The editorial categories are research topics that have guided researchers during the recovery phase and continue to be the impetus behind the Documents Project’s digital archive and the Critical Documents book series. Developed by the project’s Editorial Board, each of the teams analyzed this framework and adapted it to their local contexts in developing their research objectives and work plans during the Recovery Phase. Learn more on the Editorial Framework page.
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In the second treinta-treintista manifesto, the group declares the reason for its dispute. It states that the struggle between independent painters and the academics intensified when the presidency changed hands, since certain conservative teachers aspired to be director of the Academy. The group points out that instead of being a fight about art, the dispute has turned into a fight for public posts. They accuse José Fernández Urbina of drafting the accusations made by the students against Alfredo Ramos Martínez. They defend the artwork created in the Escuelas al Aire Libre [Open-Air Schools of Painting] as true artworks—cheaper, better rendered, and more popular than those created at the Academy. The manifesto states that the group opposes maintaining the academic tradition, which is nothing more than the importation of the worst European taste, which is why it also advocates the permanent closing of the Escuela de Bellas Artes and the creation of the Escuela Central de Artes y Ciencias de las Artes [Central School for the Arts and Art Sciences]. Finally, the group requests the immediate termination of fourteen professors linked to the Academy.
About 1927, there were already several escuelas al aire libre [open-air art schools]; in addition, the Centros Populares de Pintura [People’s Painting Centers] and the Escuela de Escultura y Talla Directa [School for Sculpture, Carving, Cutting and Engraving] were established. These educational institutions aimed to include those social sectors rescued by the revolutionary discourse (workers, peasants, and their wives and children). The artwork produced in these centers had been praised by critics at national and international levels, as opposed to the work created at the Academy. This is why significant funds from the budget of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes went towards the opening and maintenance of outdoor painting schools. The disagreements of the professors and students at the Academy about this situation loomed ever larger in the national press. In their struggle to defend their plan, the treinta-treintistas radicalized their position, denouncing the academics who were requesting the resignation of Alfredo Ramos Martínez (1871–1946). Moreover, they demanded both the termination of conservative teachers and the permanent closing of the Academy, proposing the creation of the Escuela Central de Artes y Ciencias de las Artes. This school would form the nucleus for unifying the Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre with the Centros Populares de Pintura, and the Escuela de Escultura y Talla Directa, as well as the Escuela de Arquitectura.