José Guadalupe Posada, LampoonerAuthor(s): Ilan StavansReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 16 (Summer, 1990), pp. 54-71Published by: Florida International University Board of Trustees on behalf of The Wolfsonian-FIUStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1504066 .Accessed: 28/09/2012 00:46

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Jose Guadalupe Posada,

Lampooner By Ilan Stavans

ince the turn of the century, political cartoons and murals in Mexico have been considered forms of street art. Still a highly cultivated medium, political cartoons were published from the 1850s on in prints and chapbooks that captured the imagination of the masses-rarely the sophisticated, highly literate elite.

Like journalistic accounts, they offered quick insight into contemporary affairs, and then they perished. In the decades before the socialist revolution of 1910, millions were enlightened and entertained byJose Guadalupe Posada's lurid, eye-catching, marvelous engravings, which were often accompanied by jocular lyrics. Murals, on the other hand, were less ephemeral, more detailed and colorful. In the 1930s, the busy passer-by might see aspects of Mexico's history painted from a Marxist point of view in murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco. While Posada was incapable of seeing the pedagogic possibilities of muralism as a form of political activism, pre- ferring to rely on the graphic arts to educate the populace, Rivera and his circle later acknowledged their debt to Posada's hyperbolic illustrations, both in their art and their writings, and by doing so created a bridge between the two forms of street art.

But Posada, it seems to me, was more than just a populist artist. He invented the most fascinating freaks and grotesque monstrosities, and in that regard he is comparable to Goya, Rudolph von Ripper, Alfred Kubin, Sibylle Ruppert, and the creators of the fabulous beasts and demons of the medieval and Renaissance worlds.

Leopoldo Mendez (Mexican,

1902-1969), Posada in his

workshop (detail). An

indignant Posada watches as

government troops assault

unarmed civilians.

Posada was born 2 February 1852 at number 47 Calle de Los Angeles (later Calle de Posada) in the city of Aguascalientes, in central Mexico.' The fourth of six (some sources say eight) children, of which only three survived, he was baptized in the Parroquia de la Asunci6n. Both of his parents were of Indian descent and illiterate. German Posada, his father, was a baker who owned a small shop; Petra Aguilar, his mother, was a housewife. Their oldest son, Jose Maria de la Concepci6n, died when still a child. The second, Jose Cirilo, born in 1839, became a schoolteacher. He taught Jose Guadalupe to read and write, until the latter and his younger brother Ciriaco were sent to a municipal school in the San Marcos neighborhood. Apparently, Posada enjoyed drawing even as a child, for he made humorous portraits of Josd Cirilo and his young pupils. Unfortunately, none of these early artistic experiments can be found.

As an adolescent, Posada studied with Antonio Varela at the Municipal Academy of Drawing in Aguascalientes. By 1867 he began practicing the "trade of the painter," and the following year he apprenticed in the lithography

