Vicente Quirarte y María Helena González*
A nuestra querida amiga, la señora Tere Velasco,
estudiosa y descendiente del notable pintor.
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En el Museo de Geología de la UNAM, en el corazón de la Alameda de Santa María la Rivera, tuvo lugar nuestro primer encuentro con el otro José María Velasco (1840-1912). Nuestra adolescencia hambrienta se extasió ante las obras que en 1906 el artista elaboró para decorar la planta superior del entonces Instituto Geológico Nacional. Su motivación era ilustrar la evolución de la vida marina y terrestre en las distintas eras geológicas, reinterpretando un ciclo de pinturas sobre el mismo tema realizado por el paisajista austríaco Josef Hoffmann (1831-1904) para la sala décima del Museo de Historia Natural de Viena.
Decimos “el otro Velasco”, porque en el Museo Kaluz se destaca en la exposición titulada El jardín de Velasco (hasta marzo) la faceta de explorador, botánico, geólogo, zoólogo -acaso ictiólogo- del acreditado paisajista. Nos fascinaron porque en estas piezas cuyas acuarelas vimos en el MUNAL un par de horas antes, se combinan el paisaje y la naturaleza muerta, y porque el nacido en Temascalcingo, Estado de México, dio rienda suelta a la imaginación, cosa que no se permitía en otros momentos de sus procesos creativos vinculados con el rigor de la re-presentación minuciosa de la realidad. Sus pétalos se transforman en lenguas y llamas vegetales, las cintas se levantan en vilo, los caracoles y corales semejan instrumentos musicales y esqueletos. En síntesis: el artista va más allá de su inicial encomienda de imaginar el mundo en sus posibles inicios.
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Una de las discusiones teóricas más importantes del siglo XIX se dio en función de las relaciones entre pintura y fotografía. Se pensaba que la pintura ya no sería necesaria, puesto que existía la posibilidad de registrar mecánicamente los objetos. Charles Baudelaire expresó con claridad este temor al advertir que, “si se permite a la fotografía suplir al arte en algunas de sus funciones, pronto lo habrá suplantado o corrompido por completo”[1], insistiendo en que su papel debía limitarse al de una herramienta auxiliar y no al de un medio creativo autónomo. En la muestra se aborda este asunto y se subraya, frente a esa amenaza de sustitución, la necesidad insustituible de la creatividad humana. En una de las vitrinas se exhiben los aparatos que se empleaban en las expediciones a las que acudía Velasco. En 1865, siendo aún estudiante, se unió a sus compañeros de la Academia, Luis Coto y Rafael Montes de Oca, en una comisión exploradora cuyo objetivo era informar sobre el hallazgo de unas ruinas en el límite entre Puebla y Veracruz. Según informó el jefe de la comisión, Ramón Almaraz, “el trabajo de los dibujantes era indispensable para representar lo que este aparato no podía”. ¿A qué nos referimos? A la enorme cantidad de gradaciones que logra el grafito en sus grises gracias a la presión ejercida sobre el papel y a la potencia de una mirada capaz de distinguir infinidad de tonalidades. Se exhibe un dibujo de un tronco de árbol, obra de Velasco, que da cuenta de la paciencia y del oficio que sostenían su arte.
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Frente al óleo Volcán de Orizaba desde la Hacienda de San Miguelito (1892) el artista representa las plantas como un botanista en el primer plano, pero a medida que la mirada se desplaza hacia el segundo y tercer plano, percibimos la formación del pintor que obedece a los hallazgos renacentistas con respecto a la perspectiva atmosférica: los verdes tienen al azul –el azul es el verde que se aleja, como decía Elías Nandino- y los límites de los objetos se van haciendo borrosos, de acuerdo con las lecciones sobre el sfumato de Leonardo da Vinci. Para apreciar un Velasco necesitamos entender al científico ocupado en el detalle y al pintor animado por la incidencia de la luz sobre los objetos.
