This Monday finds me in deep noodling, mainly on my Far West Texas book but also, Schritt für Schritt, my translation of Countess Paula Kollonitz’s memoir of her visit to Mexico in 1864.
Relatedly, herewith, from the archives (specifically, ye olde research blog Maximilian & Carlota ), are Henry R. Magruder’s woodcuts from his memoir of his visit some two years later: Sketches of the Last Year of the Mexican Empire. Magruder’s was one of the many memoirs that I read as part of my research into my novel based on the true story, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. Just as Kollonitz’s memoir has been bringing it all to mind so vividly, Magruder’s woodcuts provide a glimpse of the garden paradise that was once Mexico City— and so much more.
The illustrations are the author’s own woodcuts of five landscapes (Veracruz; Acasingo; Chapultepec; Tacubaya; Valley of Mexico;) and five portraits (Aguadors; Coal Bearers; Mexican; Ranchero; Tortilla Makers).
“In the course of the morning we entered the port of Vera Cruz, which town with its glittering Church-domes, dazzlingly white spires and many coloured houses, preseted from the distance the appearance of an eastern city. On nearer approach one is grievously disappointed. The scavaenger birds are protected and encouraged to frequent the place as they maintain the sanitary condition of the streets, they give a wierd appearance to the town and look like birds of ill omen, they fly all over Vera Cruz unmolested.”
“At eight in the evening we stopped at a village called “Acasingo” and heard that a diligence [stagecoach] had been plundered that morning, and if we persisted in continuing our journey that night, should certainly be attacked; what the crowd of Mexican standing around, and all talking at once, and not one of us understanding what was said, we foolishly allowed ourselves to be pursuaded by the rest of the travellers, to remain the night in the place, we alighted and before we had time to reconnoitre, the stage had driven off and we were forced to remain whether we would or not. On searching for an inn we were suprised to find that as Acasingo was not a regular halting place, such an establishment as an hotel did not exist; fortunately we found some people who offered us one large bedless room for our party; the apartment we had obtained must in former years have been very fine, the walls being still covered with traces of old frescoe paintings, it possessed a very fine balcony overlooking the “Plaza” or Square, which, although it may not even possess enough houses to surround it, every Mexican town contains. We found there were shutters, but no glass to the window, and were obliged to make up beds for the ladies on the chairs, the geltemen of the party sleeping on the floors…”
“From the entrance of the Church [Villa de Guadalupe] I had a view of the surrounding scenery which will never be obliterated from my mind, in one word it was gorgeous and magnificent. In the distance the fair Capital, its many spires and dome glittering in the midday sun, surrounded by the blue lakes, and the plains overgrown with the wierd looking Maguey plants; far away in the distance the beautiful snowy mountains, of which one never wearies, bounded one side of the valley, whilst on the other the park and grounds of the Emperor’s summer residence the famous Chapultepec stood in bold relief against the distant blue mountains…”
“The Paseo is about two miles in length— only the upper division of which is used by carriages the lower one being almost exclusively occupied by those on horseback. After leaving the crowded drive the road becomes pretty and is shady all the way, and the surrounding scenery most lovely, arriving at the end of the Paseo the rider finds a most romantic convent: “La Piedad,” the road here divides into two, branching off into different directions, one of which leads to Tacubaya and the other to San Angel a small village in the mountains.”
“The climate of the valley of Mexico may be likened to a perpetual spring, little rain falls except in the months of July, August and September, and then usually in the afternoon between two and five o’clock, exercise can always be taken in the mornings. Sometimes the showers or “Aguaseras” [sic] as they are called are so heavy, that in a few moments the streets are flooded and impassable unless on horseback or on the shoulders of the Indians who during the season make a business of vcarrying people.”
“The City of Mexico is supplied with water from the mountains by means of two grand aqueducts, which terminate in the town in large and very handsome fountains, whence the “Aguadors” [sic] fetch the water in their earthen vessels. These aqueducts are almost in ruins and greatly need repair for at intervals the water may be seen trickling through crevices.”
“These wretched indians are generally not overly clean, and if one comes into close contact with them, it is advisable on returning home to shake one’s coat.”
“The nearer we approached Puebla the more crowded grew the road, and I then for the first time observed the picturesque dress of the Mexican “Rauchiero” [sic] which is composed of yellow leather, elaborately embroidered with silver and gold; the seams of the trousers are decorated with a row of gold or silver buttons, the sleevs of the short and jaunty jacket being trimmed in the same style, over the shoulder hangs gracefully a “serape,” a kind of large scarf fenerally of white and red tho’ all colors may be seen, on the head an enormous “Sombrero” or hat with a large brim also enriched with silver and gold is worn; the Mexican men generally ride on horseback and have the most magnificent saddles, the pommels of which besides being high are of solid silver, exquisitely chased and engraved.”
“In the place of bread a cake called “Tortilla” is generally eaten, in reality it is the bread of the country, it is made of corn-meal mixed with water until it has the consistency of paste, which is pressed between the cook’s hands to flatten it and afterwards baked; it has little taste and is generally heavy.”
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I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
“I knew that there were many people on both sides [of the US-Mexico border] who were capable of a more nuanced understanding and wanted a better relationship between our countries. Those were my ideal readers. “—Michael Hogan
Michael Hogan has been publishing some of the most fascinating and important works on US-Mexico history that we have. I don’t say that lightly; for my historical novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, I spent nearly a decade, in some of the very same archives, researching this period that he writes about in Guns, Grit and Glory: the French Intervention in Mexico, which allowed for Mexico’s Second Empire under Maximilian von Habsburg. This period overlaps, and in no way coincidentally, with the period of the US Civil War. Because governments and school boards have their political agendas, and of course time for teaching history to children and teenagers is limited, “the narrative” of such episodes that they learn is, by its nature, biased and severely truncated. Sometimes it just gets skipped altogether. So it sometimes happens that some episodes and actors and factors that are hugely important come to light decades, even a century or more later. But this light shines only if and when someone has had the burning curiosity, determination, skill, and perseverance, to dig out the evidence and then recraft a new narrative.
Michael Hogan is an American author of twenty-five books including the critically acclaimed The Irish Soldiers of Mexico and Abraham Lincoln and Mexico. He holds a PhD in Latin American Studies and is Emeritus Humanities Chair at the American School Foundation of Guadalajara. He lives in Mexico.
C.M. MAYO:What inspired you to write Guns, Grit and Glory?
MICHAEL HOGAN: In 2017 I wrote Abraham Lincoln and Mexico, a book that fully revealed for the first time, Lincoln’s support of Benito Juárez when the Mexican president and his Republican forces were driven from the capital by the invading French Army. They were forced to fight an unequal war with poorly clothed, sometimes barefoot, and poorly armed retreating soldiers. I discovered that besides moral support, Lincoln also allowed Mexican agents to raise funds in the US to help feed those troops and provide medicines. But many questions remained. How did Juárez avoid capture by the combined French forces? How did he acquire uniforms and boots, grooved cannons, and other sophisticated weapons for his men? How did his soldiers develop the expertise and training to use them effectively? How did a small retreating army overcome what was the most powerful military force in the world?
