Pintores Viajeros

"PINTORES VIAJEROS", 1850s.
"Port of Mazatlan, Mexico".
Oil on canvas.
Size: 67 x 118 cm; 91,5 x 143 cm (frame).
Bibliography consulted: Arturo Aguilar Ochoa, "La influencia de los artistas viajeros en la litografía mexicana (1837-1849), Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, núm. 76, Universidad de las Américas, 2000, pp.113-141.
Within Latin American art, the mark and impact left by the so-called "travelling artists" on 19th-century Mexican painting is particularly noteworthy. These artists, mostly of English origin, came to Mexico after Independence in 1821, and were particularly interested in landscape painting - until then little known in Mexican art at the time - and archaeology. These artists produced a series of illustrations - generally of a lithographic nature - which subsequently spread throughout Mexico, Europe and the United States. Various factors influenced the spread of the paintings of the so-called "travelling artists" in Mexico, the most important of which was the lack of economic resources of the country's indigenous inhabitants, which prevented them from travelling to the centre of their own state, so that they only had the illustrations of these "travelling artists" at their disposal for their paintings. In fact, the so-called "travelling artists" were able to self-finance their large-scale expeditions to such an extent that their illustrations were published in low-budget Mexican magazines, which made use of this foreign material for their publications. This was compounded by the lack of training of Mexican lithographers. However, before being published, the travellers' works had to pass through the sieve of Mexican acceptance, as the foreigners' versions of the Mexican country were often considered false and slanderous, as they were considered to denigrate its people and culture. Similarly, not all foreign artists enjoyed the same popularity: according to Mexican scholar Arturo Aguilar Ochoa, "not all artists managed to filter their work into our homeland during these years. There are several of them who remained totally ignored, especially because they produced their works in techniques that lent themselves very little to large-scale dissemination, such as oil or watercolour, as well as taking them back to their countries of origin". In this way, a large number of outstanding "travelling artists" stood out in the Latin American country, the most popular names being those of the German scientist Baron Humboldt (1769-1859), Elizabeth Ward -wife of the ambassador to Mexico between 1825 and 1827-, Sir Henry George Ward, Sir Henry George Ward, Sir Henry George Ward, Sir Henry George Ward, and Sir Henry George Ward, that of Sir Henry George Ward, that of Federico de Waldeck (1766-1875), that of Carlos Nebel (1805-1855) and that of the Englishman Federico Catherwood (1799-1854), all of them known for their publications in important Mexican journals. Among the most outstanding works are Humboldt's "Viaje a las regiones equinocciales del nuevo continente..." and the view of the "Volcán de Jorullo", Elizabeth Ward's "Six Views of the Most Important Towns and Mininig Districts" or Federico Catherwood's "Incidents of Travel in Yucatan", among others.
On this occasion, we present a magnificent view of the Mexican port of Mazatlán in which the landscape and customs of the Latin American country are combined. Thus, the absolute protagonist is the imposing nature, both in the foreground with the presence of the port and the mountains that divide the composition, and in the very last shot, in which a mountain range can be glimpsed in the distance. Equally noteworthy are the figures dotted throughout the scene, from the foreground to as far as the eye can see, on the other side of the sea. The artist's interest in popular architecture is reflected in the special emphasis he places on each of the buildings in the port city, all characterised by their low height and neat white walls. The billowing sails of the ships, crowned with foreign flags, indicate the importance of the port of Mazatlán in Mexican trade, which has been an important economic infrastructure throughout history. The work, of exceptional quality, is bathed in a warm aura and a nuanced light that configures faint chromatic shifts of great beauty and lyricism in its execution.