Mexican Muralists | Diego Rivera´s Murals in the National Palace, Part I: "History of Mexico"

Confronting the Daunting National Palace

We admit it. Although we initiated our Ambles around the City in the Zócalo, the huge plaza in Centro Histórico that is the heart of Mexico City, we have stayed away from the National Palace dominating its east side. Similarly, we had stayed away from the Metropolitan Cathedral, on its north side, until we were able to come to terms with, and write about Mexican Baroque architecture, of which the inside of the Cathedral is the quintessential example.

Like the Cathedral, the National Palace is intimidating in its grandeza, grandeur, and off-putting because of its associations with the history of Mexican authoritarian governments. The fact that this symbolic center of Mexican democracy is called a palace is indicative of the paradox of Mexican government: is it, or is it not, a democracy?

The Palace—first of Cortés, then the Spanish Viceroy,
then of the Mexican government—has been
rebuilt and expanded many times over nearly 500 years.
The third story was added in the 1920s, after the Mexican Revolution. 

Nevertheless, as we were recently publishing some posts on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo borrowed from our spouse, Jane's "Jenny's Journal of Mexican Culture", we decided it was time to cross the threshold into the Palace to see Rivera's mural of the History of Mexico. We had also read that one could see through a window on the floor a part of what was once the private prayer room of Moctezuma the Younger in what had been his "New Houses". After destroying the house of Moctezuma, Cortés built the Palace on that site.

At the Center of Mexico's Heart, Tranquility

Visitors to the Palace enter via a side door on the north side, on Moneda (Coin) Street (the former mint was just behind the Palace). We had often glimpsed the inner courtyard as we passed by on our way to other destinations in East Centro. It looked inviting. When we finally enter, we find a beautifully landscaped, tranquil garden, an oasis in the very center of the City's bullicio, hubbub.

Inner courtyard,
in the rear of the Palace.

Formal, front courtyard,
used for Presidential speeches and other formal events.
Rivera murals are in the stairwell from this courtyard and on the second floor.

Diego Rivera's Vision of Mexico's Complex and Complicated History

The History of Mexico
by Diego Rivera
1929 to 1935

Our initial reaction is one of being visually and mentally overwhelmed.
There are a huge number of figures, all apparently jumbled together,
with no obvious organization.

Then we notice five arches overhead. Looking more closely,
we see that within each are group portraits of various people,
apparently in 19th century dress, recent Mexian history at Rivera´s time.

Below these five groups, across the middle of the mural,
we realize there are a series of scenes of Spanish colonial life.

At the bottom, within a triangle, is a portrayal of the Spanish Conquest.

So, to "read" the mural and grasp Rivera's vision
of Mexico's compleja y complicada, complex and complicated, history,
we must start at the bottom, and move upward. 

Part I: The Violent Spanish Conquest (1519-21)

The Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs/Mexicas

The History begins in the bottom, triangular space.
It portrays the Spanish attacks on indigenous warriors.
This section of the mural also requires visually separating it into parts in order to truly "see" it, i.e., take in and experience it in a comprehensible manner.

Starting from the left, we see Spanish soldiers and some of their indigenous allies
attacking Jaguar Warriors, an elite Aztec/Mexica corps. 

Middle portion of the Conquest section of the mural.

We are viscerally struck by the military and cultural differences
between the Spanish cavalry and indigenous warriors in symbolic garb. 

Right-hand portion of the Conquest section.
Rivera pulls no punches in portraying the violence of the Conquest.

Part II: Life in Spanish Colonial New Spain (1521-1823)

"Reading" from the left, across the middle band
we see portrayals of Colonial Nueva España, New Spain.

At left, an indigenous man is branded as a slave.
At right, the Franciscan Diego de Landa Calderón burns Mayan books in the Yucatán.
Above them, indigenous workers build Nueva España, New Spain, for the Spanish.

Next, under a canopy, the Viceroy and the Archbishop
oversee autos de fe, trials and executions of supposed heretics,
i.e., persons not maintaining the Catholic Faith.

In the fourth scene (we'll return to the third shortly),
Spanish friars carry out the conversion and baptism of the indigenous peoples,
the so-called Spiritual Conquest whose vestiges we have been exploring in many posts
on the Original Indigenous Villages of Mexico City.

In the fifth scene, indigenous men labor as virtual slaves in the mines.
Mexican silver financed the expansion of Spanish power in Europe.

In the third, middle, scene, at the center of the grand mural,
Father Miguel Hidalgo, proclaims the War for Independence from Spain.

Immediately to the left of Hidalgo is Ignacio Allende (in Spanish Army uniform);
to the right is Jose María Morelos, who took leadership of the rebellion
after Hidalgo and Allende were captured and executed.

Far left, with red crown, is Agustín Iturbide,
Spanish Army general who joined the almost elimnated rebels in 1821,
defeated the Spanish, and had himself declared Emperor of Mexico.

