Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

After a scandalous raid in Mexico City in which forty-two homosexual men were detained, known as the Ball of the Forty-One, the poem describes the possible foundation of a mutual aid society in which a dance was mentioned: “El traje debía de ser [...]

This novel by Eduardo A. Castrejón is based on the Baile de los 41 [The Dance of the 41], a notorious raid that took place in Mexico City in which 42 homosexual men were arrested. It tells the tale of a gathering hosted by a couple, Mimi and Ninón, [...]

[This document entails] humorous dialogue between two apparent homosexuals. The anonymous writer refers to a word game with the numbers (forty-two, forty-three and forty-four) that would represent the masculinity of the two workers who are attacking [...]

In this text, Manoel Bomfim criticizes the European attitude toward Latin America. According to the author, this attitude is due to sheer European ignorance about Latin American countries. He acknowledges that this posture had been changing, with [...]

Echoing what Manoel de Bonfim had written previously, in his 1903 book A América Latina: males de origem [832506 and 833254], Sílvio Romero attributes the “ills” of Latin America to the Iberian colonization inflicted by predatory nations like [...]

In the introduction to volume three (issue number one) of El Fotografo Mexicano [The Mexican Photographer], the editors and editorial staff assert their wish to perform the noble task of disseminating photography, as well as thanking the readers for [...]

After a scandalous raid in Mexico City in which forty-two homosexual men were detained, subsequently known as the Ball of the Forty One, this satirical poem calls the Forty-One (among other things) “viciosos inmundos [dissolute, filthy] / nutridos [...]

In this historical review written in the early twentieth century, Manoel de Bomfim discusses economic, socio-political, and cultural conditions in Latin America. His objective here is to analyze the various problems afflicting the Americas as they [...]

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. [...]

The writer of this article discusses some of the formal changes that photography must undergo in order to improve the presentation and subjects captured. To that end, he proposes that professional photographers abandon their studio props: “the [...]

In this text, José Enrique Rodó outlines his vision for a future Latin American civilization based on the pursuit of idealism. He stages this description as a lecture being delivered by an elderly teacher named Prospero to his young students. Rod [...]

In this interesting article, the poet Manuel M. Flores exposes the contrast between the character and nature of life in Mexico (busy, erotic and festive) and the national art in all its manifestations (melancholic and grave in nature). Alluding to [...]

This interesting article by the critic Okusai (the pseudonym of José Juan Tablada) reports on the two important art exhibitions held in Mexico in 1906: that of the magazine Savia Moderna [Modern Sap] and another of artists sponsored by the Mexican [...]

This article reports the presence of [Efisio] Caboni at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City. The author provides a biographical sketch of the Italian master born in Rome. He recounts his education in Italy and some of the difficulties that [...]

This text discusses African sculpture and sculpture produced by African slaves and their descendents in Brazil. The analysis begins with statues used in Afro-Brazilian religions, some of which represent priests possessed by gods. Other works are [...]

This article is seminal because it is one of the few to mention photography as part of the fine arts program at the Academia de San Carlos. The writer describes various artistic media, such as sketches, drawings, and paintings, which all clearly [...]

After a scandalous raid in Mexico City— known as the Ball of the Forty-One—in which forty-two homosexual men were detained, El Popular kept up its mocking tone in sarcastic short pieces: “––Listen, bitch, I thought of an idea to keep them [...]

This article is an interesting reflection by Ángel Zárraga on the art of the painter’s era, sent from Spain to the magazine Savia Moderna; at the time, he was also an amateur writer. He dedicates the article to two key figures that were beginning [...]

Despite the title “Del patrioterismo en el arte,” in this article the Argentinean painter Martín Malharro rejects the idea of a narrowly prescribed and defined national art school. He partially does so in opposition to the influence of the [...]

Medellín was still a very small town when its first exhibition of paintings opened to the public on July 20, 1892. The event was organized by the artist and critic Samuel Velásquez and the painter and photographer Emiliano Mejía, who had trained [...]