Most of these questions plagued me when I finished that book, although I had some clues. One was an article written by the late historian Robert Ryal Miller about the American Legion of Honor, a group of US volunteers who joined the Mexicans in their fight. In fact, members of this group rescued Juárez when he was in mortal danger of being captured and killed.by French forces in Zacatecas. Another was the discovery that, at the end of the Civil War, African American soldiers from the US Colored Troops joined the Mexican Army after being mustered out of the Union Army at the end of the Civil War. By 1866, there were over 3,000 US volunteers helping the Juárez forces, several were former officers and non-coms, others were sharpshooters and cannoneers. All were tested combat veterans. That story had not really been told, nor the tremendous amount of funding provided by the sale of Mexican bonds (worthless if the war was lost) which Mexican Consul Matias Romero was able to sell, thereby raising in excess of 15 million dollars.
C.M. MAYO: As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader? If so, how might you describe the ideal reader for Guns, Grit and Glory?
MICHAEL HOGAN: I wrote it during the period when there was quite a bit of tension between the US and Mexico. I thought it might be a valuable contribution to show that there was a time when the US and Mexico came together to fight for a common cause. My ideal reader was someone who was open to have a new (but researched-based) understanding of US-Mexican relations. For this reason, there is also a Spanish edition. My thirty-plus years in Mexico had convinced me that there were misgivings and misunderstandings of the US-Mexican relationship on both sides of the border. Many Mexicans still resented the invasion of 1846 and loss of their northern territories. Many people on the US side were too willing to blame Mexico for the current migrant crisis on the border. Yet I knew that there were many people on both sides who were capable of a more nuanced understanding and wanted a better relationship between our countries. Those were my ideal readers.
C.M. MAYO: Researching a book like this requires extraordinary organizational skills. Can you talk a little bit about your working library and how you keep track of the books you read / consulted?And how do you keep track of articles, both on-line and on paper? And what were some of the things you did for this book that worked especially well for you?
MICHAEL HOGAN: I was lucky that I was teaching history at an institution that gave me free access to several academic subscription services which I could download and print. I am also fortunate in that my wife, Lucinda Mayo, and I have accumulated a large personal library over the years of over 5,000 titles in both English and Spanish. So, for many sources, I kept track the traditional way, with markers and notes, and separate file folders for each theme, battle, or personage. Since the COVID crisis had not yet struck I was also able to access archives in Chihuahua, where Juarez had his headquarters, and the archives of the Banco de Mexico in the capital, where Romero’s papers were stored. He had been the treasury secretary and head of the bank under Porfirio Díaz.
C.M. MAYO: What was the biggest surprise that you came across in your research?
MICHAEL HOGAN: There were several. The first was that many of the details I found were not in the Archivo de la Nación but rather in the Banco de Mexico. I think perhaps a decision was made to keep them there so that Porfirio Díaz could claim his great victories were without any significant help from the gringos.
Another surprising discovery was that trustworthy French eyewitnesses claimed they observed over 10,000 Americans at the Battle of Querétaro whereas Professor Miller only credited 300 or so in the American Legion, and Romero said there were only 3,000 Americans total, which included the African American soldiers.
However, it was unlikely that the French were wrong; besides theirs was a primary source. So, secondary sources, a Mexican consul who was not present and a US professor writing a century later, must have been mistaken. How to resolve the dilemma?
Quite by accident, I discovered purchase invoices for several thousand Union uniforms in the Mexican military archives. There was the answer. The thousands of bluecoats that the French saw on the hills of Queretaro were mostly Mexicans in surplus US Army uniforms!
C.M. MAYO: What was the most challenging aspect of writing this book?
MICHAEL HOGAN: So much of what was occurring doing those years was clandestine. The US could not openly aid the Mexicans because to do so would alienate the French who might then join up with the Confederacy. Besides the French were historic allies who helped the US gain its independence. On the Mexican side, Romero representing Juárez, would have to offer foreign investors in those high-risk Mexican bonds either parcels of land, or mining concessions, or other significant incentives if the government were to default. This fact needed to be kept secret lest Juárez be accused by his own people of signing away large swaths of Mexican territory and the patrimony of the next generation. In fact, there were defaults, and by the end of the next decade over 20 percent of Mexican territory was owned by foreigners.
C.M. MAYO: What has most surprised you about its reception?
MICHAEL HOGAN: On the positive side, I was both surprised and delighted by the critical acclaim especially from academics whose work I highly regard such as William Beazley at the University of Arizona, John Mason Hart at the University of Houston, Don Doyle at the University of South Carolina, Brigadier General (Ret.) Clever Chávez Marín, editor of Estudios Militares Mexicanos, and others. Sadly, although the book received quite a bit of positive critical acclaim, the book’s release in March of 2020 at the beginning of the COVID pandemic ensured that all my in-person events were canceled. Three major events (which in the past had garnered audiences of several hundreds) in Chicago (Union League), Lake Chapala (Open Circle), and a historical society in Texas were all postponed or canceled. Two were rescheduled for the fall, and then canceled again because of COVID resurgence. I am hopeful that the first in-person event scheduled for this spring will take finally take place, and also that this interview and on-line reviews will encourage new readers.
C.M. MAYO: For readers who are just getting to know Mexico, what would be your top three book recommendations?
MICHAEL HOGAN: 1. The Course of Mexican History by Michael Meyer and William Sherman. A highly readable text which tells the history of Mexico from pre-Columbian times to the present. With a rich bibliography for those who wish to delve deeper.
2. Mexico: Biography of Power by Enrique Krauze. A compelling history about the evolution of power politics in Mexico from the origins of the nation-state after the War of Independence to the present day.
3. The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz. Insights into the Mexican character, origins of the macho culture, and the evolution of post-colonial bureaucratic elements in government. A controversial exposé by a Nobel Prize recipient of his own people and their character.
This blog posts on Mondays. In 2022 on the third Monday of the month I post some of or something related to my own work.
This Monday finds me working on my Far West Texas book. More about that anon. Meanwhile, an essay from the archives:
TULPA MAX OR, NOTES ON THE AFTERLIFE OF A RESURRECTION by C.M. Mayo Originally published in Catamaran Literary Reader, summer 2017 (and in Spanish in Letras Libres)
Coffin used to transport Maximilian’s body from the Cerro de las Camapanas. The table it sits on is the table used for embalming the body. Photo by C.M. Mayo
In a manner of speaking, we historical novelists are in the resurrection business. But who, or rather, what precisely is it that we bring to life? These characters infused by our imaginations, yet based on beings who were once flesh, blood, and bone, can they escape the page and, like the tulpas of Tibetan esoteric tradition, take on a will of their own and haunt their creators? In the case of Maximilian von Habsburg, that Archduke of Austria who ended both his reign as Emperor of Mexico and his life before a firing squad in Querétaro one hundred fifty years ago, and whom I made a character in my novel based on the true story of Agustín de Iturbide y Green, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, I must confess that yes, he haunts me.
To start with, soon after the novel’s publication (more years ago than I would care to count), Tulpa Max, as it were, prompted a little avalanche of correspondence that continues rumbling into my email inbox to this day.
Had I seen the mega alebrije, “Amor por México, Maximiliano y Carlota”?
Did I believe that Maximilian was a Mason?
What did I think of the legend of Justo Serra, was he really Maximilian, having escaped that firing squad to make a new life in El Salvador?
From another reader, Maruja González, friend of a friend in San Miguel de Allende, I received, along with her generous permission to post it on my blog, a family story about the dessert prepared for Maximilian on his visit to that city in 1864. It so happened that Maximilian had stayed in her great great grandparents’s house.