DAPA Summer 1990 55

7 -i

/11~ ~

~~~~ p 7~~~~~~ ~ ~ ?m- 72-

Fig. 1. Jose Guadalupe Posada

(Mexican, 1852-1913), an early

caricature, published in El

Jicote. Posada's early works

are reminiscent of Francisco

de Ouevedo's apocalyptic

Dreams in their depiction of

human abuses, foolishness,

and corruption.

workshop of Trinidad Pedroza. Politically active, Pedroza supported the cre- ation of a local government and spoke out against the ineffectiveness of city politicians-particularly the influential Colonel Jesuis Gomez Portugal-and the economic and military intervention of France and the United States in Mexican affairs. In addition to lithography, Posada learned the basic printmaking techniques of engraving wood and metal. He also began producing lampoons and illustrations for magazines and books, selling some to Pedroza's own independent newspaper, ElJicote (The Wasp). Many of them featured Colonel Portugal as their main target.

Biographical data is scarce, so it is impossible to say precisely when or how Posada's political conscience was awakened. Some, like Octavio Paz, Mexico's foremost contemporary essayist and poet, claim that Posada's ideology has ac- tually been misunderstood. According to Paz, Posada's work was not the prototype of el arte de protesta but simply a recording of what he saw. Since the artist was surrounded by the poor and uneducated, his subject matter just happened to look "progressive."2 Paz, however, wrongly oversimplifies Posada's artistic spirit. While it is true that political manifestoes do not exist in his oeuvre -the tracts of Pierre Joseph Proudhon and scientific socialism not having reached him from Europe-he had a "socialist" weltanschauung and always expressed a strong social conscience. Even without a specific message, in image after image Posada clearly condemns injustice. And while he may not have subscribed to a particular philosophical or governmental remedy for the ills of his epoch, his lampoons nevertheless are testimony to the inequities and instabilities of his fragile country.

At times, his stand regarding certain public figures is ambiguous. He could support the president and condemn his enemies, only to ridicule the ruler later. And, as mentioned, politics or political figures were by no means the focus of his lampooning. Folklore and "magical" happenings, subjects popular with everyone, provided ample grist for his cartoons. Regardless of his choice of subject, though, Posada was unmistakably allied with the dispossessed.

The subversive element in Posada's work is humor-an ingredient that makes his images as compelling today as they were in his time. Through humor, Posada denounced delinquency, assassinations, and corruption. Through humor, he sympathetically described the struggles of popular heroes. According to Paz, Posada's comic equivalent is the French playwright Alfred Jarry, himself a creator of popular prints who drew inspiration for the absurd world of his King Ubu from Posada's imagery. Although both are rooted in the nineteenth century, they are also our contemporaries, Paz claims, and will be contemporaries of our children through the timeless appeal of their humor.

Even in his earliest works, Posada is a satirist (fig. 1). While maintaining loyalty to his visual perceptions, he never forgets to inject a comic element. There is a hint of the Rabelaisian-or better, Quevedesque-touch that he would later perfect. Usually his early images synthesized an accompanying text or inter- preted it with stereotypes and symbols. At this point in his career, he had not yet developed the distinct style of his later works. Perceiving his craft as a means of graphically, but not always seriously, explaining the daily news, he printed portraits of diplomats, demons, virgins, lawyers, and bankers, and depicted comets, natural disasters, and national events.

While Benito Jua.rez, a pure-blooded Indian lawyer, was Mexico's president, El Jicote, with its constant criticism of politicians and the establishment, angered

56 DAPA Summer 1990

the local authorities and was forced to close. Nineteen-year-old Posada was considered a political agitator. He and Pedroza realized that they had to leave Aguascalientes as soon as possible, so together they went to the city of Leon de los Aldamas in the state of Guanajuato, where they opened a commercial lithographic business in 1872. It was a prosperous and very religious city, and Posada made a living mainly from producing Christian stamps, as well as cards, invitations, stickers, and labels for cigar packages and liquor bottles (fig. 2). For the time being, politics were left behind.3

In 1873 Pedroza returned to Aguascalientes, and Posada was left in charge of the shop. Even if he knew that he was not a good businessman, Posada en- joyed being his own boss. In 1875 he married Maria de Jesus Varela.4 All in all, the future looked bright. A terrible flood, however, devastated Leon in 1887, and Posada lost everything. In 1888 he moved with his family to Mexico City, where he opened a workshop downtown, on Calle de Santa Teresa and subse- quently on Calle Santa Ines (later Emiliano Zapata).