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Las exposiciones del Museo Kaluz y del Museo Nacional de Arte, MUNAL -esta última menor por ser de gabinete y por los recursos empleados en el montaje- responden a la pregunta que nos hemos hecho cientos de veces: ¿por qué se da en el humano la necesidad de re-crear o de re-presentar el mundo si ya están dados los objetos? Una posible respuesta podemos inferirla frente a su autorretrato (grafito/papel, 1894) y la fotografía de autor desconocido (s/f) que aparece junto al mismo. En este caso el pintor no acudió al espejo para desentrañar el “yo”, sino que obedeció al impulso de la mímesis: dio una nueva realidad a la imagen fotográfica. Nos basta observar el abordaje dibujístico de la barba para entender el gozo del acto creativo, pues el detalle tan minucioso no se aprecia en la fotografía.
*helenagonzalezcultura@gmail.com
Link de consulta: Las tres miradas de José María Velasco – LA JORNADA MORELOS
José María Velasco (1840-1912). Autorretrato, 1894 Grafito sobre papel. Colección Museo Kaluz
Retrato de José María Velasco. Autor sin identificar s/f. Colección Museo Kaluz
Flora y fauna marina del periodo Paleozoico, Siluriano y Devónico. Óleo sobre tela s/f. José María Velasco / Colección particular
Flora y fauna marina del periodo Mesozoico, Jurásico. Óleo sobre tela s/f. José María Velasco / colección particular
Baudelaire, C. (1859/1981). Salón de 1859. En J. Mayne (Ed.), Art in Paris 1845–1862: Salons and other exhibitions (pp. 154–155). Phaidon Press. ↑
Hola Maria Helena, sué gusto encontrarte por aquí ; escribí también algo sobre Velasco que me gustaría compartir contigo, pero no logro pegar aquí el link; estoy escribiendo mucho de arte en una especie de blog en el portal Fusilerias, puedes buscar mi archivo bajo mi nombre, soy Miguel Barberena, y me gustaría enviarte mis artículos y también leer los tuyos, mandala tu correo o tel, saludos
ResponderEliminarIf I were asked to choose a “painter of the year,” I would opt for José María Velasco (1840 – 1912). The Mexican landscape painter had two outstanding retrospectives in 2025. The first, nothing less than at London’s National Gallery, titled José María Velasco. A View of Mexico, ran from March 29 to August 17. It was a small exhibition – 17 paintings – but exceptionally well curated, the first ever devoted to Velasco, or to any Latin American artist, at that institution. It is currently continuing its tour – through the end of January – at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA).
ResponderEliminarThe second retrospective is on view from October 26 to May 25 at the Kaluz Museum in Mexico City: El jardín de Velasco (Velasco’s Garden), focused on the artist’s “scientific” side. Velasco was also a geologist, botanist, biologist, and archaeologist of the first order. This is an exhibition not to be missed, a true must-see in this beautiful museum, which opened in 2020 with the collections of businessman and banker Antonio del Valle Ruiz, the eleventh wealthiest man in Mexico in 2024 according to Forbes magazine
ResponderEliminarWhat happens with J. M. Velasco is that we mexicans are so accustomed to him that we forget him. He is always there, etched into the national retina. There is hardly a day when we do not come across one of his reproductions – on the cover of a free government textbook, on a box of “La Central” matches, on the calendar at the corner shop – or directly encounter the majestic landscapes he painted, easel in hand, around 1860 – 1875, his most creative years, depicting our “metaphysical valley,” today turned into a sewer of concrete and pollution, when we drive the
ResponderEliminarthe highway toward Puebla or Cuernavaca. Since 1943, he has been designated a “Monument of the Nation’s Artistic Heritage,” and he is the main attraction at the National Museum of Art (MUNAL), which houses 190 of his oils, watercolors, and drawings.
ResponderEliminarI was thinking about all this as I walked through Trafalgar Square and saw, hanging from the façade of the National Gallery, the large banner announcing A View of Mexico. Astonished (“Velasco? Really?”), I changed direction – I had been heading that morning to the National Portrait Gallery, another of the fabulous museums the British capital offers, also on Trafalgar Square – to visit the exhibition by my compatriot, which I had not known about, despite having spent several weeks in the United Kingdom and
ResponderEliminarFor me it was a rediscovery of Velasco, almost like seeing him for the first time, especially after wandering through the galleries of the great British landscape school – the Constables, Gainsboroughs, Turners – that lead to the Sunley Rooms, the small gallery where A View of Mexico was displayed. I will not hide that, upon looking again at Velasco’s monumental landscapes, seeing him alongside the other great masters of landscape in such a prestigious pinacotheca, my chest swelled with emotion and longing.
