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A History of Photography in Mexico

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A History of Photography in Mexico Diálogo Volume 7 Number 1 Article 20 2003 Mexican Suite: A History of Photography in Mexico Susana Martínez Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/dialogo Part of the Latin American Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Martínez, Susana (2003) "Mexican Suite: A History of Photography in Mexico," Diálogo: Vol. 7 : No. 1 , Article 20. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/dialogo/vol7/iss1/20 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for Latino Research at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in Diálogo by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. M EXICAN SUITE: AH IS T O R Y O F PHOTOGRAPHY I N M E X I C O Review by Susana Martinez O riginally published in 1994 as Fuga M exicana, un recorido im age of the cathedral. Barely tw o years after the first por la fotografía en M éxico, this visually enticing book is cam eras arrived, "professional" photographers appeared in finally available to English language readers as M exican Suite: M exico - "Fugitive from the traditional visual arts, these A H istory of Photography in M exico (2001). This edition has adventurers cam e in search of easy m oney" (20). been revised to include explanatory notes for a reader that m ight be less fam iliar w ith M exican history, m aking it an Itinerant photographers traveled to rem ote tow ns w ith a accessible resource for the general public, students, and cam era and accessories that w eighed at least 70 kilos and scholars. Progressing chronologically, M exican Suite provides w ere very fragile and difficult to transport. From this m om ent, an excellent visual and textual overview of the developm ent the insertion of photography into M exican culture was of photography in M exico from the 1840s to the present. w idespread and profound. O ne journalist w rote that in less Divided into eleven chapters: O verture, Ritornello, Canon, than tw o decades after the introduction of photography into Pastorale, Oratorio, ReQuiem, Capricho, Toccata, M exico, "it had becom e so com m on that fam ilies have their C ounterpoint D anzón, and Fantasia, the visual arrangem ent photographer in the sam e w ay that they have their law yer or of the black and w hite photographs w orks in perfect harm ony doctor" (20). The price, how ever, w as exorbitant; during the with the musical com positions; stirring a w ide range of 1840s daguerreotypes ranged from 2 to 16 pesos. M adam e em otions in the reader. These exQuisite im ages challenge the C alderón de la Barca inform ed her m other in a letter w ritten reader to consider not only the stories they tell, but m ore from M exico in 1840 that "a French cook receives som e 30 im portantly, the m anner in w hich M exico has been captured pesos [per m onth], a housekeeper 12 to 15, a butler around 20 on film over the last tw o centuries. or m ore, a footm an 6 or 7, servants and cham berm aids 5 or 6, a gardener 12 or 15" (22). The clientele, therefore, w as m ostly Tracing the earliest visual reproduction even centuries before m ade up of w ealthy land-ow ning fam ilies, rich traders along the arrival of the first cam era to M exico - the im age of the the road from V eracruz to M exico City, and m iners from the V irgin M ary on Saint Juan D iego's cloak, O livier D ebroise notes center and north of the Republic that typically sQuandered th at th e second edition of Father Luis B ecerra Tanco's Felicidad their hard earned w ages as Quickly as they m ade them . de M exico en el principio, y m ilagroso origen Que tubo el santuario de la Virgen M aria de G uadalupe (first published by The itinerant daguerreotypists are but one exam ple of how Viuda Calderón in 1675) included an anonym ous engraving photography served class interests from the beginning. explaining, in scientific term s, how the im age of the Virgin Representing the other side of the social spectrum , this came to appear on Juan Diego's cloth after her fourth technology was also em ployed, as of 1855, to identify apparition on the Hill of Tepeyac. From this early m om ent, w e criminals. During the French Intervention in M exico, see tw o com peting views of this medium - the use of photography was used to control prostitution. In 1865, photography either as docum entary proof or as responding to M axim ilian ordered the com pilation of an archive to house an artistic and subjective aesthetic. the police and clinical records of M exico City's