“…and there they made him a very solemn banquet with music and soloists, and the all ladies, their hair coiffured, lamented very much the absence of the empress, Carlotita, as they were already calling her with affection. All these ladies of the cream of San Miguel society jostled to outdo each other in making the most elaborate, brilliant, and exquisite delicacies. One of my aunts had the honor of preparing some pears in syrup for the monarch, who turned upside down in praise for this most wonderful dessert… “
An email as if from beyond the tomb, for it literally had to do with a tombstone, came from Jean Pierre d’Huart, great grand nephew of the officer shot in the head on the highway near Río Frío in March of 1866. That officer was a high-ranking member of the delegation that came to Mexico after the death of Carlota’s father, King Leopold of Belgium, and the assumption to that throne of her brother, Leopold II (yes, he of Congo infamy). That bandits would so brazenly attack such a party on that highway—the major artery connecting Mexico City and Veracruz, gateway to Europe—was at the time and to this day widely considered, both in Mexico and abroad, a turning point for Maximilian’s reign, a harbinger of its end. I had it wrong in the novel, my correspondent gently informed me. The Baron d’Huart murdered near Río Frío was not Charles, then serving in Mexico with the French Imperial Army, but his distant cousin, Frédéric Victor. Attached was a photograph taken in Tintigny, Belgium of the very tombstone, wreathed in vines and its base tufted with moss.
But the most Edgarallenpoe-esque email to date came from a friend, Roberto Wallentin, with the Spanish translation by his father, Dr. Roberto Wallentin, of an Hungarian newspaper article of 1876 by Dr. Szender Ede. Experts on the period will recognize Dr. Szender Ede as the individual responsible for the grotesquely inept embalming of Maximilian’s corpse. Dr. Szender Ede tells us:
“While I was working on the embalming, and afterwards as well, many people asked if I could get for them some of the personal belongings of the deceased. To my knowledge, during his imprisonment in Querétaro, through varios different people, he sent all of his personal belongings to members of his family. The only thing left in his room was the iron frame of the bed in which he slept. Dr. Rivadeneyra assured Dr. Basch that the Emperor had promised him that and so, on good faith, Dr. Basch authorized the “donation” to him. On the other hand, Dr. Licea (and this was also commented upon in the Mexican press) made a genuine business with objects that, according to him, had belonged to Maximilian. I kept some clippings of Maximilian’s hair, and most of those I gave to my friends in San Luís Potosí.”
More than messages from the depths of cyberspace, however, Tulpa Max prompts comments, generally kind ones, but on occasion cutting. As the latter have revealed, and not entirely to my surprise, many Mexicans are dead-certain that, for having published a novel that has to do with Maximilian, its author must be enthralled by both the red-bearded charms and anachronistic political philosophy of that antique aristocrat. Obviously, such persons have not read my book, in which, closely following the documented history, Maximilian is capable, as in his dealings with the young American mother of Agustín de Iturbide y Green, and in his Black Decree (that anyone found with a weapon could be summarily executed), not to mention his reinstating slavery, of dunderheaded heartlessness. True, I bring as much empathy as I can muster to my portrait of Maximilian, but empathy—seeing with the heart—is the novelist’s first, best, and most powerful faculty, and it does not necessarily imply sympathy for that character’s actions or ideas.
There are many ways to buy a yacht; uness your name is J.K. Rowling, writing a novel is not one of them. By far my richest reward for having resurrected Maximilian has been the cornucopia of opportunities for “the feast of reason and the flow of soul.” I quote the English poet Alexander Pope, as I like to think Maximilian would, to describe tete-a-tetes with readers, fellow writers, and scholars of that exotic, bloody, labyrinthian and transnational firecracker of an episode of Mexican history.
And there was one shining moment of an afternoon on the cool and plant-filled terrace of the Centro de Estudios de Historia de México in Chimalistac when I chanced to talk with Luis Reed Torres about one of Maximilian’s undeservedly forgotten generals, Manuel Ramírez de Arellano, who escaped a firing squad only to die of fever in Italy.
I went to Puebla just for the joy of listening to Margarita López Cano talk about operas by Bellini and by Verdi in the time of Maximilian.
Most memorable was an entire afternoon of a lunch with Guillermo Tovar de Teresa in his old (and assuredly haunted) house in Colonia Roma—lace tablecloth, and rain pattering on the windows. I had always wanted to meet the author of that glorious book about Mexico City, La ciudad de los palacios (The City of Palaces). We talked until it grew dark about Maximilian and the Iturbides and Miramón and the rarest of rare books.
Speaking of rare books, I treasure my autographed copies of the works of Austrian historian Konrad Ratz, untill his passing in 2014, a tireless researcher into the life and government of Maximilian. It was a great honor to have presented his and Amparo Gómez Tepexicuapan’s book, Los viajes de Maximiliano en México (Maximilian’s Travels in Mexico) one twinkly night in Chapultepec Castle, no less.
Tulpa Max, who so loves nothing more than to hear about himself (even his dessicated corpse with eyes pried from a statue of the Virgin laid over his orbital sockets, and his legs broken so as to fit into the box), is standing a little straighter now. The color has risen to his cheeks and his eyes shine open and bright like a fox’s. He runs a gloved hand down his beard, and he sniffs what he wishes were a sea breeze. But it’s just the humble perfume of my mug of coffee. No garlic, not yet.
Now if you will excuse me, dear reader, I must check my email.
A few years ago I gave a talk for the Women Writing the West conference, “On Seeing as an Artist: Five Techniques for a Journey Towards Einfühlung.” I recently reread it and, rare for me to say, I wouldn’t change a word (although I did fix a typo). Of late, I’ve had some conversations on this very subject, so I thought I’d take it up again for this second Monday of the month’s writing workshop post.
If you’re ever flummoxed for something to write about, a rich source of narratives you can do endless permutations upon are fables and fairytales. Something is at stake, characters are at odds— go to it! Make the fox who doesn’t want sour grapes, say, a stockbroker who doesn’t want that condo in Aspen. Make the princess and the pea a university student who tweets about her upset with outrageously insensitive professors. Rename the tortoise Ludovika and make her a STEM major; the hare, that’s her cuz, Jimmy the Adderall-addicted skateboarder. And so on.
Speaking of seeing, one of my personal favorites among that vast corpus of European fables and fairytales is Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor Has No Clothes” (sometimes translated as “The Emperor’s New Clothes”). Dear writerly reader, I am confident that you are already familiar with that story, so I won’t recount it here, but if you need a refresher or if you grew up in, say, the highlands of Papua New Guinea, here is an English translation. (And if you did grow up in the highlands of Papua Guinea I sincerely ask you to tell me the equivalent fable from your culture; I have no doubt that you have one!)
As I often take pains to point out in my workshops, reading as a writer is a very different endeavor than reading for entertainment or for scholarly purposes. Of course most people would come across “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in a children’s book, and read it for entertainment. The hero of the story is the little child who cries out: “But the emperor has nothing on at all!” Most readers are most entertained when they can identify with the hero. What’s to identify with? His shining innocence, his honesty, his courage in speaking truth to power. We can be sure, he’s as cute as Jackie Coogan, too.
Jackie Coogan wows the investors in the Charlie Chaplin film “The Kid”
As for that foolish emperor and his hypocritical courtiers, we give them the big, fat, farty raspberry!
Jackie Coogan, much later in life, in character as Uncle Fester. Well, OK, whatever he’s doing, let’s call it raspberry-esque.