ResponderEliminarI proudly told other visitors that I was Mexican and that this was “my” painter. Sometimes it happens this way: one must take distance, see things from the outside and from afar, to revalue what we have, what we have taken for granted and relegated to memory.
ResponderEliminarThere, in one of the world’s greatest museums, stood the magnificent José María Velasco of Temascalcingo, State of Mexico. His imposing painting of our rugged, bare valley as seen from Cerro de Santa Isabel (signed in the lower left corner: “José María Velasco, Mexican. I paint Mexico”); his extraordinary Cardón or Oaxacan Candelabra (1897), one of his most emblematic works; the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon in 1878, from the Pérez Simón collection, a marvelous painting; and the volcanoes – always our volcanoes – the Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, seen from Chalco, Tacubaya, or Molino del Rey.
ResponderEliminarThe exhibition also includes paintings illustrating Porfirian progress of the time: the railroads beginning to unite the country (The Metlac Bridge, 1881) and the industries consolidating the economy (The Goat Herder of San Ángel, 1863).
ResponderEliminarMy favorite of all, perhaps because it is different, unique within Velasco’s oeuvre, is The Great Comet of 1882, in which the painter turns his gaze to the sky to depict an astronomical phenomenon that became a cultural and scientific event in Mexico: the Cruls comet, with its very bright tail, which Velasco rendered incredibly, including its reflection in Lake Texcoco. It was one of his last paintings, completed in 1910, when another comet – the famous Halley – was crossing the earthly firmament. The painting belongs to the Museum of Art of Orizaba, and it is truly exceptional to see it outside that venue.
ResponderEliminarVelasco was an absolutely Mexican painter, without “modernist” adulterations or foreign influences. He lived in a closed, Catholic, conservative, Porfirian world. An exact contemporary of Monet and Renoir, both born in 1840, he seems not to have noticed the Impressionist revolution unfolding in Europe, and if he did notice it, he did not care.
ResponderEliminarIt was not until 1889, at age 49, that he visited Paris for the first and only time, to take part in the Universal Exposition. There, his work – 70 paintings – in the Mexican pavilion caused a strong impact, earning him the Silver Medal and great international fame.
ResponderEliminarEuropean artistic influence reached him through his teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos, which he entered at age 18: the Italian from Turin, Eugenio Landesio (1810 – 1879), and through reproductions of Tintoretto, Titian, and other great Renaissance masters that they studied together. It was also Landesio who sparked the young Velasco’s interest in botany and geology.
ResponderEliminarThe exhibition at the Kaluz Museum, El jardín de Velasco, functions as the perfect complement to the London show A View of Mexico. It culminates the museum’s 2023 acquisition of Velasco’s entire archive – some 2,500 objects of all kinds: paintings, sketches, furniture, manuscripts, correspondence, books, and other personal effects, such as his telescopes, binoculars, barometers, and spectacles.
ResponderEliminarThe painter’s great-granddaughter, María Helena Altamirano Piolle, devoted years to assembling, preserving, and researching the family archive, which reveals that “other” Velasco, the artist as scientist and naturalist.
ResponderEliminarTo define Velasco solely as a “painter” is to diminish him. After visiting this exhibition, I feel inclined to invert the terms: Velasco was first a botanist and geologist, a man of science who also devoted himself with great talent to painting. In fact, his artistic training ran parallel to his scientific education. He entered both the Academy of San Carlos and the National School of Medicine in the same year, 1858, where he studied botany and herbal medicine.
ResponderEliminarIn 1869, he began publishing Flora of the Valley of Mexico, eighteen lithographs of native plants that he himself drew and classified, which earned him admission to the National Society of Natural History.
ResponderEliminarTrees were another of his essential subjects. The precision with which he paints the shape of the leaves of the ahuehuetes of Chapultepec, the density of the ash tree’s foliage, the texture of the poplar’s bark is striking. Without a doubt, he was a great observer of nature, endowed with a scientific gaze that had a decisive influence on his artistic production.
ResponderEliminarReturning to Velasco the painter: in 1912, the year of his death, one of his students, Diego Rivera, was painting in Paris his now-famous Zapatista Landscape, in the Cubist style inaugurated by Pablo Picasso. Mexican modernist art was opening itself to the world, sustained then, as now, by its two great pillars: José María Velasco and Diego Rivera.
ResponderEliminar