While the history of muralism in Mexico has been well researched, lithography has been relatively neglected. Early on, the technique was used primarily to il- lustrate scientific treatises; but largely due to the influence of the French artist Honore Daumier, it quickly became a popular artistic medium. Mexico's first lithographic workshop was established in 1826 by Claudio Linati and used to produce the newspaper El Iris.5 Posada was familiar with the prints of early Mexican lithographers such as J. M. Villasana, Hipolito Salazar, and Santiago Hernandez. Close scrutiny of his images, though, reveals that he also was ac- quainted with the work of a handful of European avant-garde artists, specifi- cally Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Fig. 2. A sticker by Jose :

-

.-- _

G uadalupe Posada for a cigar

company in Le6n, Guanajuato.

DAPA Summer 1990 57

Fig. 3. Jose Guadalupe

Posada's depiction of Arroyo's

shop, with a self-portrait. The

ad reads: "Printshop owned by

A. Vanegas Arroyo (founded in

the nineteenth century, year

1880). In this old house people

can find an assorted and se-

lected display of songs for the

current year; a collection of

greeting booklets on cooking,

candymaking and pastrymak-

ing; toasts; rhymes for clowns;

patriotic speeches; plays for

children and puppets; charming

stories; 'The New Oracle'

(or The Book of the Future);

rules for telling fortunes with

cards; 'The New Mexican

Fortune Teller'; 'Black and

White Magic' (or The Book of

Sorcerers)."

I En esta.nigu.easte-hall un va'zaoa y islctl !/ ,urKi4o ie Canciones para e p esr,teafonc.

vl . SCoiecnon ae FtIicliaciones, p dertes de Preshaiit. [ acionr, Kidalvnizas. Juegos ar Ectraao, CuaJerno, a de Cocin& Dulcero, satelerJ, Brinap.Ver.ox pa- ra Payaso, Biscuvrso Pafritoieco Coq.me:iap?ra

TI^, nijnQ c titapes Bonitop [uento, c |

' ---^?+EL NUEVO ORACULO-0-_ - o Xr-0 &AELA LIEBROEDEL PORVENIFz

|^ L

A-IReglaIPara-echarlasxcarltA. | ;- EL N1DIED AGORERO MEXIIAt - -D

L A-MAG1A PR1ETA-Y B bANCA 4 _ O%.#ea Ai Libro de los Br'Waj.

a:.~~~~~~~~~~il AO

58 DAPA Summer 1990

I

r -- - **** 'T IIN I 'II- - - - --- -- -S

Fig. 4. Jose Guadalupe Posada,

La Calavera revuelta de fed-

erales, comerciantes, y arte-

sanos, 1913, zinc etching.

Fig. 5. Jose Guadalupe Posada,

Calaveras de monton. Numero

1, 1910, zinc etching. Library

of Congress, Prints and

Photographs Division, Swann

Collection. The image has

been used to represent several

different subjects, one being

the soldiers from the state

of Oaxaca.

In Mexico City, Posada made contact with the artist and engraver Manuel Manilla, who introduced him to Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, an editor and pub- lisher of street gazettes and a true pioneer of modern journalism (fig. 3). Arroyo recognized not only Posada's artistic talent but also his prodigious drive; he offered to hire him, with a promise of complete artistic freedom. Posada sold his own shop and began a prolific career with Arroyo, producing hundreds of thousands of cartoons, love letters, school books, card games, penny dreadfuls, and commercial advertisements like posters for circus per- formances or bull fights.

On occasion, Posada would illustrate satirical verses or simple news reports written by Arroyo or Constancio Suarez, a poet from the state of Oaxaca. The trio of editor, illustrator, and poet became a very famous and extremely pro- ductive and powerful voice until 1895, when Suarez died. Posada and Arroyo continued their partnership, and with the benefit of Arroyo's entrepreneurial spirit, Posada reached millions with his images, becoming a spokesman for Mexico's collective soul.

It is commonly thought that Posada, during his association with Arroyo, cre- ated the calavera-a humorous, vivid drawing of dressed-up skulls or skele- tons engaged in activities such as dancing, cycling, guitar playing, drinking, or masquerading (figs. 4-8). In fact, it was Manuel Manilla who first drew these

DAPA Summer 1990 59

I #--O lw -

VID, '11Z I.- A 7 . f

..1- -

, 7

Fig. 6. Jos6 Guadalupe Posada,

Calavera catrina. This famous

calavera of a society belle was

depicted by Diego Rivera in his

mural Dream of a Sunday

Afternoon in Alameda Park.

Fig. 7. Jose Guadalupe Posada,

La Calavera del editor popular

Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, ca.

1907, zinc etching. Library

of Congress, Prints and

Photographs Division, Swann

Collection.

T:a

LA CALAYEBRA v : DEL EDiTOR 1XOPULAR y

; ANTONIO VANEGAS ARROYO A

Esta si es la catlavera Y millares de folleto_ de] dctoua p p. lare y bi!iotecas enteran.

ttmas fachb qstitlamer.tt5 que liev6 D i esqueiletos conao otra ni.ca han de hall,r. i a ;

* '- , itodas lai calavera,.

y l fuelaui- nos publdcaba *L. que es, de hOy eri adelBut-

n'l' prinoees (le poestia, /. iel C ementeri o sera.. qu;e

nuestra vida endulz.tahjai5! litl! la iiivitaci6nl md55 vUlanlte i v Iflenaba de alep-r,a que , \\ Ef c ue-uelquier mortal hara. r