To the right of Iturbide is Guadelupe Victoria
 (in red vest, holding the Mexican flag),
a rebel who, after Iturbide was deposed, became the first President of Mexico.

The other figures are other persons who played roles in the War,
but their identification is beyond us.

Part III: Mexico of the 19th and early 20th Centuries

The top row of the mural, under the arches, portrays scenes from 19th and 20th century Mexican history, primarily one of foreign army interventions (the U.S. and France), and civil wars between wealthy conservatives—supporting the privileges and powers of the Army and the Catholic Church—and liberals seeking a democratic, egalitarian government (the mid-19th century War of Reform and the early 20th century Mexican Revolution). For some reason, Rivera did not not present them in chronological order. He placed the Mexican Revolution at the center, above the War for Independence.  We present them in historical order, to make the story more comprehensible to extranjeros, foreigners. 

Defense of Chapultepec Castle
from U.S. forces in 1847
during the War of the U.S. Intervention (aka Mexican-American War in the U.S.).
It is the American eagle arriving, holding arrows in its claws.

The fall of the castle, which served as the military academy,
was the last battle in the U.S. capture of Mexico City.
President James Polk intitiated the war to gain California from Mexico,
which had refused to sell it. 
So, losing the war, Mexico's was forced to surrender half of its territory,
virtually all of the currnent U.S. Southwest and west. 

Benito Juárez and the Laws of Reform

Conservative President Santa Ana, 
a Spanish Army general who had joined Iturbide to win the War of Independence,
but then joined the rebellion to overthrowm him as Emperor,
had been president several times since 1833. 
He had lost Texas in 1836 and the War of the U.S. Intervention in 1847,
and had gone into exile abroad each time.
Nevertheless, he was called back from exile by conservatives 
to be president once again in 1853 to oppose a liberal uprising.

In 1855, liberal forces succeeded in deposing him. 
They established a new government and issued a series of Laws of Reform, 
mostly written by Benito Juárez, a lawyer and President of the Supreme Court
 ( the moreno, dark-skinned Zapotec indigenous man, holding laws in his hand). 
These laws took autonomous power from the Army and property from the Catholic Church.
(Note fat friar, Army general and Bishop, and others with their hands in the kitty.)

In 1857, conservative generals, in turn, overthrew the liberal govenment. 
Upon the surrender of liberal president, Ignacio Comonfort, Juárez became president.
He took the government to various cities in Mexico 
and engaged in the War of Reform (1857-61).
Defeating the conservatives at the end of 1860, Juárez and his government
returned to Mexico City on Jan. 1, 1861.

Figures on each side of Juárez are other persons in the Reform Period (1855-1876).

The French Intervention
1861-1867

In reaction to the liberal victory in the War of Reform, 
conservatives went to Emperor Napoleon III of France 
and asked that he select some European royal to become Emperor of Mexico.
Prince Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph of Austria, younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I,
accepted Napoleon's offer and came to Mexico to become Emperor Maximillian I.

The liberals, led by Juárez, waged war against him. 
In 1866, Napoleon, under pressure from the U.S. and others factors in Europe,
 withdrew French troops, leaving Maximillian with only the support of 
conservative Mexican generals and their troops.
The next year, in mid-May 1867, Maximilian
(red-haired, bearded figure, far right) was captured and executed a month later.
.
Mexican conservative Generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía were executed with him.
The fleeing eagle is evidently that of the Austrian Empire.

Mexican Revolution (1910-1917)

President and dictator Porfirio Díaz (1876-1911), 
(at left, in military uniform, many medals and presidential sash)
was overthrown by forces led by Francisco Madero 
(light-skinned, bearded man, wearing presidential sash, right of center).
Madero was overthrown and assassinated in Feb. 1913, by Victoriano Huerta
(military figure, at right of Díaz, wearing presidential sash).
  
Then, Venustiano Carranza (white-bearded figure, wearing presidential sash, lower right), 
Pancho Villa (dark-skinned figure in sombrero behind Carranza), and
Emiliano Zapata (mustached figure in sombrero, upper right)
waged war to overthrow Huerta in 1914.
Carranza subsequently fought and defeated Villa and Zapata, 
becoming President in 1917, and ending the formal series of wars. 

Mexican Revolution and Beyond

In 1920, Carranza was overthrown and assassinated by his former general, Álvaro Obregón, 
because Carranza overlooked him in choosing a successor.
In 1924, Plutarco Calles (far left figure holding eagle standard) became president. 
After the assassination of Obregón, who had been reelected president in 1928, 
Calles maintained power as "chief boss."
In 1934, Lázaro Cárdenas (at right of Calles, wearing presidential sash) 
became president and sent Calles into exile. 

The mural was finished in 1935, just after Cárdenas took power.
He was seen as a liberal, even socialist, 
who implemented many of the labor and land reforms sought by the Revolution
and written into the new Constitution of 1917, but not carried out.
In back,
Emiliano Zapata (killed by agents of Carranza in 1919) and an
industrial worker in blue overalls, hold the banner "Land and Liberty".