What I would suggest to you, dear writerly reader, is that the more interesting characters in this fairytale, and that are worthy of exploration and fleshing out in literary fiction, are the emperor and his courtiers. What might they think and what might they say after the child, in his innocence, has broken the spell?
We know from the story what the emperor thinks and feels in that moment—he knows that the child is right, he recognizes that the crowd of his subjects agrees with the child, but he, in his underwear, and his courtiers, their hands in the air “holding” his imaginary train, continue the procession more seriously than ever.
But what about that night? The next day? A week later? A decade later?
At the end of their lives?
Use your imagination to go to those points, and tell us how, concretely, the life of the emperor and his courtiers lives have been upturned— or not? With whom are they now allied / upon whom do they now depend ? And what it is that, a day later, a week later, a decade later, or on the last day of their lives, they deny, although it is plainly before them? Describe the state of their self-images, and of their souls. You might use imagery, specific detail that appeals to the senses, dialogue, action.
For symphonic effect, tell about, say, their relationships with their dogs. Or, dogs in general. Do they prefer beagles? Or German shepherds? And so on.
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Speaking of emperors, courtiers and clear seeing, a few months ago I began a side project of translating Eine Reise Nach Mexico, a German language memoir by Countess Paula Kollonitz, an Austrian lady-in-waiting who traveled to Mexico as part of Maximilian and Carlota’s entourage in 1864. (It is a memoir I originally read in Spanish translation, and I made use of many of the details she recounts in my historical novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. For those unfamiliar with the history of Mexico’s Second Empire, I warmly recommend my podcast interview with M.M. McAllen, author of the superb narrative history, Maximilian and Carlota: Europe’s Last Empire in Mexico.) You can read Eine ReiseNach Mexico now for free in the original (if you can handle Gothic font) and in a 19th century English translation on archive.org. My purpose, apart from a more modern English translation, is to provide an introduction and notes.
Eine Reise Nach Mexico by Paula Kollonitz
Countess Kollonitz writes about her journey some two years afterwards, when it was obvious to even the most deluded adherents that Maximilian von Habsburg’s Mexican adventure was doomed. It makes for uncanny reading— and it’s interesting to note what she, a lady-in-waiting from the Hofburg, dares to say, and what she doesn’t say, but that would have been obvious to her either at the moment she chronicles, or later, as she was writing. Eine Reise Nach Mexico was published in Vienna in May of 1867, the month before Maximilian’s execution in Querétaro. It so happens that I saw the elaborately pleated shirt Maximilian wore for that occasion, on display in a museum in Mexico City. It was pierced by several bullet holes and stained with blood.
I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
After two years of high school German with an excellent and demanding teacher; an intervening eon of forgetfulness (in which, while living in Mexico City, instead I learned Spanish); and then, more recently, three years of minimal but, bei Gott, daily German practice plus occasional classes, I have improved my German to the point where— Trommelwirbel und Vorhaung auf!—I now have a website in German:
For those of you who read German, I hope you’ll have a look. It is embryonic, nonetheless, it already has some content, including a fine translation by Ana-Isabel Aliaga-Buchenau of my University of Texas El Paso Centennial Lecture, “On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises,”and another fine translation by Rebecca DeWald, of my essay about Maximilian von Habsburg as a fictional character, “Tulpa Max.”
(You can find these and other works in English on my main website, www.cmmayo.com).
So why my interest in German, when most of my work is about Mexico and Texas? Both Mexico and Texas have a strong tradition of German immigration, and I expect I will have something to say about that in my work-in-progress on Far West Texas. Another motive was that, some years ago, I wrote a novel based on the true story, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, which is about Agustín de Iturbide y Green (1863-1925) but revolves around the childless ex-Archduke of Austria Maximilian von Habsburg, then, albeit briefly, and thanks to Napoleon III’s support, on the throne of Mexico. By means of a secret contract signed in 1865 with the Iturbide family, Maximilian made the half-American Agustín, then 2 1/2 years old, a prince of his Casa Imperial (Imperial Household). It was not an adoption as we would understand it today, but politically that’s what it amounted to for, many people, including the Iturbide family, then considered the child the heir presumptive to the Mexican throne. When I wrote the book, and so delved into many an archive, I was able to read German (although not, alas, the documents left to us in Gothic handwriting). Fortunately for me, however, the relevant documents and books were in Spanish, English, and French (which I could also read). I would like to see my novel translated into German (translated by someone more competent than myself, obviously), and when that happens, to be able to evaluate the translation, and discuss it in German. I also have on my horizon a couple of German-to-English translation projects, including a 19th century memoir, which I plan to annotate and introduce.
More than anything, however, as I know from learning Spanish, while acquiring a new language can oftentimes feel like an endless, pointless slog, in fact, if ever-so-slowly, one does begin to understand and to be able to express oneself… and eventually, the new language opens doors to endless wonders, adventures, understandings, and opportunities.
(Who’d a thunk my new favorite word would be Gartenzwergsammler?)
If you, dear reader, are interested in learning German—or any other language—I am hardly your go-to expert on rapid language acquisition—I still have a ways to go before achieving fluency— but I can tell you that what worked for me to get as far as I have was a tiny habit—an idea I took from B.J. Fogg‘s revolutionary Tiny Habits. (Fogg, by the way, is the head of Stanford University’s Behavioral Design Laboratory.) My tiny habit was—and remains—that, every day, directly after my morning coffee, I sit down and do at least 10 minutes (preferably more), and on average 30 minutes, of German. I might watch a short video on the Easy German YouTube channel and/or read aloud from a book in German (Rilke poems!), and/or do some homework exercises from a textbook and/or practice identifying genders (der, die, das) using the Seedlang app. It varies. I try to keep it fun. In addition, for improving my conversational and writing skills, I take an occasional private class, lately by Skype.
There are a number of demoralizing clichés retailed as the Wisdom of the Ages when it comes to language learning (for example, that adults cannot learn as quickly as children). A huge help in getting past all that nonsense was the book by Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz, Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language (MIT Press, 2015).
A nutty month it’s been, dear writerly readers. Herewith another old but extra-crunchy interview– one of my favorites. Why so? Among many reasons, in my book-in-progress on Far West Texas I am writing about Xavier González, an artist who worked in the Big Bend (among many other places in his long life, which began in Spain in 1898 and concluded in New York City in 1993), and it’s fun to realize, via his teacher Diego Rivera, he has a link to Santiago Rebull…
An Interview with Alan Rojas Orzechowski about Maximilian’s Court Painter, Santiago Rebull
Santiago Rebull: The Outlines of a Story, at the Museum of the Diego Rivera Mural in Mexico City. Through February 15, 2015
He was Maximilian’s Court Painter, a leading figure in 19th century Mexican painting, and one of the important influences on Diego Rivera, yet few people have heard of Santiago Rebull— until now.
If you’re anywhere near Mexico City, come in and visit the Santiago Rebull show at the Museo Mural Diego Rivera. >> More information here. << For those aficionados of the history of the French Intervention, and in particular the brief reign of Maximilian von Habsburg as Emperor of Mexico, this is an especially important show not to miss, for Rebull was Maximilian’s Court Painter and, interestingly, one of the few individuals close to the monarchy who managed to remain in Mexico and even thrive in subsequent decades under the Republic. Herewith, my interview with the show’s curator, Mexican historian Alan Rojas Orzechowski.