Tonult precioas historia iir -- S1 Alia encontrareit gu I to b ot que a) w_as tt%ste hac-aT tfz ,, -ri ctfsa~rdbe~ ? dejaba en lias emnorias -ii cuentos mwravillos,o r ti retierdo sing'uiar; { ; 1ersitos adairabies.

Los alegres sin medida, f -itorias estravagantesi, !eyven. sus oraci.es 9ra tiones fervoro-sas; m antiag tan cortt la vida .si a ucemos espeluznantes que prend{an su, corazownes.E, y c0i edius uiuy hernmosa.

L.-* rnuc Phao t.t que glocadat Al d Don.Toncho tVte8a

por el novio ni dormir -cuo en el mndo izo i a

1o~ao en e m . z i . m.l:

_denltu IUs f u mrds que do t al e-l ,

yno Ih gaben deeiL - uenadu caudal Que le quiecen,qule le ad,ora.: Acqu{ deJ6 i mu hijo alas,

no m sabeu expresar qtte eatre las vivos rezural~ lsm desdichaada, 1i0ora'n ..... qu eierd

elSitor Popular, para el pais de Uitratumba,

parsa poder escoger [

L~a e~ribki i ir dabi la mi! cartas amorosiia. ias cartas que Doa Anltomi,~

l os tratoa arregiadog abd ad amet v prometen que abogadof, (ju. ell&~~~~~~~ taplica vdo lig aente

!1e Don Antonio serioan t -eg

7~~~~~~~~tt~ i -

'

x ^ ~ ~ LoafZ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - nifosl- agradecidja bara su proento- leveo vaboalicufuerotab ldo~~~~~~~~~~~~~ y~~~~q ell Ed pito diipular, que Do lee Altonio sueaia ...

b a ueo jm sdie raja,

y -i!1 E di' tor Po.:ular

Y sigue siempre vendiendo Y coaprai tui cilaveci Y apre...... l lri'r . . . . . sus edic;ones modernas v cuadernes de caacio,es, v olvidarai con razt;~

1 _ Xv todos siguen levendo ;' ;i)ta, v petenerd. la ledail, ls(s peaares Ieas lecttr eternas I t t -t trisezas de! pate

z 8 di-recci~.n te dhar, . n,ti .....e.. recue.-de ia da.. t'e ;p;rar,e el ....ii tlttl I h~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~':,, _ :IWa--d-o vai-a- al pante~'m vn V (luien t? ~epa cantor Q^!' c I vuelv, i A -i despacho te c nvia;,i, i'l l c e tI It tttttn . inCml" ',!~

fanciful characters, publishing calaveras in newspapers and street gazettes as early as 1883.6 Posada, however, was the one who popularized them, and thus he is often mistakenly credited with their invention.

In a European context, calaveras derive from the medieval imagery of the danse macabre, or Dance of Death. Peter Wollen dates the tradition to fresco paintings of the fifteenth century and then to a series of woodcuts by Hans Holbein in 1538.7 Posada so personalized the imagery, though, his calaveras have become metaphors for his homeland: they are to Mexico what Uncle Sam is to the United States. Originally, Posada simply intended to commemo- rate Mexico's "Day of the Dead" on 2 November, when the poor and illiterate

Fig. 8. Jos6 Guadalupe .,- - -= ,

Posada, La Calavera maderista, . .

1911, zinc etching. Depicted is -

Francisco Madero. _._

DAPA Summer 1990 61

picnic and sleep in cemeteries to be close to their beloved dead (fig. 9). But the calaveras were immensely popular. They captivated audiences by poking fun at the adventures of Cervantes's Don Quixote or Jose Zorrilla's play Don Juan Tenorio (fig. 10).8 Now, sculptural sugar calaveras are consumed every year to celebrate the holiday. Later generations of artists were also influenced by the macabre characters, including Orozco, who, like Posada, started his career as a cartoonist, and Rivera. Rivera's mural Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park (Hotel del Prado, Mexico City) depicts a female calavera catrina (society belle), wearing a scarf and hat. To the skeleton's left, arm-in-arm with her, stands Posada; to her right is Frida Kahlo, Rivera's mistress, and a childish self-portrait of the muralist himself.

Many of Posada's calaveras bear no signature, and over the years the works of countless imitators and forgers have been falsely attributed to him. Even images by Manilla, like Calavera huertista or Calavera zapatista (figs. 11 and 12), both possibly the creation of Manilla, have sometimes been mistakenly as- cribed to Posada.

Posada became a master of the chiaroscuro (figs. 13 and 14). Overcoming the limitations of engraving and lithography, he injected his images with force and passion. Antonio Rodriguez explains Posada's primary printmaking techniques in his book Posada: The Man Who Portrayed an Epoch:

Before settling in Mexico [City] Posada had used the technique of the litho- graph. When he went to work for Arroyo..., he needed to find a more suit- able method for clear, spectacular illustrations that were sharp in line and could be rapidly reproduced. With this in mind he adapted a method al- ready in use in the workshop which consisted of engraving drawings on plates of lead or an alloy of lead and zinc, almost as in wood engraving.

Among the tools he used... were various types of burin, among them the "velo," or multiple-line tool rather like the teeth of a saw, the various points and grooves of which produced parallel tracks on the surface of the plate.

Later, under the pressure to compete with newspapers that were using modern photo-engraving procedures, Posada... [replaced] the burin with a combination of varnishes and acids.

