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PRESENT
ROBERTO MONTENEGRO, ILLUSTRATOR
RESEARCH BY ESPERANZA BALDERAS SÁNCHEZ
Printed on books, magazines and a couple of author dossiers...
...the illustrations done by painter Roberto Montenegro Nervo
...kept itself away from historians and critics for decades.
Even Montenegro himself...
...ignored this part of his artistic life in his own memoirs.
This silence is surprising, especially for his 1900-1962 production...
...and for the artistic quality and originality of his designs.
Like other painters of his generation...
...Roberto Montenegro entered the realm of illustration...
...in hopes of becoming acknowledged as an artist...
...while trying to find a way to make ends meet.
His drawings, vignettes and adverts...
...have an undeniable aesthetic and historical value.
They are essential items which broaden our awareness...
...of the uses of printed images...
...and thus we recognize their contribution to the visual culture...
...of 20th-century Mexico.
A member of an elite family from Diaz' times in Guadalajara...
...Roberto Montenegro Nervo...
...studied in the Liceo de Varones in the last decade of the 19th century.
Back then, the capital of Jalisco, just like other areas of the country...
...was entering a modern era which affected the pace and values of everyday life.
The installation of the new electric power network...
...and improvements in communication and transportation...
...benefited commercial and cultural exchange.
Young Montenegro grew up in an ever-changing environment.
Thanks to his mentors and the influence of his cousin, poet Amado Nervo...
...Montenegro kept in the know of the artistic and literary novelties...
...that came from Europe.
He had his first drawing lessons at the Liceo de Varones...
...and from 1897, he attended painter Felix Bernardelli's workshop.
There, he met Jorge Enciso, Rafael Ponce de León...
...José María Lupercio and Gerardo Murillo, aka "Dr. Atl."
During five years, with Bernardelli's guidance...
...Montenegro studied several European painting trends of his time.
Along with poets and scholars, Bernardelli's students published...
...the *** y Rojo magazine.
It was a weekly edition, where Montenegro showed his first illustrations.
In that same period...
...he made illustrations for the scores of famous musicians from Jalisco.
In those early works, one can see Montenegro's...
...inclination towards the symbolist influence...
...which would later become Art Nouveau.
Symbolism was a literary and artistic movement...
...that spread in all Europe...
...and arrived rather late in the American continent...
...where it was called Modernism.
Looking back on the past...
...re-creating scenes from mythology...
...and drawing feminine figures associated with sensuality...
...would become some of the more common topics in Modernism.
Illustrations in books...
...are even older than the printing press itself.
It wasn't until mid-19th century, with technological advances...
...especially the invention of photography...
...that the presence of the printed image increased.
During the 19th century...
...lithography was the illustratin process for books, magazines and newspapers.
In order to become an illustrator...
...and have one's work published, one needed knowledge...
...of lithography, and it was important to draw well...
...or to know about woodcutting, like Manilla or Posada.
It wasn't possible to get...
...lithography and typography together.
If one wanted to put an image and a text together...
...you had to pass the page twice...
...in order to get the illustration first...
...and the text afterwards.
When the Imparcial newspaper appeared...
...there were also machines for photoengraving.
Therefore, by that time, it wasn't necessary to...
...know about engraving to publish something.
The process was the same as today; it's a photo-mechanical process...
...where they take a photo of the original image...
...then they make a negative, a stencil, and that's what they print.
It was a revolutionary process in its own time.
The first great artist to use this process...
...to illustrate was Julio Ruelas, then Roberto Montenegro.
From that moment, the San Carlos Academy students...
...started working for magazines as illustrators...
...and they weren't required to know about lithography or engraving.
It was a way for artists to make some money before selling their work.
From that moment...
...the publishing world got filled with lots of different images.
At the same time, people in industry and trade...
...by means of printed advertising, tried to...
...increase the number of their consumers.
Meanwhile, in the culture realm...
...magazines increased the number of issues...
...where literary texts were accompanied by images.