This represents Rivera's hope for a true, communist revolution,
such as he portrayed in his mural, "Ballad of the Revolution"
in the Secretariat of Education.

Rivera's Vision of a True, Marxist-Communist Revolution

The Mexican Revolution was a very ambiguous series of conflicts between los de abajo, those from below (represented by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata) and los de arriba, those from above, represented by Carranza). The outcome was, likewise, ambiguous. Carranza became president, but was forced to accept a Constitution that included a list of "rights", such as to work and an education, sought by the popular forces. Much power, however, was given to the president, such that, despite a Congress and a Supreme Court, he could essentially ignore the liberal articles of the Constitution. 

Like many other Mexican artists and intellectuals, Rivera was a communist and was disappointed by the authoritarian path the post-revolution government was taking. (In 1936, he painted a mural entitled "The Dictator", in which he portrayed Calles as a Fascist; the mural is now in Bellas Artes.) He continued to hope for a real revolution of the agrarian and working class that would overthrow the capitalist powers. As he had done in his "Ballad of the Revolution", here in the National Palace, the very seat of government, in the stairway to the left of The History of Mexico, he also painted a vision of that hope.

A Strike,
like one that actually occurred in the Cananea copper mine,
in the northern state of Sonora, in 1906.
The mine was owned by a U.S. company,
and the strike was suppressed by Mexican soldiers
and volunteer "rangers" from Arizona.
The men who have been hung are labeled
"anarchist" and "communist".

Call for a Communist Revolution of Workers (hammer) and Farmers (sickle),
suppressed by soldiers wearing gas masks (like those used in World War I)

Corrupt, immoral Capitalist Class,
focused entirely on money (scrutinizing stock market ticker tape, upper left).
Note the priest, engaged with a prostitute, at left.

Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto
(at very top of mural).

"All of the history of human society, up to today,
is a history of the struggle of the classes.
For us, it doesn't have to do precisely
with transforming private property,
but to abolish it.
It doesn't have to do
with blurring the differences between the classes,
but of their destruction.
It doesn't have to do
with reforming the present society,
but of forming a new one."
Karl Marx

Needless to say, Rivera's vision was never realized in Mexico. Led by Calles and then Cárdenas, the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) (an oxymoron of a name) consolidated power into a one-party political system, not unlike what also actually happened in Russia. This system lasted until 2000, when Vicente Fox of the National Action Party won the presidency. However, the PRI returned to power in 2012, led by Enrique Peña Nieto. The mixture of democratic forms with authoritarian ways of operating, which goes all the way back to the beginning of an independent Mexico, is ongoing.

Mexican Muralists | David Siqueiros, Part III - His First, Unfinished Mural Forshadows His Later Work

David Alfaro Siqueiros
1896-1974

Siqueiros | Twentieth Century Odysseus

In our first post on David Siqueiros, we wrote that in the early 1920s, after the Mexican Revolution, he took part with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco in creating the first works of the Mexican Mural Movement in the National Preparatory School (formerly the Jesuit College of San Ildefonso), but that he did not finish the mural he began there.

In 1925, after the election of Plutarco Calles as President, replacing Álvaro Obregón, José Vasconcelos—the Secretary of Education who had sponsored the artists' work and who had wanted to become president—was replaced in his post. The painters were dismissed. Siqueiros went to Guadalajara, where he could find work because he knew people from his participation there in the war.

His artistic and political passions then led him, over the intervening years, to Russia, South America, the United States and active duty in the Spanish Civil War. Whenever he returned to Mexico City, he would become active in the Communist Party and get jailed for various acts of protest. As a result, he was not to leave his own visible artistic mark on the city until the 1940's. (See our page: David Siqueiros: Twentieth Century Odysseus)

Returning to a Beginning

At the time we wrote the post, we had read that Siqueiros' first work, in San Ildefonso, was not accessible to the public, as it was in a "back stairwell" in an unoccupied part of the building. Subsequently, while visiting San Ildefonso to show its murals to friends, we learned that that part of the building was now the Museum of Light, under the direction of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), as is the main San Ildefonso Museum. But at that point, we had moved on to other topics in our Ambles, so we did not pursue visiting the Museum of Light.

Recently, we were able to redress that omission. While visiting Centro to explore another episode in the Mexican Mural Movement previously unknown to us (and which we will be writing about), we realized that we were very close to San Ildefonso, so after completing our new investigation, we went to the Musuem of Light, not knowing whether it would lead us to the Siqueiros mural that lay somewhere within. 

Third, east, patio of San Ildefonso,
now the Museum of Light

In the entry passageway, we ask the ticket taker if the Siqueiros mural is accessible. She replies, "Yes, if you buy a ticket. It's in the stairwell." We happily and excitedly pay the few pesos charged for admission and head into the patio to find the stairwell.

As soon as we start up stairs, we are confronted by the first sign of Siqueiros' presence hanging above our heads.