With the old technique, the engraver opened grooves in the plate (of wood and metal), knowing that only what was not engraved... would be printed on the paper. With the new technique, the artist drew or painted his sketches with a pen or brush dipped in protective varnish, and when the other parts of the sheet were eaten away on dipping the sheet in acid, the sketch remained intact for printing.... [This method] is rapid and allows great freedom.9

Political cartoons and idiosyncratic comic strips are immensely popular throughout Mexico,10 and Posada is considered the founding father of the genre. Every significant historic event of his epoch appears in his cartoons. He ridiculed the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, a mixed-blooded general from Oaxaca who fought the French invasion in the 1860s, whereby Napoleon III in- stalled the Austrian Archduke Maximilian of Hapsburg as emperor of Mexico. At first appearing to be a progressive liberal, in 1871 Diaz led an abortive coup against the charismatic president Benito Juarez. He organized another revolt and eventually became president, ruling Mexico tyrannically from 1876 to 1911 (except for one four-year term). Posada also made fun of

62 DAPA Summer 1990

MV)I-E DE1 CALAiV1 j)R \S.

Fig. 9. Jose Guadalupe Posada,

Gran mole de calaveras, zinc

etching and type-metal engrav-

ing. Ubrary of Congress, Prints

and Photographs Division,

Swann Collection. This "Great

Mass of Calaveras' depicts the

living and the dead celebrating

All Souls' Day.

Fig. 10. Jose Guadalupe

Posada, Esta es de Don

Quixote la primera, la sin par

la gigante calavera, type-metal

engraving. Ubrary of Congress,

Prints and Photographs

Division, Swann Collection.

ESTA ES 1E DON QUJIJOTE LA PRIVIERA,

A confesarsse, all puiialtto -- ipt~e nio qiu I rav.~ rEn pecatlo volvei rsv er L ~ ~ ~ '

i,~ n iiiedt Sl Iespett iii alos i-eyes Ese sq e to cuiniplii i sois Iiyes.

Aqtjii est-t (le D)oi 4uiij tetot 11.Is III Iiter'.Itots,

iii qtiet se Ic pt n" tmou h 1 i-e tle (It ctpit its tie, Inalots t a.tos.

m t -t;' 1 gi iki

Elqu t-nia lee esta qoja siteltai

4 ino entv,se 1ioe " itsty

IL

LC-I C C -rl

;Ir

Fig. 11. La Calavera huertista, L

possibly by Manuel Manilla,

depicts Victoriano Huerta, a

brutal general who became

Mexico's president in 1913,A .

Francisco Madero. It is also

known as "The Hungry

Fig. 12. Zapata calavera,

possibly by Manuel Manilia.

Fig. 13. Jose Guadalupe

Posada's depiction of a freak

with legs instead of arms.

Fig. 14. Jos6 Guadalupe

Posada's depiction of a freak

with four eyes.

Mexico's huge foreign debt and of the colonization of Cuba by the United States. He lampooned his country's bourgeoisie for their arrogance and used sensational canards to stir up additional excitement.

When the Revolution began, Posada was fifty-eight years old and had pro- duced fifteen thousand engravings. He was a supporter of Francisco Madero, a wealthy lawyer who militarily opposed Diaz and became president in 1911-only to be murdered two years later by one of his men, Victoriano Huerta. He also sympathized with Emiliano Zapata, a guerrilla from the state of Morelos who fought for the peasants and agrarian reform. During these years, Posada's engravings depict national heroes and symbols, such as women soldiers. Jean Charlot, one of the artist's dedicated admirers, wrote: "The Revolution was a Posada 'still' come to life, its tableaux charted by his able brown hand before it had even begun." Unfortunately, he did not live to see the end of the conflict.11

In 1910, around the time that his wife died, Posada created another famous character, Don Chepito Marihuano, a middle-class bachelor who counterbal- anced Posada's satiric, at times cruel, voice with a moralistic one. Because of his strong influence with his audiences, Posada may have had apprehensions about providing criticisms without solutions. Departing from his customary pessimism, the artist took a positive approach, using Don Chepito to persuade the ignoramus to adopt civic manners. Don Chepito made fun of social foibles but afterwards offered a pedagogic message (fig. 15). His every appearance was educational, with rules regarding behavior, ethics, and honor.

For more than twenty years, Posada lived in a poor neighborhood near the Tepito market, at number 6 Avenida de la Paz (later Jesus Carranza). It was there that he died, penniless, on 20 January 1913, of gastroenteritis.12 He was buried in a pauper's grave in the Dolores cemetery. Seven years later, after no one had claimed his mortal remains, his bones were exhumed and tossed in a communal grave. While not uncommon, the mass burial can be seen as a metaphor for Posada's anonymity.

Posada embodied Mexico's renaissance in his perception of the country as inde- pendent of Europe and in his desire to establish a national art with indigenous motifs and symbols dating to the Conquest. National and international events parade through his imagery: the awaited earthquake of 1899, which was con- sidered an omen of the apocalypse; the burning of a library in Chicago; the fa- mous criminal trial of Maria Antonia Rodriguez, who was accused of killing her compadre (figs. 16 and 17). His political heroes were bandits and Robin Hoods; and his political cartoons express concepts and themes later expounded in Mexican murals. Within his simple and sometimes static images, he displays

