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Mexicanism Russian Style: Roberto Montenegro, Diego Rivera, and the Ballets Russes

K. Mitchell Snow

in A Revolution in Movement: Dancers, Painters, and the Image of Modern Mexico

The influence of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes saturated the artistic environment inhabited by Diego Rivera and Roberto Montenegro in Paris before World War I. In predecessors to the debates ... More

The influence of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes saturated the artistic environment inhabited by Diego Rivera and Roberto Montenegro in Paris before World War I. In predecessors to the debates surrounding nationalism in Mexico, Diaghilev explored its intersections with folk art in the pages of his magazine Mir iskusstva. Montenegro studied with Diaghilev ally Hermen Anglada who urged his disciples to use elements from their nation’s folklore to escape the hegemony of Parisian modernism. Although Rivera disparaged the Ballet Russes’s influence on Mexican art, he painted his “Mexican trophy,” a cubist Zapatista landscape with a prominent serape, in response to an exhibit of Russian folk art that had been inspired by the success of Diaghilev’s dance company. Montenegro also cited this exhibition as one of the major influences in his decision to pursue Mexican folk art as a source of inspiration.Less

The Philosopher as an Artist Writ Large: José Vasconcelos, Muralism, and Folk Art

K. Mitchell Snow

in A Revolution in Movement: Dancers, Painters, and the Image of Modern Mexico

Mexican muralism began as a manifestation of José Vasconcelos’ belief that beautiful environments produced more effective learning. He thought of muralism as decoration and hired his artists for that ... More

Mexican muralism began as a manifestation of José Vasconcelos’ belief that beautiful environments produced more effective learning. He thought of muralism as decoration and hired his artists for that purpose. That what they created was to be Mexican was a given, but how it was to be Mexican went unspecified. The stained-glass window he commissioned from Roberto Montenegro, unveiled at the outset of the nation’s centennial celebration in 1921, took the jarabe tapatío (Mexican hat dance) as its theme. The commemorative events which followed the window’s unveiling underlined the post-revolutionary government’s intent to separate itself from the French taste associated with the dictatorship it had overthrown. Although the nation’s new leaders may not have had the means to impose a national aesthetic at the time, through its centennial celebration it pronounced itself firmly in favor of folk art as a sign of the national.Less

Eisenstein's ¡Que Viva México! “Prologue,” Prehistory, Anthropological and Nationalist Discourses

in In Excess: Sergei Eisenstein's Mexico

This chapter places Sergei Eisenstein's images in relation to the anthropological discourse on Mexican postrevolutionary state ideology. It focuses on Jose Vasconcelos, Roberto Montenegro and Adolfo ... More

This chapter places Sergei Eisenstein's images in relation to the anthropological discourse on Mexican postrevolutionary state ideology. It focuses on Jose Vasconcelos, Roberto Montenegro and Adolfo Best Maugard as some of its key ideologues. It looks at the representation of the indigenous in ¡Que Viva Mexico! pointing out ways in which it was linked to the Mexican muralist project and explores Eisenstein's visual and narrative synthesis of pre-Columbian culture in its inherent claim to permanence with the ultramodern and the iconoclastic revolutionary impulse.Less