The bold color and forceful figure speak at once of the artist's eye and hand. Continuing upward, we then meet Siqueiros' artistic and ideological vision in full force.

Painted on the stairwell ceiling

A very human, very muscular winged goddess, traditionally of Victory, foreshadows Siqueiros' post-World War II mural entitled 'Democracy', in Bellas Artes. We have read that the artist referred to it as The Elements. To us it is a direct expression of his life-long focus on liberation of the suppressed underclasses.

Democracy breaks the chains of Fascism
Bellas Artes

We turn the corner of the stairwell and look up.

Mural at the top of the stairwell

We are definitely puzzled by the composition above us but not surprised, given that we have seen Siqueiros' final work, the Cultural Polyforum, completed nearly fifty years later, in 1971. Here in San Ildefonso, he first undertook the challenge of using a three-dimensional space to surround his viewer with his vision. His March of Humanity, in the Polyforum, is the culmination that effort.

Section of March of Humanity Toward the Democratic, Bourgeois Revolution,
Siqueiros Cultural Polyforum

So we try to decipher the various components. Fortunately, a small plaque on the wall helps us.

David Alfaro Siqueiros
The Call to Liberty
The Myths
The Burial of the Sacrificed Worker

Two themes are certainly central to the artist's lifetime work: Liberty and the oppression of Workers. We will try to figure out what the "Myths" might be.

The Call to Liberty

The Call to Liberty

In the right-hand corner of the stairwell's left wall, the figures in the Call to Liberty are hard to make out due to the low light and the viewing angle. However, the forceful nude male figure, with his large, strong arms and legs, holding a child in one hand and a pole in the other, although flatter and more static, is certainly the forefather of later males created by the artist.

Victim of Fascism
Bellas Artes, 1944

Two unfinished portraits stand to the side of the male figure. What their relationship is to the Call to Liberty isn't evident, but they are nonetheless interesting portraits.

             

The two portraits are markedly different in style: one is a face of fine lines, narrow width, wide eyes and relatively light skin; the other of thick lines, round-faced, somewhat veiled eyes and darker skin. Whether Siqueiros intended a reference to racial and social differences in Mexico (our hunch), or was just experimenting with styles remains a mystery.

The Burial of the Sacrificed Worker

The right wall of the composition also presents a puzzle, at least on initial viewing.

Three men hold an iridescent blue object. The image is far above the viewer and in low light, so we can´t make out the nature of the object. The title should have been clue enough, but it takes our later blowing up and lightening up of our photo to see: it is a coffin. On the top, barely visible, are a hammer and sickle, symbols of laborers and farmers, and their alliance via Communism. Siqueiros makes no secret of his political beliefs and revolutionary passions. 

We are also struck by the artist's use of cerulean blue. It was used extensively by José Clemente Orozco (San Ildefonso, third floor) in his paintings of ordinary Mexicans in the midst of revolutionary chaos, evidently to express a still-existing hope. But we haven't seen it used by Siqueiros in any of his other works, which are dominated by aggressive red and black. 

In the right-hand corner stand a woman and man painted in Siqueiros' favorite red. The woman holds one hand erect, in an apparent gesture of defiance. In the other, she holds broken chains, the symbol of liberation from oppression. 

In the middle of the wall is a single portrait, powerful in its directness and simplicity. The portrait is of a man—by his features clearly an indigenous Mexican campesino, traditional peasant farmer. We wonder what Siqueiros might have had in mind for the rest of this empty middle section.

The Myths

We now turn to try to decipher The Myths section of the mural on the center wall. 

Two large human figures and one small one seem to float at the top. At the bottom, two other figures lie on their backs, mouths agape. In between the two windows is Siqueiros' clear profession of faith, the Hammer and Sickle, symbols of the uniting of laborers and farmers via the Communist vision (myth?) of liberation from capitalist domination. 

The left-hand figure is clearly a king, now deposed, lying helpless on his back. The right-hand figure is another puzzle. From the heavy, dark features he would appear to be indigenous, but why is he then overthrown like the king? The covering on his head may be a hint. Its tan color reminds us of the battle attire of the jaguar warriors of Aztec/Mexica fame who, together with eagle warriors, were the elite soldiers protecting the empire and those who ruled it—the tlatoanis like Moctezuma the Younger and Cuhuatémoc, who were defeated by Cortés. 

If our interpretation is correct, the artist is depicting the overthrow of two empires, the indigenous and, later, the Spanish. 

Floating above are three figures. On the right is a morena, dark-skinned, woman, clothed in cerulean blue. Her arms are folded as if she were holding an infant; on closer inspection, she is evidently wearing a halo. Is she Siqueiros' image of the Virgin of Guadalupe—that synthesis of Spanish Catholicism and indigenous identity that is literally the vision (or myth for non-believers) that unites Mexicans from both sides of the Conquest?  