DAPA Summer 1990 65

Fig. 15. Jose Guadalupe Posada,

Don Chepito Marihuano.

a considerable amount of inventiveness and fantasy, as in the cartoon of a woman who gives birth to three children and four animals, or the one of a girl with a face on her buttocks (figs. 18 and 19). One could argue that Posada fore- shadows elements of the so-called Magic Realism style of literature-with its dramatic juxtapositions of reality and fantasy-as embodied in the writings of Gabriel Garcia Ma.rquez and Juan Rulfo.13

Posada's imagery was so varied, his burin so prolific that it is difficult to know how best to approach his body of work. Roberto Bardecio and Stanley Appelbaum have established a thematic hierarchy: calaveras, disasters, na- tional events, religion and miracles, Don Chepito Marihuano, chapbook covers, chapbook illustrations, everyday life, and miscellaneous prints.14 One could also approach his oeuvre chronologically and biographically, examining the art as it developed in the context of his life. Or, one can simply ignore any logical sequence and approach the work chaotically-which is my preference. The artist is best appreciated when external frameworks are not imposed on him. His spirit erupts in each autonomous engraving or lithograph, and the encounter between image and viewer is pure pleasure.15

Posada's life after death was yet another act of creation. He did not find an im- mediate following. For the next decade, the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos, a national institute founded in 1778 to preserve traditions and tech- niques in the visual arts, ignored emerging indigenous trends in favor of im- ported styles and ideas. To counterattack this, the Taller de Grafica Popular (Studio of Popular Art) was formed in 1937 under the socialist regime of Lazaro Cardenas. The group supported new artistic movements and tried to collectively create a revolutionary street art. At the same time, the so-called Mexican school-in particular Rivera and Orozco-frequently produced lithographs strongly influenced by Posada. Together with Emilio Amero, Jean Charlot, Miguel Covarrubias, Carlos Merida, Pablo O'Higgins, and Rufino Tamayo, the two muralists created a lithographic tradition of great impact following the teachings of Posada.

Two sources might be credited with restoring Posada to prominence. In 1920, the early modernist painter Dr. Alt (Gerardo V Murillo) "rediscovered" Posada. It was Jean Charlot, however, a French immigrant to Mexico and a friend of the muralists, who showed around Posada's prints and wrote about him during

66 DAPA Summer 1990

-1 4'

v EL GRAN JUICIO UNIVERSALM' [X - I' l" 0->'_ A-S. f

i;Fin de todo el Milndo para el 14 de Noviembre

de 1899 a las 12 y 45 minutos de la noche!!

Fig. 16. Jose Guadalupe

Posada, El gran juicio

universal! This vision of the

Last Judgment illustrates the

widely held fear that on 14

November 1899 the world

would come to an end after a

terrible earthquake, volcanic

eruption, and rain of stars.

Fig. 17. Jos6 Guadalupe Posada, iHorroroso asesinato! This image depicts

the "horrifying murder" by Maria Antonia Rodriguez of her friend, who

refused to have an affair with her.

DAPA Summer 1990 67

S

RARO!

UNA MUJER QUE DIO A LUZ

TRES NINOS

Y CU4TRO 0.Ji'fLES.

Fig. 18. Jos6 Guadalupe

Posada, Una mujer que dio a

luz tres niios y cuatro

animates ("A rare case! A

woman gives birth to three

children and four animals").

Fig. 19. Jose Guadalupe

Posada's depiction of a girl

with two faces. While one face

speaks of sadness and the

other is a disturbing mask, the

young girl does not appear to

experience any identity

conflict. Existential suffering

was not one of the

lampoonist's concerns.

the twenties in the context of Cubism. He brought the engraver to the atten- tion of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, who were so enchanted with his artistic spirit that they embraced him as their master. Rivera once stated that Posada "was so closely associated with the spirit of the Mexican people that he may end up just as an abstraction"-in other words, his legacy would become a collective one, which has indeed happened. Orozco saw Posada as one of the greatest artists, one "able to teach an admirable lesson in simplicity, humility, equilibrium and dignity."16

In Posada: Messenger of Mortality, Peter Wollen analyzes Posada in Borgesian fashion: through the eyes of his successors. He examines, for example, similar- ities between him and the early European avant-gardist Gustave Courbet-a painter of earthy, and sometimes crude, realism-and he discusses the affec- tion some of the Cubists, such as Piet Mondrian, had for the Mexican cartoon- ist because of their re-evaluation of non-canonical and "primitive" forms of art. Wollen also refers to Posada's influence on Russian lubki-posters and small books containing ballads, tales, and tracts-made by Mikhail Larionov and other Golden Fleece and Donkey's Tail artists. Larionov knew of Posada through his friend Rivera, whom he frequently visited in Paris.