Santiago Rebull, Self-portrait, 1852
C.M. MAYO: What gave you the idea for the show?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The exhibition Santiago Rebull: Los contornos de una historia (Santiago Rebull: The Outlines of a Story) presented in the Museo Mural Diego Rivera is our own way to pay homage to one of the most creative minds of the Academic Movement in Mexico, an illustrious painter and educator who molded the minds of pupils such as Roberto Montenegro, Ángel Zárraga and Diego Rivera.
As an outstanding teacher, he taught Diego Rivera as a young student in the San Carlos Academy of Arts. Rivera in return, always considered him as a mentor and guide, respecting him as both, as an instructor and fellow artist. Exploiting this connection, the Museo Mural Diego Rivera and external curator Magaly Hernández, thought suitable to present an exhibition which honored Rebull’s artwork, underlining his influence on Rivera and his generation.
C.M. MAYO: How did Santiago Rebull, so close to Maximilian, manage to remain in Mexico and continue working as a successful artist for decades afterwards?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: I personally think that it was his undeniable talent as an artist which enabled him to continue teaching in San Carlos Academy during three more decades.
In the immediate years after Maximilian’s fall he did receive severe reproaches from fellow artists and local newspapers as a monarchist and “afrancesado” (pro-French), but he carried on painting members of the political, economic and cultural elite. As a testament of this, the portraits of Presidents Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz are shown in the exhibition. Both pieces are dated in the 1870s, less than a decade after the monarch´s disgrace.
He retained his position as a teacher in San Carlos and also imparted drawing lessons to female pupils in the Colegio de Vizcaínas which was the only female and secular school in Mexico throughout the XVIII and XIX centuries. Along with his academic career, he remained a prolific painter, authoring remarkable pieces such as La muerte de Marat (Marat’s Death) and several portraits.
Santiago Rebull, La muerte de Marat, 1875
C.M. MAYO: What has been the reaction from art historians and historians of the Second Empire?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The Academic reaction towards the Second Empire, from both, historians and art historians, has changed through time. During the first half of the XX Century, the posture was very much aligned to the official history, characterized by a nationalist stance in which Maximilian was portrayed as an invader and many of his actions as an imposition to Mexicans.
Nevertheless, this has shifted to a fascination for both, Maximilian and Charlotte, partly thanks to literature. En example of this, the book Noticias del Imperio (News from the Empire) by Fernando del Paso or The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by C.M. Mayo.
Historians have now a much more benevolent gaze to the Second Empire, emphasizing on Maximilian’s liberal measures that assisted the indigenous groups and regulated Ecclesiastic influence on civilians—which certainly made him unpopular with his original supporters. Art historians tend to be cautious with their judgments, stressing the continuity on San Carlos Academy trough its curriculum, academic cluster and board, all of them dramatically modified with the Republic’s restoration.
For instance, Eduardo Báez Macías, in his volume History of the National School of Fine Arts (Old San Carlos Academy), mentions Maximilian’s patronizing attitude towards Mexican art, believing it to be provincial to what he was used to in Europe.
My personal view is the opposite. Maximilian was a very intelligent ruler, he was aware of the necessity of his government’s legitimacy, and knew that the main way to achieved it was through art and Court protocol. In the first case, he arose from the liberal vs. conservative´s discussion over national heroes and entrusted several talented young artists to create a portrait gallery of the libertadores, including characters such as Hidalgo and Iturbide along. Also, in several Imperial projects he preferred to employ talented Mexican students over well-known established European teachers as Eugenio Landesio or Pelegrín Clavé.
C.M. MAYO: Which of all the 68 pieces do you consider the most essential for understanding Rebull and his place in Mexican art?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: Santiago Rebull is one of the most relevant XIX century painters in Mexico’s history. He is a fundamental artist of the Academicism generation, and keystone to understanding the shift in the Art Scene towards the Vanguards and the Mexican Painting School of XX century, since he was an inexhaustible teacher to many of its participants.
One of Santiago Rebull’s anchor pieces is La muerte de Abel (Abel’s Death). It was painted in 1851 and earned him a scholarship to travel to Rome.
Santiago Rebull, La muerte de Abel, 1851
He there attended the San Lucas Academy, a conservative catholic art school that followed the principles of the Nazarene Movement, specially influenced by the German painter Johann Friedrich Overbeck. Rebull studied under the guidance of Academic artist Thomaso Consoni, who molded and perfected his technique through a careful series of exercises consisting on copying masterpieces from Renaissance maestros. Therefore, La muerte de Abel best represents the Academic ideals of trace, color use and proportions so faithfully followed by Rebull.
C.M. MAYO: Was it difficult to find these 68 pieces, and were there any you couldn’t get for the show that you wish you had?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: Unfortunately there was a piece we were unable to obtain, El sacrificio de Isaac (Isaac’s Sacrifice) painted in 1858 during his sojourn in Italy and displayed in the Centennial Exposition of Philadelphia and later shown in New Orleans. The image is almost 118 inches tall and it’s a flawless sample of Rebull´s work during this formative voyage under Consoni’s guidance. Alas, it was a crucial piece in the National Museum of Art (MUNAL), therefore, they were unable to lend it.
Santiago Rebull, El sacrificio de Isaac, 1859
It was relatively unproblematic to secure the greater part of the assortment since it belongs to the painter’s descendants, most of them eager to promote their ancestor’s work. The rest of the pieces were graciously provided by significant institutions such as the San Carlos Academy, the National Museum of Art and the Colegio de Vizcaínas.
C.M. MAYO: Was the museum at Il Castillo di Miramar involved in any way? The original of Rebull’s portrait of the Emperor Maximilian was sent there, is that right?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The original full length portrait of Maximilian was painted by Santiago Rebull in 1865. The Emperor took such pleasure on it that resulted on the appointment of Rebull as court painter; he was also awarded the Order of Guadalupe, the Empire’s uppermost honor. The monarch relocated the painting in Miramar Castle in Trieste, Italy that same year. Nonetheless he commissioned Joaquín Ramírez, another Academic painter to produce an exact copy of his portrait. Currently, the latter is part of the National Institute of Fine Arts collection and it’s shown at Chapultepec Castle. We exhibit a contemporary reproduction of Ramírez painting.
Joaquín Ramírez, Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I, ca. 1866.
C.M. MAYO: The decorative bacchantes that Rebull painted for Chapultepec Castle– were these Maximilian’s idea or the artist’s? What do you think was the message of such decorative paintings?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The decorative bacchantes of Miravalle (Chapultepec) Castle were the Emperor’s idea but Rebull only painted four of them during Maximilian’s reign since the remaining two were created later, during President Porfirio Díaz administration when he occupied the castle as his summer residence.
The message behind the bacchantes is clear: the ideal of graciousness that courtesan life implied. Maximilian was convinced that through art and elaborate court rituals his regime would gain the legitimacy and acceptance of Mexican elites. The creation of new titles, honors and reinstated old colonial titles were strategies followed by the sovereign. Thus, art and protocol were undeniably intertwined in the imperial residences.
Santiago Rebull, Bacante para la terraza del Alcázar de Chapultepec, 1894
In the words of art historian Justino Fernández “Rebull planned six bacchantes figures […] the romanticism of the epoch finds here one of its classical expressions, these women, or better said, demigoddesses, highly idealized, wear the magnificence of their figure, in a movement attitude.” * *Justino Fernández. El arte del siglo XIX en México, Mexico, Imprenta Universitaria, 1967, p. 77.