Back then, images become more and more important...
...thanks to their constant dialog with literature.
Illustration is a utility art.
It's work made to order...
...and not a creation made freely by the artist.
That was a big limitation...
...for whatever the artist wanted to say or express back then.
This dynamic, where the artist was asked to create an image...
...which would later be reproduced by industrial means...
...remained unchanged during the first decades of the 20th century...
...until photography overshadowed artistic production.
At certain point, in the 50s, it was already lost.
Illustration was definitely out of printed publishing...
...and photography became mainstream.
By the end of 1903, by Amado Nervo's recommendation...
...Montenegro worked for the Revista Moderna de México for the first time.
It was a renowned magazine among Modernist artists.
Montenegro's first illustrations...
...for musical scores and the Revista Moderna...
...exposed the inexperienced draughtsman who would soon define his traces...
...in the advertisements for "Almacenes Generales de Depósito"...
...and Labadie...
...in the story "The ants and their slaves"...
...and the poem "Mr. Bonifax".
In the magazine pages...
...Montenegro's designs appeared along with Julio Ruelas' illustrations.
Ruelas was considered to be the most prominent Modernist artist.
During 1904...
...Roberto Montenegro lived in Mexico City...
...and attended San Carlos Academy...
...where he reinforced his interest in the aesthetic concepts...
...that Symbolism promoted in its Modernist version in Latin America.
In 1905, Montenegro got a grant from the Bellas Artes school...
...to study in Europe.
Once in Madrid, he met Amado Nervo...
...who was the First Minister of the Mexican legation.
Thanks to his talent, Montenegro entered San Fernando Academy...
...where he had engraving lessons and spent time with Spanish bohemians.
The very year he arrived in Madrid...
...Montenegro won a contest organized by the Blanco y *** magazine...
...to find illustrations for its covers.
Also, in 1905...
...he illustrated a chapter of Nervo's book, "The inner gardens"...
...sharing credit with Julio Ruelas.
The vignettes in this book of poems...
...show women as the main figure...
...along with the usual motifs of Symbolism.
Later on, he designed another Nervo's book cover:
"In a low voice".
In 1907, he decided to study in Paris' Fine Arts school.
Then, he worked for the French magazine Le Témoin.
He kept drawing feminine nudes...
...and sent them to Mexico to be published.
From his Parisian residence...
...he traveled frequently to Italy, Holland and Belgium...
...and visited museums, where he mastered more forms and colors.
In 1908, when he returned from Italy...
...Montenegro met Symbolist French poet Henri de Régnier...
...who suggested publishing an album with drawings...
...made between 1907 and 1910.
The dossier was published that year, with de Régnier's prologue.
In Paris, he painted on easel and drew for ex libris...
...but World War I forced him to exile in Spain with Diego Rivera...
...Picasso and other artists.
In Spain, he drew "Las venecianas"...
...a series of preciosistic drawings...
...subject to the influence of Franz von Bayros...
...and the memories of the Italian carnival.
During the last year of his stay in Mallorca...
...Montenegro painted his first mural.
He designed vignettes and covers for the books...
..."The story" and "Aladdin's lamp", published in Barcelona.
In Revolution-time Mexico...
...Montenegro published the Illustrated History of the Mexican Revolution...
...where he included images based on pre-Columbian symbols.
The Mexican Embassy in Madrid...
...commissioned him to illustrate the book Mexican Lyrical Poetry...
...a compilation of young poets' verses...
...where Montenegro used pre-Hispanic figures that years later...
...would be valued again by the new nationalist discourse.
"La Esfera", culture magazine from Madrid...
...included some easel and graphic works by Montenegro...
...in its issue dedicated to Mexico.
During his long stay in Europe...
...Montenegro fine-tuned his skills as a draughtsman and colorist...
...and his illustrations showed a glimpse...
...of the motifs and topics that would become common characteristics...
...of post-Revolution Mexican painting.
In 1920...
...Roberto Montenegro returned to Mexico for good.
