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Course: Art of the Americas to World War I > Unit 9
Lesson 2: Art of Mexico in the 18th and 19th centuries- The Academy of San Carlos
- Mexican Independence
- Ferdinand Deppe, The Mission of San Gabriel, Alta California in May 1832
- Manuel Vilar, Tlahuicole
- A new art for a new nation: Félix Parra’s Bartolomé de las Casas
- Velasco, The Valley of Mexico
- Velasco, The Valley of Mexico
- José María Velasco, The Candelabrum
- Costumbrismo
- Picturing Racial and Social Identities in José Agustín Arrieta’s Costumbrista Painting, La Sorpreza
- Coming of Age in Gutiérrez’s Costumbrista painting, La despedida del joven indio (The Young Indian’s Farewell)
- Retablo of La Mano Poderosa/The All Powerful Hand
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Manuel Vilar, Tlahuicole
Manuel Vilar, Tlahuicole, the Tlaxcaltecan General, Fighting in the Gladiatorial Sacrifice, 1851, plaster, 216 cm high (Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City)
A conversation between Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(upbeat music) - [Steven] We're in the
National Museum of Art in Mexico City, and we're looking at a
really interesting sculpture. It's actually a plaster that
was intended to be cast. What's fascinating is that it's taking this neoclassical
tradition and adopting it to Mexican history. - [Lauren] The sculpture is
by the artist Manuel Vilar, who was the Professor of Sculpture at the Academy of San Carlos, which had been established in 1785. The plaster cast that we're
seeing here was created in 1851. - [Steven] And it represents something that we call the flower wars, and this comes from Aztec history. The Aztecs believed that
they had to supply people for sacrifice on important
days in the calendar, and these tended to be people
that they captured from cities that they did not yet dominate. - [Lauren] One of the
main rivals of the Aztecs, it was actually a place that they were never able to conquer, was the peoples from Tlaxcala, and this individual that
we're seeing portrayed here was a general of the Tlaxcalteca,
the Tlaxcalan people, who was named Tlahuicole, or Tlahuicole. He's been captured and brought back to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, and he's going to have to
engage in sacrificial combat. - [Steven] But at a major disadvantage. He's been tethered to a
large sacrificial stone, and he's been given a
club, but it's very likely that he's up against
more than one opponent who are better armed, but this is all an
opportunity by the artist to render the beauty and the
heroic nature of the body, but here embodied by this native culture, and this is where the politics
of art come to the fore. - [Lauren] And we're not seeing someone who seems to fear death, and he has this defiant look on his face. His body can faze his
strength and determination to battle into the death. He's standing with his legs apart, and we're seeing all his
muscles flexed and tensed as he's about to fight to the death. - [Steven] He's so idealized. He's so powerful. It is as if we're looking at an ancient Greek Hellenistic sculpture, something that is almost overwrought but with a tremendous
knowledge of the body. What's so interesting is that you've got this
modern European tradition, looking back to the ancient Roman and ancient Greek tradition, but then grafting that on to
the history of Mesoamerica. - [Lauren] This is actually pretty early to begin seeing this classicizing of the pre-Hispanic past, because in 1851, Manuel Vilar is actually the first person to begin producing works that stray away from the Greco-Roman past, and in fact, when he creates this plaster model of this Tlaxcalan general, he similarly created other work of the Aztec ruler
Mactezuma II or La Malinche. This is really something we begin to see only in the late 1860s. - [Steven] But this figure is nude, unlike the other two
that you just mentioned, and that may have been
a bit of a violation of the social norms of
Mexico at this time. The artist is taking real
Liberty and is clearly fascinated by the historical tradition
of the heroic nude. - [Lauren] We mentioned that
this was intended to be cast in bronze and probably placed
somewhere for public display. Unfortunately, due to economic downturns and probably uprisings, these were never made into bronze. - [Steven] It is this amazing glimpse into a very specific
historical and cultural moment in Mexican history. - [Lauren] This is the moment when you have this
continuing emerging sense of what it means to be Mexican and to have this sense
of a Mexican identity. (gentle music)