Other cultural links can be found, such as Posada's appeal to the Russian di- rector Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein and to Surrealists such as Alfred Jarry and Andre Breton, who cherished the calavera for its cruel, yet humorous, morbidity. In an enthusiastic article, Breton wrote that:

the rise of humor in art to a clear, pure form seems to have taken place in a period very close to our own. Its foremost practitioner is the Mexican artist Posada who, in his wonderful popular engravings, brings home to us all the conflicts of the 1910 Revolution.... They tell us something about the pas- sage of comedy from speculation to action and remind us that Mexico, with its superb funereal playthings, is the chosen land of black humor.17

Eisenstein, according to Wollen, first saw Posada's work in Berlin in 1929, at the house of playwright Ernst Toller. The Russian filmmaker, himself an aspir- ing artist, shared the Mexican printmaker's interest in crowds, revolution, and tumultuous events, as seen in his movies such as Battleship Potemkin (1925), October (1927), and the unfinished iQue Viva Mexico! In his autobiography Immortal Memories, Eisenstein explains how, when learning to draw, his drawing went through a stage of purification in his striving for a mathemati- cally abstract and pure line, and how he was influenced at the time by Rivera, Mexican primitivism, and the "cheap prints" of Posada.18

In what may be the ultimate praise, Rivera compared Posada to Francisco de Goya. In drawing his analogy, Rivera had the artists' populism in mind. But, as I mentioned before, the links between the enlightened eighteenth-century Spaniard and the pre-modernist Mexican are even more obvious, at least at one level: both created an enduring zoology of imaginary beings. Rivera wrote of Posada:

Entirely original, Posada's work speaks with a pure Mexican accent.... If we accept August Renoir's dictum that the true work of art is "indefinable and inimitable," we can safely say that Posada's engravings are works of art of the highest order. Posada can never be imitated; he can never be defined. In terms of technique, his work is pure plasticity; in terms of content, it is life itself: two things that cannot be imprisoned in the straitjacket of a definition.19

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Fig. 20. Jos6 Guadalupe

Posada's depiction of a freak

with a human growing from

his side.

Rivera loved the Posada of the urban poor, the lumpen street people. But equally enjoyable, and most attractive to me, is the Posada who transports us to a universe of gothic, at times grotesque, magical, and bizarre incidents, or Posada the anarchist, dwelling on catastrophe, satire, and death. Death, in fact, is his primary preoccupation, as far as I am concerned-not an existen- tial, painful death, but one that is irrevocable, social, and egalitarian. The gothic facet of Posada has, unfortunately, gone unattended. His universe is full of bats, griffins, skeletons, animal hybrids, snakes, explosions, pistols, demons, ghosts, and deformities (figs. 20 and 21). He draws attention to fear, despair, and criminality. His monsters are not pure abstraction; they are symbols, alle- gorical images, metaphors. They have a life of their own yet are tied to the human reality. They deserve a place next to the sphinx, the multiple-headed dragon, and the behemoth, as well as Pieter Brueghel's vision of Hell. Posada was able to portray the sadism, torture, madness, superstition, and paranoia of his time through these incredibly complex, outstandingly imaginative charac- ters without ever losing touch with the Mexican soul, perhaps, because they inhabit it.

Why is this master of street art relevant today? Because he was a genius without artifice or pomposity. Because he truly spoke to the masses. Because he was attracted to the calamitous and absurd, as mankind will always be. Because rarely does an artist manage to bridge the gap between popular and sophisti- cated tastes as he did through his lampoons and cartoons. To put it simply, be- cause Posada is Mexico. o

Notes

1. Many encyclopedias give his year of birth as 1851. The best biographical sources on Posada are Antonio Rodriguez, Posada: El artista que retrat6 una epoca (Mexico City: Editorial Domes, 1977); Luis Cardoza y Arag6n,Jose Guadalupe Posada (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mexico, 1963); and J. Larrea, "Posada" in Cuademos americanos, no. 3 (1943). See also Ilan Stavans, "Nota sobre Jose Guadalupe Posada," in Manual del (im) perfecto resenista (Mexico City: Universidad Aut6noma Metropolitana, 1989).

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2. See Octavio Paz, "Jose Guadalupe Posada y el grabado latinoamericano," in M6xico en la obra de Octavio Paz, vol. 3: Los privilegios de la vista (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1987).

3. Between 1884 and 1888, Posada taught lithography at a secondary school in Le6n.