prostitutes, including their portraits. Im ages of prisoners' sexual organs A m ore comm on beginning is to trace the origins of and physical deform ities (im plicated as the origins of their real photography to the cam era obscura (first constructed in 1545 or alleged crim inal behavior) circulated in M exico City to by the D utchm an Reiner G em m a Frisius and w idely used after satisfy the public's m orbid curiosity. In fact, w hen Jesús the publication of a treatise by the N eapolitan scientist A rriaga, the legendary "C hucho el R oto," escaped from prison Giovanni Battista Della Porta), and its variant, the cam era in 1882, 300 copies of his portrait w ere printed for sale. But lucida. In fact, Debroise explains that the "invention of the value of these early m ug shots was often underm ined photography was less a Question of finding a way to since the accused inflated their cheeks or found other w ays to reproduce im ages than of retaining them , fixing them deform their appearance. perm anently on a support" (18). On the other side of the country, the daguerreotype served The daguerreotype (nam ed after JacQues Louis M andé another function altogether: to reproduce ancient Daguerre) becam e very fashionable am ong the European m onum ents on the verge of vanishing. Uxmal, Kabah, and m iddle class during the first half of the nineteenth century. Labná - Maya architecture of the Puuc region - were The author explains that the daguerreotype "consists of a photographed by the English draftsm an Frederick small sheet of copper bathed in a thin coating of polished C atherw ood. Baron Em m anuel von Friedristhal, head of the silver th at reflects the sitter's face like a m irror and secures a Austrian diplom atic corps in M exico and an am ateur perm anent im age of incredible clarity and detail. D epending archaeologist, traveled w ith the U.S. diplom at John Lloyd upon the angle at which it is viewed, the im age appears Stephens to the Y ucatán in 1841. D escribing their im portance, negative or positive. The silver is perfectly sm ooth, so highly D ebroise w rites, "D espite their 'scientific' intentions, these polished that it is w ithout any apparent grain. Today, m ore early explorers photographed like 'artists,' less interested in than one hundred and fifty years later, the daguerreotype precise description than in aw e-inspiring effect. In this sense, im age rem ains unrivaled for clarity and perm anence" (19). their w ork is am biguous. For w hile they initiated the practice of archaeological photography, in the final analysis their M exico em braced this technological innovation with im pact was greater as creators of a particular vision of w holehearted enthusiasm , creating a virtual "daguerreotype M exico" (88). This point is w ell taken, particularly because th e m ania." On Decem ber 3, 1839, the French engraver Louis w ide-range of photographs in M exican Suite stim ulates us to Prélier arrived in Veracruz w ith tw o cam eras purchased in consider the m anner in w hich im aginings of M exico have been Paris. He organized a public dem onstration (as D aguerre had created and transm itted over the years. done only m onths before) and transm itted the w onders of this port city to plates. W eeks later, Prélier repeated the The chapter titled Pastorale, for exam ple, contains im ages of dem onstration in the plaza in M exico City, reproducing the volcanoes, pyram ids, folkloric dancing such as the jarabe tapatío, and human types such as the tehuana and china Edward Weston and Tina Modotti, Manuel Alvarez Bravo and poblana. These "typical" images of Mexico are complemented Lola Alvarez Bravo, Sergei Eisentein and Edouard Tissé, Flor by an impression commonly held by foreigners searching of Garduño, Rafael Doniz, Pablo Ortiz Monasterio, and Graciela something more "authentic." In an article published in Helios Iturbide, among many others, continued to focus their cameras (March 31, 1935) Eugene Witmore states, "Mexico is literally a on the tehuana going about her daily activities. Among their photographer's paradise. Each tree, cactus, and flower, the favorite images of this figure of Mexican mythology were thousands of Indians, campesinos, heavily loaded burros - tehuanas washing clothes in the river, feeding animals, and, of patient little animals -fields of maguey, the clouds, course, grinding corn. Diego Rivera visited Tehuantepec in mountains, rocks, markets, gardens, parks, historical buildings, 1922, on the advice of José Vasconcelos, and this experience arches, monuments, all attract the photographer.
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