Posada's Popular Mexican Prints
By José Posada
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About this ebook
José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913) was Mexico's most illustrious graphic artist. For over forty years he worked tirelessly as an incorruptible and truly popular artist, illustrating cookbooks and fortune-telling books, collections of songs and riddles, periodicals and newspapers, children's books and novels, and most of all famous broadsides that were distributed throughout the country. After his death he was venerated by the artists of the new generation — Rivera, Orozco, and many others, who realized that he had both saved and renewed the art of engraving in Mexico, and incorporated much of Posada's imagery into their own work.
Here are close to 300 of Posada's best engravings, all done for the printer and publisher A. Vanegas Arroyo in Mexico City. Posada worked in two techniques — engraving on type metal with a many-pointed burin and, later, relief etching on zinc. The broadsides he illustrated commemorated all sorts of occasions — disasters, political events, crimes, and miracles — or they glorified great popular heroes like Zapata. Posada was known for his calaveras — skeletons that cavorted, ate and drank, rode bicycles and horses, wielded swords and daggers, or were revolutionaries, streetcleaners, dishwashers, and almost everything else. This was traditional art for All Souls' Day, the Mexican Day of the Dead, but in Posada's hands it became extremely versatile, sometimes an instrument of social and political satire, sometimes a sympathetic portrait of a revolutionary, sometimes a comic, cartoon-like memento mori. He did engravings of murders, suicides, catastrophes, robberies, and executions, as well as of snake-men, giant snails, and other grotesques and deformation. He pictured the daily pleasures and chagrins of the people from a proletarian point of view, and with overflowing imaginativeness. There is brutality and horror in his art, but there is also humor, political consciousness, and a sprawling, immediate vitality.
This edition includes explanatory notes and commentary, often giving precise topical meaning to what otherwise appears vague or allegorical. It presents all of Posada's various themes, and all of the many forms in which he worked in his maturity. It is hoped that through it he will gain the wider audience, especially in America, that he deserves.
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Reviews for Posada's Popular Mexican Prints
8 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I love this book! This is my first introduction to Mexican "popular art" (as opposed to "fine art", I suppose). Posada was active for about forty years, from the 1870s to his death in 1913, influencing more famous artists such as Orozco and Rivera. Deceptively folkloric in style, this collection of engravings and etchings includes advertisements; satirical and political cartoons; illustrations from newspapers, broadsides, corridos (popular narrative songs) and inexpensive books; and especially calaveras (skeletons imitating people). The often-lurid subjects include disasters, accidents, freak births, crimes, executions, and fairy tales. Many of the moralistic scenes include satanic creatures with horns and tails.
Book preview
Posada's Popular Mexican Prints - José Posada
DOVER PICTORIAL ARCHIVE SERIES
381 OLD-FASHIONED HOLIDAY VIGNETTES IN FULL COLOR, Carol Belanger Grafton (ed.). (0-486-27686-4)
1,001 ADVERTISING CUTS FROM THE TWENTIES AND THIRTIES, Leslie Cabarga et al. (ed.). (0-486-25490-9)
TRADITIONAL JAPANESE DESIGN MOTIFS, Joseph D’Addetta. (0-486-24629-9)
BORDERS, FRAMES AND DECORATIVE MOTIFS FROM THE 1862 DERRIEY TYPOGRAPHIC CATALOG, Charles Derriey. (0-486-25322-8)
ART NOUVEAU: AN ANTHOLOGY OF DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATION FROM THE STUDIO
, selected by Edmund V. Gillon, Jr. (0-486-22388-4)
PICTURE SOURCEBOOK FOR COLLAGE AND DECOUPAGE, Edmund V. Gillon, Jr. (ed.). (0-486-23095-3)
DECORATIVE TILE DESIGNS IN FULL COLOR, Carol Belanger Grafton (ed.). (0-486-26952-3)
MORE SILHOUETTES, Carol Belanger Grafton (ed.). (0-486-24256-0)
OLD-TIME VIGNETTES IN FULL COLOR, Carol Belanger Grafton (ed.). (0-486-27269-9)
OPTICAL DESIGNS IN MOTION WITH MOIRE OVERLAYS, Carol Belanger Grafton. (0-486-23284-0)
PICTORIAL ARCHIVE OF DECORATIVE AND ILLUSTRATIVE MORTISED CUTS: 551 DESIGNS FOR ADVERTISING AND OTHER USES, Carol Belanger Grafton (ed.). (0-486-24540-3)
300 ART NOUVEAU DESIGNS AND MOTIFS IN FULL COLOR, Carol Belanger Grafton. (0-486-24354-0)
TRADES AND OCCUPATIONS: A PICTORIAL ARCHIVE FROM EARLY SOURCES, Carol Belanger Grafton (ed.). (0-486-26362-2)
TREASURY OF ART NOUVEAU DESIGN AND ORNAMENT, Carol Belanger Grafton (ed.). (0-486-24001-0)