He was already a mature artist, with his own personality...
...and ready to face new challenges.
The country he found was immersed in a re-construction process...
...that had to answer the social demands of the revolutionary masses.
Montenegro participated from the education front...
...as a muralist and as an illustrator...
...in that process of national restoration.
Despite his family bond with the Diaz' regime...
...and his personal opposition to Maderismo...
...Montenegro became the closest artist to philosopher José Vasconcelos...
...who was the headmaster of the National University.
Vasconcelos asked Montenegro to paint the murals in the San Pedro y San Pablo temple.
In that same period, in the mid-1920s...
...his illustrations appeared in the covers of books and magazines...
...related to literature and culture.
Along those years...
...Montenegro showed an outstanding display of the nationalist topics...
...without abandoning the ways of Modernism.
His 1924 collaboration in...
...the project "Lecturas clásicas para niños"...
...has been regarded as the most exceptional illustration contribution.
This publishing project was Vasconcelos' brainchild.
Vasconcelos had become Minister for Public Education...
...and wanted to give Mexican children...
...an illustrated book with adapted versions of classic world literature.
The designs created for the book...
...showed a remarkable beauty and story-related meaning.
It is noticeable...
...the knowledge of several European illustrators...
...like Edmund Dulac.
The shadow and light in the black-and-white drawings...
...are an example of the Modernist expression...
...and they're done as drawings with the appearance of xylography.
The topics they illustrate...
...are beautiful fantasies created on planes...
...that sometimes look like photographic shots...
...or like different sceneries.
His work with the Ministry for Public Education...
...included "El sembrador" magazine...
...where Montenegro tested his ability to illustrate...
...the education projects that addressed the rural population.
Some of these illustrations...
...remind us of his first depictions of the popular Mexican world...
...which he made in Spain.
Between 1926 and 1927...
...he designed the covers of CROM magazine.
In these illustrations...
...there's an evident link to the pre-Hispanic attire...
...which he designed in 1919 as the costumes for the Mexican dance troupe.
Once again, he was suggesting...
...the union between Symbolist elements...
...and the rising post-Revolution nationalism.
Thanks to his travels, Montenegro found...
...a stimulus for his creativity...
...and he became interested in popular customs and traditions...
...which were portrayed in many of his illustrations.
In 1930...
...he did 20 drawings of the city of Taxco...
...in the state of Guerrero...
...and he used some unusual traces.
The black-and-white drawings, reproduced by means of lithography...
...were published along with an image...
...that resembled the old Colonial maps.
During his artistic career...
...Montenegro leaned on his vast cultural acumen...
...and freely interpreted sacred or political propaganda topics...
...requested by friends or groups belonging to opposing ideologies.
In this sense, it's worth mentioning his relationship...
...with the "Contemporáneos" magazine writers...
...who didn't share the nationalist view of their time...
...and had a rather cosmopolitan view.
Montenegro painted portraits of several of them...
...and illustrated some of their books.
The painter from Jalisco was always aware of artistic changes in the world...
...taking elements and trends...
...that would enrich his work as a painter and illustrator.
His wide knowledge of techniques and styles...
...allowed him to work on covers and vignettes...
...in many varied ways.
Roberto Montenegro's production as an illustrator...
...started decreasing from the 1930s...
...but he kept delivering extremely original pieces...
...that would become covers.
In 1936...
...he illustrated Javier Icaza's book "Trayectoria"...
...with drawings resembling the allegories of his murals...
...in the San Pedro y San Pablo temple.
His drawing skills...
...and his ability to adapt to the demands of nationalism's official discourse...
...allowed him to be present on the cover of...
...two of the first free textbooks...
...published by the Ministry for Public Education in 1960.
When he was 80 years old...
...Montenegro gave the "Cuadernos de Bellas Artes" magazine...
...what may have been his last published illustrations...
...thus ending the exceptional career of an artist who...
...knew, through the printed image...
...how to cater for the visual needs...
...aspirations and illusions of a whole era.
