarene Movement, specially influenced by the German painter Johann Friedrich Overbeck.
Rebull studied under the guidance of Academic artist Thomaso Consoni, who molded and perfected his technique through a careful series of exercises consisting on copying masterpieces from Renaissance maestros.
Therefore, La muerte de Abel best represents the Academic ideals of trace, color use and proportions so faithfully followed by Rebull.
CMM: Was it difficult to find these 68 pieces, and were there any you couldn’t get for the show that you wish you had?
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Santiago Rebull
El sacrificio de Isaac, 1859
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ARO: Unfortunately there was a piece we were unable to obtain, El sacrificio de Isaac (Isaac's Sacrifice) painted in 1858 during his sojourn in Italy and displayed in the Centennial Exposition of Philadelphia and later shown in New Orleans. The image is almost 118 inches tall and it’s a flawless sample of Rebull´s work during this formative voyage under Consoni's guidance. Alas, it was a crucial piece in the National Museum of Art (MUNAL), therefore, they were unable to lend it.
It was relatively unproblematic to secure the greater part of the assortment since it belongs to the painter's descendants, most of them eager to promote their ancestor's work. The rest of the pieces were graciously provided by significant institutions such as the San Carlos Academy, the National Museum of Art and the Colegio de Vizcaínas.
CMM: Was the museum at Il Castillo di Miramar involved in any way? (The original of Rebull's portrait of the Emperor Maximilian was sent there, is that right?)
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Joaquín Ramírez
Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I, ca. 1866.
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ARO: The original full length portrait of Maximilian was painted by Santiago Rebull in 1865. The Emperor took such pleasure on it that resulted on the appointment of Rebull as court painter; he was also awarded the Order of Guadalupe, the Empire's uppermost honor.
The monarch relocated the painting in Miramar Castle in Trieste, Italy that same year. Nonetheless he commissioned Joaquín Ramírez, another Academic painter to produce an exact copy of his portrait. Currently, the latter is part of the National Institute of Fine Arts collection and it's shown at Chapultepec Castle. We exhibit a contemporary reproduction of the Ramírez painting.
CMM: The decorative bacchantes that Rebull painted for Chapultepec Castle-- were these Maximilian's idea or the artist's? What do you think was the message of such decorative paintings?
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Santiago Rebull
Bacante para la terraza
del Alcázar de Chapultepec, 1894.
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ARO: The decorative bacchantes of Miravalle (Chapultepec) Castle were the Emperor's idea but Rebull only painted four of them during Maximilian's reign since the remaining two were created later, during President Porfirio Díaz administration when he occupied the castle as his summer residence.
The message behind the bacchantes is clear: the ideal of graciousness that courtesan life implied. Maximilian was convinced that through art and elaborate court rituals his regime would gain the legitimacy and acceptance of Mexican elites. The creation of new titles, honors and reinstated old colonial titles were strategies followed by the sovereign. Thus, art and protocol were undeniably intertwined in the imperial residences. In the words of art historian Justino Fernández “Rebull planned six bacchantes figures […] the romanticism of the epoch finds here one of its classical expressions, these women, or better said, demigoddesses, highly idealized, wear the magnificence of their figure, in a movement attitude.” *
*Justino Fernández. El arte del siglo XIX en México, Mexico, Imprenta Universitaria, 1967, p. 77.
CMM: What do you consider Rebull's most essential achievements as an artist?
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Santiago Rebull
Portrait of Porfirio Díaz,
1872
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ARO: His personal career is bound to the history of San Carlos Academy; we may consider him as a founding painter of Mexican art of the first decades of independence, when the elite and middle classes were shaping an identity of their own, which they found in the expressions of Academicism and Neoclassic Art.
He perfected his education with the European sojourn—not remaining solely in Rome, but traveling extensively through Spain—and returned with a refined paintbrush imbibed by Purism and Nazarene precepts. The preparative drawings are a testament of Rebull´s expertise of trace and copying, the two cornerstone of a XIX century Academic education.
Upon his return he grew as a prolific portraitist, the most important being that of Emperor Maximilian. But his talent was enjoyed not only by royals; both Presidents Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz were also depicted by the artist. The latter, is embodied as a young aspiring president, unlike later representations where an elderly and heavily ornamented military men is shown. Furthermore, common and quotidian characters were also portrayed by him.
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Santiago Rebull
Portrait of an unknown man, undated
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CMM: Why is the show in the Museo de Diego Rivera? Can you talk a little about Rebull's influence on Diego Rivera?
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Santiago Rebull
Profeta Elymar, 1853
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Diego Rivera
Cabeza masculina, 1900
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ARO: Since the Museo Mural Diego Rivera has the commitment of preserving Diego Rivera's legacy, promoting the artistic expressions created during the XX century and especially those influenced by Rivera himself, we thought there was a great breach with his predecessors. Who were they? Who particularly influenced him?
Rivera was educated at the San Carlos Academy of Arts in Mexico City where he was an accomplished student, tutored by the great artists of the XIX century Academic movement. He received a refined instruction from painters such as José Salomé Pina, José María Velasco and Santiago Rebull. Diego always felt in debt towards the latter, recognizing him as his mentor.
(includes a painting by Rebull)
(does not include anything by Rebull, but it's in there!)
My novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire
and in Spanish (translated by Agustin Cadena)
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