The Embodiment of the National in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexican Painting

After independence from Spain, the concepts of nation and national history became important to Mexican politicians and intellectuals. The public funding of the arts also gained importance as art came to be regarded as a marker of national culture.

In The Embodiment of the National in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexican Painting, Widdifield examines works exhibited in seven biennial public exhibitions sponsored by the Academy of San Carlos from 1869 to 1881. She investigates the meaning of national art to artists, patrons, and the public. Such an ambitious undertaking necessitates a multidisciplinary approach to the study of images, a requirement that Widdifield meets by drawing from a wealth of archival materials and from relevant sources in various disciplines.

She proposes that national art is created within fluid relations of political and economic power, race, and gender. The book concentrates on pictorial representations of Indians and national heroes inscribed in a larger narrative of the opposition between civilization and barbarism. The author demonstrates that in postindependence Mexico, art was directed both to a national and an international public to counteract the image of a barbarous Mexico revitalized in Europe after the execution of Maximilian in 1867. For emotional as well as economic reasons, Widdifield argues, it was important for Mexicans to combat the negative image that Europeans had of their country.

She suggests that images of the mestizo were used to reconcile the opposite poles of civilization and barbarism. In contrast to the marginality of miscegenation during the colonial period, in the nineteenth century mestizaje was sanctioned by the state. Legalization and implicit control of mestizaje were bound to the roles within the nation of both indigenous peoples and women. Widdifield’s analysis reveals contradictions between discourses of democracy and the restriction of Indians and women to traditional, domestic, and religious spheres. This conflict is evident in images.

Whereas some of the theoretical frameworks that Widdifield applies to her discussion originate in gender and cultural studies, the use of this material to investigate nineteenth-century painting in Mexico is unprecedented. The author’s analysis of national painting in an international context complements and supports the conclusions of recent studies of late-nineteenth-century Mexican sculpture and architecture.

Widdifield’s text is most limited in the context of her discussion of the public’s responses to national art. She provides ample documentation of critiques published in the press. Although these may be the only extant documents of responses to the art under consideration, there is little discussion of how these critics figure within a larger notion of “the public.”

Widdifield identifies a theoretical problem in her book. She believes both that the writing of history is affected by contemporary values and that it is possible to retrieve some truth from the past. This contradiction has been the subject of numerous writings in history and cultural studies and has surfaced in recent work on nineteenth-century Mexican art. While her considerations of these questions are appropriate, it would have been instructive to situate them in a specific theoretical context. Occasionally one encounters peculiar word choices. For instance, in her discussion of the use of European classical models to depict Indians, Widdifield states that “the history painter could diminish traces of the Indian by lightening skin color and anglicizing facial features” (p.101). The equation of classical with English is unexplained in the text.

Widdifield presents complex ideas clearly and concisely. She has carried out commendable archival research for her study, and the illustrations she has chosen include important, little-known works of Mexican art. This text is not only “foundational” in the field of Mexican art history, but it is recommended reading for anyone interested in the elaborate weaving of history, culture, and society in late-nineteenth-century Mexico.