The image may also refect the Virgin's counterpart in Mexican "mythology"—one who elicits great ambivalence from Mexicans, Malinche. She was the indigenous woman who served as Cortés' translator, thereby betraying her indigenous world by opening its door to its conquistadores. In counterpoint, by bearing Cortés' child, she began the "mestization", the mixing of indigenous and Spanish blood that resulted in the Mexican people. If the woman is seen as Malinche, then we know the meaning of the child floating between the woman and the naked, face-down indigenous man on the left side. As such, he is not a vision (or myth) of hope.

We are reminded of José Clemente Orozoco's much more direct and, therefore, more powerful representation of this conflict between and mergers of races, of peoples from the opposite side of an ocean. It lives in another stairwell in San Ildefonso.

Cortés and Malinche
By José Clemente Orozco
San Ildefonso

We are also reminded that Siqueiros took up this primal Mexican theme (myth) at the end of his artistic life, at the Polyforum.

The Mestizaje,
The Interbreeding
Here the Spaniard is naked, exposed,
like the Cortés of Orozco.
One of the huge outdoor murals
at the Siqueiros Cultural Polyforum.

As for the row of steel bits filling the ceiling, that is another puzzle for us. Given the Communist frame of reference, perhaps Siqueiros was alluding to the industrial, capitalist economy and the related concentration of power that exploited and suppressed workers.

Fragmentary Hints of Siqueiros' Later Art

So, in another, previously inaccessible part of the ex-Colegio San Ildefonso—what in the 1920s was Mexico's first government-run high school—we gain a fragmentary glimpse of the artistic and revolutionary vision and the graphic style and palette of David Alfaro Siqueiros. All the aspects of his later works are foreshadowed here: bold, molded muscular figures projecting towards the viewer; predominant colors of red and black; themes of liberation of the common folk from oppression by those in power; and the attempt to master a three-dimensional space in order to surround his audience with this vision. 

We leave very satisfied that we have finally been able to see this first work of the master. We have a feeling that we have come full circle in our encounters with Siqueiros' tumultous life and dramatic works, connecting the later flowering with the first sprouts. And we are grateful to UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) for the opening of the Museum of Light in this previously neglected but grand space, making possible this encounter and fulfillment.

More about how the Museum of Light came to be in San Ildefonso will be shared in a subsequent post, which will also focus on an obscured beginning of the Mexican Mural Movement.

A "General Store" Display of 20th Century Mexico: Carlos Monsiváis's "Corner Store" Musuem

Time for a Change

Exploring history via cityscape, and vice versa

For the past two years Mexico City Ambles has been exploring the City. As our ambles evolved, it became apparent that in exploring this urban space, we were also exploring time, the city's history. The Spanish Colonial Ciudad de México was built atop the Mexica (aka Aztec) city of Tenochtitlan and the landscape around it was dramatically changed by draining Lake Texcoco, so the City was no longer an island.

When Nueva España gained its independence from Spain in 1821, another process of modification of the City began, which was accelerated during the Porfiriato, the thirty-five year rule of President Porfirio Díaz (1876-1911). The Mexican Revolution (1910-17) and the political changes that it triggered brought other changes to the cityscape. So our ambles have been a dialogue between space and time, architecture and history.

However, our ambles forward in time inevitably led to a kind of historical deadend in post World War II Mexico City. Although there are many architecturally remarkable late 20th century and early 21st century buildings in the City, they are glass and steel skyscrapers which, along with multi-lane highways full of cars, are manifestations of the globalization of Mexico City that began in the 1950s and was greatly accelerated in the 1990s with the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Paseo de la Reforma
seen from Chapultepec Castle.

A view from the 19th century to the 21st.
Six White Columns are
Monument to the Boy Heroes
who resisted the U.S. Invasion of Mexico (1846-48)
Photo by Carlos Cortés
Wikipedia

With the economic opening of Mexico to the world, and in particular, the United States, multinational companies moved into the City, many erecting skyscrapers along Paseo de la Refoma and then, other main arteries, that are little different from their clones in any other major city of the world. We saw no apparent way to approach the late 20th century from our perpective of seeking out how the unique history of Mexico is embodied in its buildings, cityscape and public art. Perhaps, like the author of a late 20th century book, we had arrived, at the end of history. But we did not want it to be the end of our Ambles.

Returning to the starting point

So we returned to our and Mexico's geographic and historic beginning point, el Centro Historico, to explore a related question that also meant turning back in time to the moment when indigenous Tenochtitlan became Spanish Mexico City. We wondered: how did the Mexica city of Tenochititlan get transformed into the Spanish Colonial Ciudad de México? It was not a simple matter of tearing down the first and building the second on top.

We discovered that the answer lay in searching out the remaining landmarks, usually 16th century churches built by Franciscans and other religious orders of monks, that continue to stand in the original indigenous quarters of the city and the many villages around what had been Lake Texcoco that predated the Spanish invasion. This has been our focus and passion for the past year. 