C.M. MAYO: What do you consider Rebull’s most essential achievements as an artist?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: His personal career is bound to the history of San Carlos Academy; we may consider him as a founding painter of Mexican art of the first decades of independence, when the elite and middle classes were shaping an identity of their own, which they found in the expressions of Academicism and Neoclassic Art.
He perfected his education with the European sojourn—not remaining solely in Rome, but traveling extensively through Spain—and returned with a refined paintbrush imbibed by Purism and Nazarene precepts.
The preparative drawings are a testament of Rebull’s expertise of trace and copying, the two cornerstone of a XIX century Academic education. Upon his return he grew as a prolific portraitist, the most important being that of Emperor Maximilian.
But his talent was enjoyed not only by royals; both Presidents Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz were also depicted by the artist. The latter, is embodied as a young aspiring president, unlike later representations where an elderly and heavily ornamented military men is shown. Furthermore, common and quotidian characters were also portrayed by him.
Santiago Rebull, Portrait of Porfirio Díaz, 1872
Santiago Rebull, Portrait of an unknown man, undated
C.M. MAYO: Why is the show in the Museo de Diego Rivera? Can you talk a little about Rebull’s influence on Diego Rivera?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: Since the Museo Mural Diego Rivera has the commitment of preserving Diego Rivera’s legacy, promoting the artistic expressions created during the XX century and especially those influenced by Rivera himself, we thought there was a great breach with his predecessors. Who were they? Who particularly influenced him?
Rivera was educated at the San Carlos Academy of Arts in Mexico City where he was an accomplished student, tutored by the great artists of the XIX century Academic movement. He received a refined instruction from painters such as José Salomé Pina, José María Velasco and Santiago Rebull. Diego always felt in debt towards the latter, recognizing him as his mentor.
Edited transcript of remarks by C.M. Mayo for the Panel on “Writing Across Borders and Cultures,” Women Writing the West Conference, Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 15, 2016
How many of you have been to Mexico? Well, viva México! Here we are in New Mexico, Nuevo México. On this panel, with Dawn Wink and Kathryn Ferguson, it seems we are all about Mexico. I write both fiction and nonfiction, most of it about Mexico because that is where I have been living for most of my adult life— that is, the past 30 years— married to a Mexican and living in Mexico City.
But in this talk I would like to put on my sombrero, as it were, as an historical novelist, and although my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, is about Mexico, I don’t want to talk so much about Mexico as I do five simple, powerful techniques that have helped me, and that I hope will help you to see as an artist and write across borders.
I start with the premise that truth is beauty and beauty is truth, and that seeing clearly, seeing as an artist, is what brings us towards truth.
My second premise is that through narrative we become more human—and that sure beats the alternative.
My third premise is that writing about anyone else, anywhere, is to some degree writing across a border. The past is a border. Religion is a border. Gender is a border. Social class is a border. Language. Physical conditions— people who have peanut allergies are different than people who do not have peanut allergies.
“writing about anyone else, anywhere, is to some degree writing across a border”
THE CHALLENGE
The challenge is this: As Walter Lippman put it, “For the most part we do not first see and then define, we define first and then see.” And I would agree with Lippman that in our culture, for the most part, and of course, with oodles of exceptions, we are not educated to see, then define. Ironically, the more educated we are, the more we as literary artists may have something to overcome in this respect.
The poet e.e. cummings put it this way: “An artist is no other than he who unlearns what he has learned, in order to know himself.”
Betty Edwards, the artist who wrote Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, calls seeing as an artist “a different, more direct kind of seeing. The brain’s editing is somehow put on hold, thereby permitting one to see more fully and perhaps more realistically.”
How many of you are familar with Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain?
How many of you have tried that exercise where you take a black and white photograph of a face, turn it upside down, and copy it?
Turning the picture upside down tricks your brain to get past the labels of that is a nose, or, say, that is an eyelid, a wrinkle, a cheek… You are just drawing what you actually see, this weird jumble of shapes and shadows.
You turn it right side side up and, wow… it’s Albert Einstein!
And why is seeing this way, seeing as an artist so important? Because if we as writers cannot see as artists, with that wide open, innocent sense of attention and wonder that would see first, and then, maybe, define, whether we are writing about a Mexican or a Korean ballet dancer or a Texas cowboy or the old lady who died in the house next door one hundred years ago— whomever we are writing about, if we cannot see that human being with the eyes of an artist, our writing about them will not be fresh, it will be fuzzy, blunt, stale, peculiarly distorted. In a word: stereotypical.
It will be distorted in the same way that people who do not know how to draw will make the eyes too big, the foreheads too small, and ignore most of the shadows—the face they draw looks like a cartoon, not the way the face actually looks, because the left side of their brain was busy labeling things.
Seeing as an artist, on the other hand, is seeing without filters. Radical seeing. For us as writers this means seeing without prejudice, without bias, without the… shall we say, enduring presumptions.
It is, to quote the artist Betty Edwards again, “an altered state of awareness.” And “This shift to an altered state enables you to see well.”
So how do we get to that altered state? And then see?
FIVE TECHNIQUES FOR RADICAL SEEING
Technique #1 It starts with slowing down, being here now, in your body. Breathe in and breathe out, slowly, keeping your attention on following each breath, in and out. In and out. Five to 10 of these usually works just fine. If you’re really stressed out and distracted, maybe more. Whatever works for you.
Technique #2 This quiets the so-called “monkey mind.” Using a pen and paper, and using the present tense—using the present tense is key—simply writing down what you want to set aside for the duration of your writing session.
I write:
For now I’m not going to worry that The phone might ring. I am concerned that the front tire of my car looks low. I am worried that so and so will say thus and such…
Whatever. You just write them down and set them aside. And because you are writing them down, no worries, they will be there for you when you need to pick them up again.
Really, it is that simple. And incredibly powerful.
Now to actually seeing as an artist. I think of it as adopting the mindset of a four year old child. A four year old is old enough to speak and maybe even read and write a little bit, but young enough to have no presumption, no bias, no definitions, no worry about time, no social status to defend. No need to be “cool.” It’s just, you’re four and you’re noticing things, playfully. Innocently. Dangerously. Like that little boy who asked, Why isn’t the emperor wearing any clothes?
So we can start noticing things. Like, ooooh, the person sitting next to us.
What is the shape of her hair?
What’s on her left hand?
If you could touch her sleeve what would it probably feel like?
Other people may inform us that a wall is, say, pink. But if we can see as an artist, get past all the filters, we will see that the wall is cotton candy pink, over there. Down in the corner, away from the window, it might be more of an ash rose. Over there, where it catches the glow from the reflection, it’s a salmon pink. Up near the ceiling light, almost white. It’s gray, it’s lavender. That wall might have hundreds of different colors.
“The uniformity of the wall’s color is a social fact, and what I perceive, in every day life, seems to be such social facts, rather than the facts of optics… To perceive the wall as variously colored, I have to suspend my normal socially informed mode of perception. This is what an artist does.”
Other people may inform us about other people, such as, say, Mexicans. Mexicans are like this or, Mexicans are like that. But if we can see as an artist, we may see something, someone who does not fit into, shall we say, the enduring presumptions.
Such as Maximilian von Habsburg.
Maximilian von Habsburg
Speaking of emperors, Maximilian wore some very nice clothes. Beautifully tailored suits and uniforms.
Who has heard of Maximilian?