TREASURY OF IRONWORK DESIGNS: 469 EXAMPLES FROM HISTORICAL SOURCES, Carol Belanger Grafton. (0-486-27126-9)
2,001 DECORATIVE CUTS AND ORNAMENTS, Carol Belanger Grafton. (0-486-25612-X)
VICTORIAN PICTORIAL BORDERS: 124 FULL-PAGE DESIGNS, Carol Belanger Grafton (ed.). (0-486-24693-0)
HANDS: A PICTORIAL ARCHIVE FROM NINETEENTH-CENTURY SOURCES, Jim Harter (ed.). (0-486-24959-X)
HARTER’S PICTURE ARCHIVE FOR COLLAGE AND ILLUSTRATION, Jim Harter. (0-486-23659-5)
MEN: A PICTORIAL ARCHIVE FROM NINETEENTH-CENTURY SOURCES, Jim Harter (ed.). (0-486-23952-7)
SPOT ILLUSTRATIONS FROM WOMEN’S MAGAZINES OF THE TEENS AND TWENTIES: 828 CUTS OF WOMEN, FAMILY, HOME, GARDEN, ETC., Judy M. Johnson (ed.). (0-486-26116-6)
MASTERPIECES OF ART NOUVEAU STAINED GLASS: 91 MOTIFS IN FULL COLOR, Arnold Lyongrün. (0-486-25953-6)
JAPANESE BORDER DESIGNS, Theodore Menten (ed.). (0-486-23180-1)
A TREASURY OF DESIGNS FOR ARTISTS AND CRAFTSMEN, Gregory Mirow. (0-486-22002-8)
HANDBOOK OF PICTORIAL SYMBOLS, Rudolf Modley. (0-486-23357-X)
AUTHENTIC INDIAN DESIGNS, Maria Naylor (ed.). (0-486-23170-4)
PUGIN’S GOTHIC ORNAMENT: THE CLASSIC SOURCEBOOK OF DECORATIVE MOTIFS/ WITH 100 PLATES, Augustus C. Pugin. (0-486-25500-X)
FULL-COLOR PICTURE SOURCEBOOK OF HISTORIC ORNAMENT: ALL 120 PLATES FROM L’ORNEMENT POLYCHROME,
SERIES II, Auguste Racinet. (0-486-26096-8)
2,286 TRADITIONAL STENCIL DESIGNS, H. Roessing. (0-486-26845-4)
FLORAL ILLUSTRATIONS: A TREASURY OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY CUTS, William Rowe (ed.). (0-486-26255-3)
GOODS AND MERCHANDISE, William Rowe (ed.). (0-486-24410-5)
PICTORIAL ARCHIVE OF GEOMETRIC DESIGNS, Wil Stegenga. (0-486-27148-X)
ORIENTAL FLORAL DESIGNS AND MOTIFS FOR ARTISTS, NEEDLEWORKERS AND CRAFTSPEOPLE, Ming-ju Sun. (0-486-24903-4)
ORNAMENTAL BORDERS, SCROLLS AND CARTOUCHES IN HISTORIC DECORATIVE STYLES, Syracuse Ornamental Company. (0-486-25489-5)
FLORAL DESIGNS AND MOTIFS FOR ARTISTS, NEEDLEWORKERS AND CRAFTSPEOPLE, Charlene Tarbox. (0-486-24716-3)
ART NOUVEAU ANIMAL DESIGNS AND PATTERNS: 60 PLATES IN FULL COLOR, M.-P. Verneuil. (0-486-27218-4)
PERSPECTIVE, Jan Vredeman de Vries. (0-486-20186-4)
MEXICAN INDIAN FOLK DESIGNS: 200 MOTIFS FROM TEXTILES, Irmgard Weitlaner-Johnson. (0-486-27524-8)
AFRICAN DESIGNS FROM TRADITIONAL SOURCES, Geoffrey Williams. (0-486-22752-9)
EARLY MEDIEVAL DESIGNS FROM BRITAIN FOR ARTISTS AND CRAFTSPEOPLE, Eva Wilson. (0-486-25340-6)
ISLAMIC DESIGNS FOR ARTISTS AND CRAFTSPEOPLE, Eva Wilson. (0-486-25819-X)
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COPYRIGHT © 1972 BY DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
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Posada’s Popular Mexican Prints is a new work, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 1972.
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This book belongs to the Dover Pictorial Archive Series. You may use the designs and illustrations for graphics and crafts applications, free and without special permission, provided that you include no more than ten in the same publication or project. (For permission for additional use, please write to Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501.)
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Preface and Acknowledgments
The purpose of the present book is to make more widely known, in over 250 of its finest examples, the work of Mexico’s most illustrious printmaker, José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913). Almost all the illustrations in this book have been reproduced in their original size directly from very fine impressions freshly pulled in the early 1960’s from Posada’s original blocks and plates. Several other subjects, the inclusion of which was essential to any basic Posada collection, have been reproduced from the first large-scale Posada publication, the 1930 Monografia edited by Frances Toor, Paul (Pablo) O’Higgins and Bias Vanegas Arroyo, which was itself reproduced from actual impressions.
Posada scholarship is in its early stages, and many vexed questions remain unanswered—not to mention the fact that a surprising number of art historians and museum curators still do not seem to have caught up with the best literature already available. Moreover, almost everything written to date is tinged to a larger or smaller degree with some form of tendentiousness. The brief introduction and commentary in the present book do not attempt to solve these problems or offer new evidence, but only to present the basic facts and background succinctly, and then let the pictures speak for themselves.
This task has been made possible by the existence of a remarkable book, José Guadalupe Posada: Ilustrador de la vida mexicana, published in