However, that search also brought a complication. While we are continuing this exploration of the landmarks of the so-called Spiritual Conquest, the process is constrained by the fact that the best time to visit these now-hidden villages is when el pueblo, the village people, hold their annual patron saint fiesta or some other fiesta determined by the Catholic religious calendar, such as Easter. This takes the scheduling of our ambles out of our control and puts it under the control of the religious calendar.

That requires frequent checking of the calendar we are building of the sacred year, cross referenced to all the delegaciones (boroughs) and their colonias, neighborhoods, and the patience to await the next opportunity offered. This also means accepting that when we arrive in a barrio on the fiesta day listed on some website, there may be no such fiesta. The always amable, considerate, residents tell us, "Oh, we haven't had that for, maybe, five years. But we do have a fiesta on such and such date" (three months from now) or, "We already had our fiesta this year. It was last month."

Seeking Another path

So we have been pondering in what other ways we might focus our ambles in order to add to our chronicles of the City while we await the next fiesta. It occurred to us that one vehicle might be the museums. Mexico City touts itself to tourists (and chilangos, city residents) as having one of the greatest number of musuems of any city in the world, over 150.

These include not only the world-famous Museum of Anthropology and History, San Ildefonso, which houses Orozco's powerful murals, and the "Blue House" of Frida Kahlo, but also such museums as that of the Old School of Medicine, and museums of chocolate, beer, the economy, light, cars, trains and miscellaneous "objects", among many others. Hence, the wheat, so to speak, needs to be separated from the chaff. Also, the mission of Mexico City Ambles is to be a window into lesser known, even unknown areas and dimensions of the City, not a clone of the normal tourist guidebook pointing the reader to the obvious destinations. 

But, we thought, it was worth a shot to reconsider the list of musuems. After all, our historical perspective has led us to explore, among others, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, San Ildefonso and the Museum of National History (Chapultepec Castle).

Museum of the Corner Store

Consulting a "complete list of museums" provided by an online magazine, MXCity, we came across el Museo del Estanquillo. We were familiar with the building, an ornate French Second Empire building that sits in Centro Histórico, at the corner of Madero (honoring Francisco Madero, president during the Mexican Revolution) and Isabel la Católica Streets (honoring Queen Isabela, the first Catholic queen of a united Spain), a couple blocks west of the Zócalo.

Museo del Estanquillo

We included a photo of the wonderful oval windows protruding from its quintessentially French mansard roof in our post about 19th century Porfirian architecture in Centro. The building spoke dramatically of the Francophile passions of Porfirio Díaz and his bourgeois supporters.

We had also been intriqued that the Museum housed the permanent collection of Carlos Monsiváis, a Mexican writer, critic, political activist and journalist who died in 2010 and, at the time, received eulogies from virtually every leading Mexican author and political critic. He was clearly respected and beloved by his intellectual and political compatriots. We were curious as to what kind of collection he had and also what the meaning of estanquillo was. But being focused at the time on the late 19th century, the era of the building, we did not pursue finding out what was inside or the meaning of the name.

So, on a recent sunny weekday, we take our Line 2 of the Metro to the Zócalo and, coming up to the street, head west on Madero to Isabel la Católica (a symbolic crossroads of the 15th and the 20th centuries). Before we left home, we had looked up estanquillo. It has several uses, but in reference to the building, it means, "corner store". Examining the building more closely this second time, we notice that a bookstore occupies the ground floor, with its wide entrance diagonally facing the corner. We stick our head in the door to take a look at this "corner store". We ask the staff person at the door if we can take photos. Happily, he says, "Yes." 

Ceiling beams are ornate, Neogothic and Beaux Arts combo.
We are confident Porfirio Díaz loved them.

We then ask him if he knows the history of the building. He calls another man over who says it was originally "La esmeralda", a jewelry store, built near the end of the 19th century. We know from our investigation of 19th century Centro, that a number of ornately decorated French-inspired and French-stocked stores opened in the area near the end of that century. 

Thanking our hosts, we return to the street and find the museum entrance, a single glass door at the end of the building on the Isabel la Católica side. A narrow, utilitarian hallway leads to a stairway and an elevator. On one wall is a large photo of Carlos Monsiváis.

Carlos Monsiváis
We notice he seems to be looking at some kind of model scene with miniature figures.
We wonder what that is about.

A poster by the elevator informs us that there are currently three exhibts, one on each of the three floors above us. We take the easy way up. Figuring we will start at the top and work our way down, we go to the fourth floor. Getting off, we see that the exhibit is of Nota Roja, literally Red Reports, police stories and graphic photos in the newspapers of the early to mid-20th century about such violent events as murders and fatal car accidents. Evidently, as a journalist and chronicler of the city, Monsiváis was interested in the underside of city life. Good for him, but this is not our thing, so we go down in the elevator and happen to end up on the "first", i.e. second floor (in Mexico, the ground floor is the planta baja; the "primer piso", first floor, is one flight up). 