Most Mexicans will tell you that Maximilian was not Mexican, that he was Austrian, he was the Archduke of Austria, he was a puppet monarch imposed by the French Imperial Army. But at the time Maximilian died, executed in Mexico by firing squad in 1867, there were many Mexican monarchists, a minority of Mexicans certainly, but many, who considered Maximilian Mexican, as he did himself—he considered himself the mystical embodiment of his people, his subjects, the Mexicans.
His skin was very pale and he had this down-to-here red beard. As you might recall, the Habsburgs had once ruled Spain. So to Louis Napoleon and the Mexican monarchists, for the throne of Mexico, Maximilian seemed a logical and very apt choice. And the Pope thought so, too, by the way.
Technique #3 Do your reading and research, and I could talk for an hour or more just about reading and research…archives and handwriting and photographs and newspaper clippings… but the clock is ticking.
One thing I would urge you to consider is to read for perspectives outside your comfort zone. For example, I am the last person who would pick up the memoir of Princess Di’s butler. But in fact, that memoir, Paul Burrell’s A Royal Duty, as well as many other dishy English and European palace memoirs that have oozed out over the past couple of centuries, helped me see palace life in ways I might not have been able to otherwise—to crack its brittle surface of glamour and glimpse some of those oh-so-very human beings.
Technique #4 Always, always question the source. You might be surprised— I certainly was— by how many “facts” rendered in standard histories turn out to have originated in wartime propaganda or were complete fictions tossed off by political enemies. Whenever someone says something about someone, ask, what was their aim? What was the information they had at the time? Their biases? And what were their incentives?
Finally:
Technique #5 Visit relevant places, if you can, always trying to see them from the point of view of your characters. When you’re there, put yourself in their shoes. You may or may not have sympathy for them, but your artist’s imagination, your artist’s eye, must.
MAXIMILIAN’S POV
I’d like to end with a brief reading from the novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, from a flashback in Maximilian’s point of view.
When he was a twelve year-old boy, there was a distinct moment of a gray winter’s day in the Hofburg when he looked up from his schoolwork, the endless hieroglyphics of trigonometry, and caught sight of his reflection in the window. Four o’clock and it was nearly dark outside. He had been horrified: how old he looked. The life drained out of him! In a whisper that neither his older brother Franz Joseph nor their tutor could hear, he solemnly swore: I shall not forget who I truly am.
Adults, it seemed to Max, were as butterflies in reverse: they too, had been beautiful and free, but they had folded in their wings, cocooned themselves, and let their appendages dissolve until what they became was hard, ridged, little worms. One’s tutor, for example, reminded one of a nematode.
Twiddling concern with numbers, “practicality” in all its Philistine guises makes Maximilian stupendously bored. He needs vistas of sky, mountains, swift-running, sun-sparkled water; he needs— as a normal man must eat— to explore this world, to see, to touch its sibylline treasures: hummingbirds. The red-as-blood breast of a macaw. The furred and light-as-a-feather legs of a tarantula. God in all His guises: mushrooms, lichens, all creatures. As a boy, Max had delighted in his menagerie: a marmoset, a toucan, a lemur. The lemur had escaped, and left outside overnight, it had died of the cold. A footman had opened the door in the morning, and there the thing was, dusted with snow and stiff as cardboard.
“I detest winter,” Max had declared. Franz Joseph, Charlie, and the little brothers, bundled in woollens and furs, they could go ice-skating or build fortresses for snow-ball fights; Max preferred to stay inside with his pets, his books, and the stoves roaring. The one thing he relished about winter, for it was a most elegant way of thumbing his nose at it, was to go into the Bergl Zimmer and shut the door behind him. Its walls and its doors were painted with murals, trompe l’oeil of the most luxuriant flora and fauna: watermelons, papayas, cockatoos, coconut trees, hibiscus. Where was this, Ceylon? Java? Yucatan? Sleet could be falling on the other side of the Hofburg’s windows, but this treasure of the Bergl Zimmer, painted in the year 1760 for his great-great-grandmother the Empress Maria Theresa, never failed to transport one into an ecstasy of enchantment.
Mexicans, walls, in the news. Couldn’t resist.
So in this excerpt I am writing across multitudinous borders and cultures: about a man, when I am a woman; about an Austrian turned Mexican, when I was born in Texas and grew up in the suburbs of California, then moved to Mexico, remaining a legal resident, not a Mexican citizen; someone whose native language was German, when mine is English; one of Europe’s highest ranking aristocrats, when I have no title nor did any ancestor I know of; someone who was born more than a century before myself; furthermore, someone whose personality, religious beliefs, political values, pastimes, intellectual interests and aesthetics were all dramatically different than my own.
Did I get Maximilian “right”? I don’t know. There is no triple-certified committee of quadruple-authorized red-bearded blue-blooded Austrian-Mexican monarchist-Catholic-sailing-and-botany-enthusiasts to tell us. And even if Maximilian himself were available to provide feedback by means of time travel or, say, a credible séance, would that Maximilian, plucked out of 1866 or disembodied orb of some 150 years of floating about the astral, have the self-awareness, confidence, and good will to communicate to us a valid yea or nay?
What I do know is that what I wrote, that bit I just read to you, is the product of my applying these five techniques, including heaps of reading, archival research, and a visit to Vienna’s Hofburg Palace, and however good it may or may not be— let the gods and the reader decide— it is a mammoth stretch beyond what I could come up with in my first drafts.
EMPATHY
The stretch is towards empathy. But be careful: Empathy is not the same as sympathy. I do not have sympathy for Maximilian von Habsburg, Archduke of Austria and so-called Emperor of Mexico and all that he represented and fought for; but for Maximilian the human being, I do have empathy. That empathy was something I achieved because I wanted to see him.
“Recognizing the reality of another’s existence is the imaginative leap that is the birth of empathy, a word invented by a psychologist interested in visual art. The word is only slightly more than a century old, though the words sympathy, kindness, pity, compassion, fellow-feeling, and others covered the same general ground before Edward Titchener coined it in 1909. It was a translation of the German word Einfühlung, or feeling into, as though the feeling itself reached out… Empathy is a journey you travel, if you pay attention, if you care, if you desire to do so.”
In other words, such seeing takes heart and the writing that results is a journey of the heart, both for the writer and for the reader— although the latter may not choose, or perhaps may not be able to take such a journey. One can proffer “the pearls of the Virgin,” as they say in Mexico, and there will always be unhappy souls who loudly proclaim that they do not like hard little white things.
In the spirit of seeing past stereotypes, I would like to leave you with a quote not from an artist nor a beloved poet nor an esteemed literary writer but a Harvard Business School Professor of Marketing. In her wise and provocative Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd, Professor Youngme Moon writes, “Wherever you go, what matters less is what you are looking at, but how you have committed to see.”
He was Maximilian’s Court Painter, a leading figure in 19th century Mexican painting, and one of the important influences on Diego Rivera, yet few people have heard of Santiago Rebull— until now.
Santiago Rebull: The Outlines of a Story, at the Museum of the Diego Rivera Mural in Mexico City. Through February 15, 2015
If you’re anywhere near Mexico City, come in and visit the Santiago Rebull show at the Museo Mural Diego Rivera. >> More information here. << For those aficionados of the history of the French Intervention, and in particular the brief reign of Maximilian von Habsburg as Emperor of Mexico, this is an especially important show not to miss, for Rebull was Maximilian’s Court Painter and, interestingly, one of the few individuals close to the monarchy who managed to remain in Mexico and even thrive in subsequent decades under the Republic. Herewith, my interview with the show’s curator, Mexican historian Alan Rojas Orzechowski.