A visit to the salon of Antonio Fabrés’ students inspires the author to praise the master and his teaching methods, whose rigor in drafting and striking subjectivity had trampled the old methods of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (formerly [...]

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 [...]

El Popular published an article in which two village women, who were scandalized, commented on the recent events and the punishment applied to the dancers, who were consigned to the state of Yucatán. Thus a half-serious, half-jesting text was added [...]

Written after a scandalous raid in Mexico City in which forty-two homosexual men were detained, known as the Ball of the Forty-One, the purpose of this article was to contradict what was already generally known: “There are those who state that the [...]

This article is the first one to mention the aspect that will make this news item popular and notorious: “The fact is that a number of people in a segment of society deemed honorable were by chance discovered in a sphere that represents extreme [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon. However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon. However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

This article by Ricardo Hinestrosa Daza is divided into ten parts. In the first, the author discusses the concept of “emotion” formulated by educator Baldomero Sanín Cano in the November 1904 and January 1905 issues of Revista Contemporánea. In [...]

This article contains two parts. In the first, its author—Colombian writer and critic Baldomero Sanín Cano—discusses Impressionism and its conception. He bases his disquisition on notions of the behavior of color and light formulated by [...]

This article is divided into two parts. In the first, its author, Baldomero Sanín Cano, reveals not only his ignorance about the craft of painting, but also how he envisions the text and the subject it addresses. In the second, he describes the [...]

El Popular continued its series of articles riddled with mockery and denigrating comments, such as the supposed “Trip Diary” that described the tribulations of the consigned Forty-One before they reached the Yucatán. Sarcasm based on their [...]

This inspired article is an homage to one of the most famous paintings by artist Julio Ruelas, entitled “Llegada de D. Jesús E. Luján a la Revista Moderna – 1899” [D. Jesús E. Luján’s Arrival at Revista Moderna – 1899]. The painting [...]

In the news: “The event discovered by the police on Saturday night in a house on one of the De la Paz streets is repugnant. At a dance being held there, the volume of the noise was higher than necessary for entertainment. The police went to the [...]

French anarchist and writer Charles Malato de Corné begins this brief article on Latin America for the first issue of Les Annales de la Jeunesse Laïque by informing the reader of border disputes that have been going on for too long and that are [...]

This is a very suggestive article on the exhibition organized by the publication Savia Moderna [Modern Sap] in May 1906. The show is interesting because it included only those Mexican artists who had promised a change in the national outlook, as well [...]

In this article, the writer discusses the latest exhibition of works by students of the Catalonian instructor Antonio Fabrés at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes [National School of Fine Arts]. That is why works by even the youngest pupils are of [...]

Ricardo Gómez Robelo enthusiastically celebrates the success of the exhibition mounted at the Academia de San Carlos in 1906, featuring Mexican artists who had been awarded fellowships. He praises the “revelation that we do not deceive ourselves, [...]

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 [...]

El Popular released three fictional “Cartas de Los cuarenta y uno” [Letters from the Forty-One] signed by Concho, Lolito and Carolino, with a number of clearly ridiculous complaints, even riddled with intentional spelling mistakes: “Alfredo de [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon. However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

La Patria was the historic source of the name for this event: The Forty-One, when it commented that “Forty-one men and an old woman were at a dance where the men were having a good time, nineteen of them in women’s dresses.” It goes on to tell [...]

This was the only news run by El Tiempo about the Ball of the Forty-One. Starting with the title “Los hijos ingratos” [Ungrateful Sons], it constructs an apologia of the good manners of high society; of all the sacrifices these prominent [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon. However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

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 [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon. However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

“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 [...]

Amado Nervo announces, in terms of a “literary school,” the emergence of futurism in Italy, whose manifesto he translates in order to place it, with no fear at all, at the reader’s disposal. And Nervo does it with the conviction that—in spite [...]