Los rituales del Carlos. Homenaje a Monsiváis y sus manías - Carlos' Rituals, Homage to Monsiváis and His Manias

The words "rituals" and "manias" in the sign identifying the exhibit give us pause. Given Monsiváis' interest in Nota Roja, manifested on the top floor, we wonder what other idiosyncratic inquietudes, interests, he had.

Mexican Types and Archetypes: 19th Century

We don't have long to worry. We are greeted by drawings and illustrations in various forms that are a kind of overview of the history of independent Mexico. A sign on the wall quotes Monsiváis about the struggle for and defense of its national soverignty having been a key theme in the history of Mexico. This section of the exhibit is subtitled "Mexican Types and Archetypes".

Father Miguel Hidalgo,
"Father" of Mexican Independence
from Spain (1810)

José María Morelos,
who led the fight for Independence
after Hidalgo and Allende were
captured and executed (1811).

A maquette of Father Hidalgo ringing the bell of the church in Dolores, Guanajato,
calling the pueblo to begin the rebellion against the Spanish viceroy.
This action is repeated every September 15 by the nation's president,
governors and mayors
in their respective jurisdictions. 

The prints of Father Hidalgo and Morelos, who are certainly Mexican archetypes—the "insurgents" who gained Mexican Independence from Spain—are somewhat different from others we have seen. Hidalgo is usually portrayed in a priest's frock with bald head and gray hair at his temples. Otherwise, they are traditional images.

However, the maquette portraying the "Grito", Shout for Independence, is something different. As a miniature, it has an almost playful quality, like a child's set of play figures. We are also reminded of the miniature scenes of everyday life made of clay and found in the shaft tombs of western Mexico. Thousand of years old, they convey the same sense of honoring daily life in a playful manner.

Triumph of the Republic
President Benito Juárez (top, right), another Mexican archetype,
and other Heroes of the Reform,
a period of liberal government, 1857-75.

President Porfirio Díaz (1876-1911), sits on the Presidential Silla, Chair, 
like a king on a throne,
within a classic Greco-Roman temple,
surrounded by numerous goddesses.

An archetypical image if ever we saw one.

So we are presented with four glorified (at least by their supporters) archetypical leaders of Mexico, three liberals and one liberal turned reactionary conservative. 

Mexican Types and Archetypes: 20th Century

"Grand Fandango and Revelry of the Living and the Walking Dead
in the Cemetery of Sorrow,
with Music and Drink"
By José Guadalupe Posada

Suddenly, instead of the exalted (and fallen) heroes of the 19th century, we are confronted with an image of skeletons having a party. It is the work of José Guadalupe Posada, an engraver and printmaker whose adult life (born 1852, died 1913) spanned the years from the Porfiriato dictatorship to the opening years of the Revolution. In his political cartoons, he was a fierce critic of the hypocricies and damage to el pueblo, the common folk, that characterized the Porfiriato. 

Diego Rivera and José Clemete Orozco, while they were students at the Academy of San Carlos art school at the turn of the century, were enamored by his implicitly revolutionary work, which they saw daily as they passed Posada's shop on Moneda Street, just a block from the Academy and behind the National Palace, where Díaz held court.

Mexican Revolution (1910-1917)

Francisco Madero,
President 1911-13

Francisco "Pancho" Villa

Emiliano Zapata

Venustiano Carranza,
in light gray uniform and hat to left of center.

Zapata and the Revolutionaries
By Leopoldo Mendez

So we are plunged (at least imaginatively) into the Mexican Revolution (1910-17), with its archetypical heroes: 

• Francisco Madero, a well-to-do intellectual liberal who started the Revolution, became its first president and was overthrown in a coup de etat and assassinated by General Victorino Huerta; 
• "Pancho" Villa, a mestizo, of mixed Indian and Spanish blood, from the north; an outcast who became a bandit and then a brilliant general of a peoples' army;
• Emilano Zapata, also mestizo, from the southern state of Morelos, and leader of a campesino (traditional, indigenous and mestizo farmers) uprising to retake land expropriated by wealthy criollos, pure-blooded Spanish; 
• Venustiano Carranza, well-to-do northern rancher who sought political power under Díaz, was rejected by Díaz, so when Madero was killed, he organized troops to overthow Huerta in 1914 and then, when Villa and Zapata would not agree to his being president, took them on, defeated them and then became president (1917-20).

The U.S. Meddles in Mexico

Next, Monsiváis confronts us with some broadsides protesting U.S. interventions during the Mexican Revolution. They recite the text of corridos, politically oriented ballads.

In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson ordered the Navy
to blockade the port of Veracruz
to prevent the possible delivery by Germany
of war supplies to Victoriano Huerta,
who had, with U.S. support,
overthrown President Francisco Madero in Feb. 1913.
Wikipedia

Here, the Uncle Sam moon gobbles up the Mexican sun.
This is based on an archetypical indigenous Mexican image 
of the eclipse of the sun by the moon, seen as their marriage
which, in one myth, gives birth to Mother Nature.