4. Posada had a son but not by his wife. He may have been adopted or the product of an extramarital affair. The boy, who appears in at least one of the two surviving photographs of Posada, was dearly loved by his father. He died in his teens, shortly after the turn of the century.

5. Alois Senefelder, a Bavarian artist, invented the process of lithography around 1798. Within thirty years, knowledge of it had spread throughout the world. For an examination of Mexican lithogra- phy in the nineteenth century, see Manuel Toussaint, La litografia en Mexico en el siglo XIX, 2nd ed. (Biblioteca Nacional, 1934). A comprehensive history of Mexican lithography in this century has yet to be written. Among the artists that deserve mention are: Olga Costa, Carlos Merida, Gunther Gerzo, Pablo O'Higgins, Vicente Rojo, Carlos Alvorado Lang, Roger von Gunten, Mariano Pancedes, Jose Luis Cuevas, Miguel Covarrubias, Alfredo Castafieda, Luis Lopez Loza, Rufino Tamayo, Alberto Castro Lefiero, and Gabriel Macotela. For additional information on the subject see Francisco Diaz de Le6n, Gehona y Posada: Grabadores mexicanos (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1968); Armin Haab, Mexican Graphic Art (New York: George Wittenborn, 1957); and Posada und die mexicanische Druckgraphik, 1930 bis 1960 (Nuremberg: Albrecht-Durer-Gesellschaft; 1971).

6. Manilla died in the 1890s.

7. See Peter Wollen's insightful introductory essay to Julian Rothenstein, ed., Posada: Messenger of Mortality (London: Redstone Press, 1989), which accompanies an exhibition of Posada's work at the Oxford Museum of Modern Art.

8. A decisive influence on Posada was an 1844 print by Manilla showing scenes from Zorrilla's play. See Edward Larocque Tinker, Corridosy calaveras (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961).

9. Quoted in Julian Rothenstein, ed.,Jose Guadalupe Posada: Mexican Popular Prints (London: Redstone Press, 1988), pp. 22-23.

10. Examples of political cartoons by other artists, some of them anonymous, include "La Familia J^' ,

? ' "~:~i:t, Burr6n," "Condorito," and the images of Naranjo and Rius. For a tribute from the latter to Posada,

^ ^, iX*)S '-'""~"'~"~'~'~~' ,: see Eduardo del Rio (Rius), Posada (Mexico City: Editorial Posada, 1989).

11. Quoted in Rothenstein, Posada: Mexican Popular Prints, p. 24. Vanegas Arroyo, who died in X?: ';,: ~"(~ 7~ 1917, did live to see the Revolution coming to an end. His son, Bias Vanegas Arroyo, later wrote a

monograph about "Don Lupe," as he used to call Posada. See Frances Toor, Pablo O'Higgins, and Blas Vanegas Arroyo, Monografta: Las obras deJos6 Guadalupe Posada, grabador mexicano (Mexico City: Mexican Folkways, 1930).

12. The death certificate read "enteritis aguda."

13. The Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier, in a 1943 article about a trip to Haiti, coined the term "magic realism" (lo real maravilloso), referring to the intertwining of reality and fantasy with no

,. ,/ ~clear separation of the two. He wanted to show the French intelligentsia that elements of their ~;~, | Surrealism movement were commonplace in Caribbean literature and art. Juan Rulfo created vivid

portraits of desolate life in rural Mexico in The Burning Plain and Other Stories (1953) and the remarkable novel Pedro Pdramo (1955).

14. See their book Posada's Popular Mexican Prints: Two Hundred and Seventy Three Cuts (New York: Dorer, 1972).

15. This is the approach taken in Hannes Jahn, ed., Das Werk von Jose Guadalupe Posada (Frankfurt- am-Main: Zweitausendeins, 1976). This volume reproduces more prints than any other study on

Fig. 21. Jose Guadalupe Posada (approximately 1,700). In addition to a brief introduction, it comprises an index of 776 ti- tles of drawings and a bibliography of periodicals to which Posada contributed, books or series of books that he illustrated, studies on him, and works and essays referring to him or showing his in-

Posadas depiction of a freak fluence.

with the body of a pig, the face 16. Rivera and Orozco quotations from Rothenstein, Posada: Mexican Popular Prints, p. 15. The original sources are: Diego Rivera, "Jose Guadalupe Posada: The Popular Artist," Artes de M6xico 4

of a man, the eyes of a fish, (January/February 1958); and Jose Clemente Orozco, "The Stimulus of Posada," Massachusetts Review 3, no. 2 (1962). Regarding Jean Chariot, see Jean Charlot, Posada's Dance of Death (New York: Pratt Graphic Art Center, 1964); An Artist on Art: Collected Essays of Jean Chariot

and a horn on its forehead. (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1972); and Artfrom the Mayans to Disney (New York and London: Sheed and Ward, 1939).

17. Andre Breton, "Bois de Jos6 Guadalupe Posada," Minotaure no. 10 (1928).

18. Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, Immortal Memories, trans. Herbert Marshall (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983).

19. Diego Rivera, "Jose Guadalupe Posada: A Magisterial Utilization of Clean Bones," Massachusetts Review 3, no. 2 (1962).

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