Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In 1900, Revista Moderna [Modern Magazine]— the bastion of modernismo in the Spanish-speaking world—published two important essays by José Juan Tablada on Japanese art, both of which positioned him as a prominent authority on that subject. The [...]

This article, published in Revista Moderna [Modern Magazine]?which contributed to the rise of modern art criticism (in particular of the kind inspired by Charles Baudelaire and by the French parameters)?sketches a brief history of Japanese painting. [...]

In this article, Manuel Ugarte, who was quite well known in Latin American modernist circles, discusses a speech that Jean Jaurès gave at the Porte Saint-Martin Theater in Paris that was introduced by Anatole France. Ugarte is surprised by the [...]

The journalist and future historian of journalism, Agustín Agüeros, undertakes a defense of Mexican artists who have studied in Europe and are now showing their work at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes (midyear 1906). Agüeros makes every [...]

This is a two-part article, in which the writer José Juan Tablada takes us on a delightful, well-informed, and instructive tour of the animalist works of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Jews, and Persians. Perhaps due to the [...]

“Máscara” [Mask] was a profile of Germán Gedovius, the famous artist from San Luis Potosí. Here, José Juan Tablada discusses the artist’s career, and his trials and tribulations, for a variety of reasons. First of all, to present a moving [...]

“Máscara” [Mask] was the inspired piece about Julio Ruelas written by the poet Amado Nervo, who informed the readers of Revista Moderna [Modern Magazine] that ever since the periodical had been publishing vignettes and illustrations by Ruelas, [...]

This article, by a noted member of the group behind the magazine Savia Moderna [Modern Sap], is a presentation of the painting exhibition sponsored by the magazine and held in May 1906. This exhibition had a very decisive effect on the future of [...]

In this lengthy, two-part article, José Juan Tablada discusses the graphic albums produced by Pierre-Louis Morin, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, and Adolphe Léon Willette, the three illustrators most strongly identified with the [...]

This is the second part of the article in which Tablada discusses the graphic albums produced by Pierre-Louis Morin, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, and Adolphe Léon Willette, the three illustrators most strongly identified with the culture of fin-de [...]