                     

The Pursuit of Pancho Villa

On 9 March 1916, Villa attacked
Columbus, New Mexico, apparently seeking supplies.

In response, President Woodrow Wilson sent 5,000 Army troops,
under the command of John Pershing, to pursue Villa in Mexico.
Employing aircraft and trucks for the first time in U.S. Army history,
Pershing's forces chased Villa until February 1917.
Villa, being a guerrilla, always escaped. Wikipedia

Ballad of the "Good Neighbor"

President Franklin D. Roosevelt,
with Eleanor Roosevelt,
tries to change the U.S. relationship with Mexico
and Latin America
by announcing a "Good Neighbor" policy
of no further U.S. intervention. Wikipedia

The broadside portrays Mexican dubiousness.

A cartoon, in 1930's Art Deco style,
portrays a dapper Uncle Sam
trying to woo Mexico,
presented as an attractive maiden.
By Ernesto García Cabral

In 1938, President Lázaro Cárdenas
(1934-40)
expropriated control of Mexican oil fields
from U.S. and British companies.
The U.S. government protested
but ended up acceding because of
the beginning of WW II.

Most Mexicans view Cárdenas as an
archetypical hero because of this
achievement vis-a-vis the U.S.

By Alredo Zalce (1908-2003),
leading Mexican artist.

President Vicente Fox (2000-2006)

Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive,
was the first president from a party
other than the Party of the Institutional
Revolution (PRI), which had ruled Mexico
since 1930.

The PRI administration of
Carlos Salinas (1988-94)
achieved the signing of the
North American Free Trade Agreement,
essentially tying the Mexican economy
to that of the U.S.

By José Hernández

Some Mexican types

Monsiváis (or his curator) then takes us on another twist in the theme of Archetypes and Types, returning to cartoons, but with a far different style and message than those of José Posada. 

Mexican Family
By Andrés Audiffred

1920s-30s upper middle class, urban family
with child dressed as archetypical
19th century charro, cowboy.

On national political holidays,
dressing children this way
is still the custom. 

"The Last Breakfast"
a spoof of Da Vinci's "The Last Supper"
attended by a wide range of Mexican "types"
By Eduardo del Río, aka "Rius"
Mexican cartoonist who died on Aug. 8, 2017, age 83.

La Familia Barrón
The Barron Family, created in 1937 by Gabriel Vargas (1915-2010)

Windshield washers and newspaper vendors are still features of intersections.

"Disco bar"
Minature created from newpaper cartoon series, "La Familia Burrón"
The Burron Family, by Gabriel Vargas

Then yet another sharp turn:

Portrait of a Mexican
By Roberto Montenegro (1885-1968)
1930

We are stunned by its powerful realism.
(We will have to investigate the work of Roberto Montenegro)

The City as Personal

The next part of the "Rituals and Manias" of Monsiváis, takes yet another sharp turn, to the cotidianiedad, the everday life, of city residents, and its continuities reaching from earlier centuries right up to the mid-20th century.

Miniature of a botica shop,
selling herbal and other types of medicines,
precursor of a pharmacy.

Butcher shop

Fruits and vegetables shop

Clockwise from upper left:
19th c. water carrier, 20th c. softdrink deliveryman,
Palm Sunday: indigenous woman
weaving palm fronds for sale (just as they do today),
Public scribe (they still work in Plaza Santo Domingo),
Tianguis (open-air market; today's stalls have plastic shading),
Sereno, (night watchman; one patrols our neighborhood on a bicycle).

The exhibit ends with a Gallery of Portraits of famous Mexicans of the 20th century

Mexican personajes, public personalities, of the 20th century

Clockwise from upper left:
José Vasconcelos, first secretary of public education after the Revolution,
initiated program of creating public murals.
Drawing of Vasconcelos (why snakes protrude from underneath him is a mystery)
Diego Rivera drawing Elena Poniatowska, leading Mexican author,
David Siqueiros,
José Clemente Orozco,
Graciano Sánchez, post-revolutionary agrarian leader,
Juan Rulfo, novelist and short story writer.

Twists and Turns of an Idiosyncratic View of Mexico, and of Mexican History

So Carlos Monsiváis (or the curator of this exhibition of parts of the author's collection) has taken us on a tour that is the intersection of his idiosyncratic view of Mexico -combining serious portraits with cartoons and toy-like maquettes- and the twists and turns of modern Mexican history, from the War for Independence through the Revolution to its ambivalent relationship with its northern neighbor, Uncle Sam, and from leading personajes, public figures, to the everyday life of city residents shopping in neighborhood tiendas, shops. 

After an initial sense of disorientation, we find that we are both charmed by its quirky alternation between serious and playful perspectives and enlightened by a very Mexican portrayal of Mexico and the many facets and faces that make it uniquely Mexico. El Museo de la Estanquillo is definitely a corner store or, better, a general store of Mexican life. And quite worth a visit.