Santiago Rebull, Self-portrait, 1852
C.M. MAYO: What gave you the idea for the show?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The exhibitionSantiago Rebull: Los contornos de una historia (Santiago Rebull: The Outlines of a Story) presented in the Museo Mural Diego Rivera is our own way to pay homage to one of the most creative minds of the Academic Movement in Mexico, an illustrious painter and educator who molded the minds of pupils such as Roberto Montenegro, Ángel Zárraga and Diego Rivera.
As an outstanding teacher, he taught Diego Rivera as a young student in the San Carlos Academy of Arts. Rivera in return, always considered him as a mentor and guide, respecting him as both, as an instructor and fellow artist. Exploiting this connection, the Museo Mural Diego Rivera and external curator Magaly Hernández, thought suitable to present an exhibition which honored Rebull’s artwork, underlining his influence on Rivera and his generation.
C.M. MAYO: How did Santiago Rebull, so close to Maximilian, manage to remain in Mexico and continue working as a successful artist for decades afterwards?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: I personally think that it was his undeniable talent as an artist which enabled him to continue teaching in San Carlos Academy during three more decades.
In the immediate years after Maximilian’s fall he did receive severe reproaches from fellow artists and local newspapers as a monarchist and “afrancesado” (pro-French), but he carried on painting members of the political, economic and cultural elite. As a testament of this, the portraits of Presidents Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz are shown in the exhibition. Both pieces are dated in the 1870s, less than a decade after the monarch´s disgrace.
He retained his position as a teacher in San Carlos and also imparted drawing lessons to female pupils in the Colegio de Vizcaínas which was the only female and secular school in Mexico throughout the XVIII and XIX centuries. Along with his academic career, he remained a prolific painter, authoring remarkable pieces such as La muerte de Marat (Marat’s Death) and several portraits.
Santiago Rebull, La muerte de Marat, 1875
C.M. MAYO: What has been the reaction from art historians and historians of the Second Empire?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The Academic reaction towards the Second Empire, from both, historians and art historians, has changed through time. During the first half of the XX Century, the posture was very much aligned to the official history, characterized by a nationalist stance in which Maximilian was portrayed as an invader and many of his actions as an imposition to Mexicans.
Nevertheless, this has shifted to a fascination for both, Maximilian and Charlotte, partly thanks to literature. En example of this, the book Noticias del Imperio(News from the Empire) by Fernando del Paso or The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by C.M. Mayo.
Historians have now a much more benevolent gaze to the Second Empire, emphasizing on Maximilian’s liberal measures that assisted the indigenous groups and regulated Ecclesiastic influence on civilians—which certainly made him unpopular with his original supporters.Art historians tend to be cautious with their judgments, stressing the continuity on San Carlos Academy trough its curriculum, academic cluster and board, all of them dramatically modified with the Republic’s restoration.
For instance, Eduardo Báez Macías, in his volume History of the National School of Fine Arts (Old San Carlos Academy), mentions Maximilian’s patronizing attitude towards Mexican art, believing it to be provincial to what he was used to in Europe.
My personal view is the opposite. Maximilian was a very intelligent ruler, he was aware of the necessity of his government’s legitimacy, and knew that the main way to achieved it was through art and Court protocol. In the first case, he arose from the liberal vs. conservative´s discussion over national heroes and entrusted several talented young artists to create a portrait gallery of the libertadores, including characters such as Hidalgo and Iturbide along. Also, in several Imperial projects he preferred to employ talented Mexican students over well-known established European teachers as Eugenio Landesio or Pelegrín Clavé.
C.M. MAYO: Which of all the 68 pieces do you consider the most essential for understanding Rebull and his place in Mexican art?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: Santiago Rebull is one of the most relevant XIX century painters in Mexico’s history. He is a fundamental artist of the Academicism generation, and keystone to understanding the shift in the Art Scene towards the Vanguards and the Mexican Painting School of XX century, since he was an inexhaustible teacher to many of its participants.
One of Santiago Rebull’s anchor pieces is La muerte de Abel (Abel’s Death). It was painted in 1851 and earned him a scholarship to travel to Rome.
Santiago Rebull, La muerte de Abel, 1851
He there attended the San Lucas Academy, a conservative catholic art school that followed the principles of the Nazarene Movement, specially influenced by the German painter Johann Friedrich Overbeck. Rebull studied under the guidance of Academic artist Thomaso Consoni, who molded and perfected his technique through a careful series of exercises consisting on copying masterpieces from Renaissance maestros. Therefore, La muerte de Abel best represents the Academic ideals of trace, color use and proportions so faithfully followed by Rebull.
C.M. MAYO: Was it difficult to find these 68 pieces, and were there any you couldn’t get for the show that you wish you had?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: Unfortunately there was a piece we were unable to obtain, El sacrificio de Isaac (Isaac’s Sacrifice) painted in 1858 during his sojourn in Italy and displayed in the Centennial Exposition of Philadelphia and later shown in New Orleans. The image is almost 118 inches tall and it’s a flawless sample of Rebull´s work during this formative voyage under Consoni’s guidance. Alas, it was a crucial piece in the National Museum of Art (MUNAL), therefore, they were unable to lend it.
Santiago Rebull, El sacrificio de Isaac, 1859
It was relatively unproblematic to secure the greater part of the assortment since it belongs to the painter’s descendants, most of them eager to promote their ancestor’s work. The rest of the pieces were graciously provided by significant institutions such as the San Carlos Academy, the National Museum of Art and the Colegio de Vizcaínas.
C.M. MAYO: Was the museum at Il Castillo di Miramar involved in any way? The original of Rebull’s portrait of the Emperor Maximilian was sent there, is that right?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The original full length portrait of Maximilian was painted by Santiago Rebull in 1865. The Emperor took such pleasure on it that resulted on the appointment of Rebull as court painter; he was also awarded the Order of Guadalupe, the Empire’s uppermost honor. The monarch relocated the painting in Miramar Castle in Trieste, Italy that same year. Nonetheless he commissioned Joaquín Ramírez, another Academic painter to produce an exact copy of his portrait. Currently, the latter is part of the National Institute of Fine Arts collection and it’s shown at Chapultepec Castle. We exhibit a contemporary reproduction of Ramírez painting.
Joaquín Ramírez, Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I, ca. 1866.
C.M. MAYO: The decorative bacchantes that Rebull painted for Chapultepec Castle– were these Maximilian’s idea or the artist’s? What do you think was the message of such decorative paintings?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: The decorative bacchantes of Miravalle (Chapultepec) Castle were the Emperor’s idea but Rebull only painted four of them during Maximilian’s reign since the remaining two were created later, during President Porfirio Díaz administration when he occupied the castle as his summer residence.
The message behind the bacchantes is clear: the ideal of graciousness that courtesan life implied. Maximilian was convinced that through art and elaborate court rituals his regime would gain the legitimacy and acceptance of Mexican elites. The creation of new titles, honors and reinstated old colonial titles were strategies followed by the sovereign. Thus, art and protocol were undeniably intertwined in the imperial residences.
Santiago Rebull, Bacante para la terraza del Alcázar de Chapultepec, 1894
In the words of art historian Justino Fernández “Rebull planned six bacchantes figures […] the romanticism of the epoch finds here one of its classical expressions, these women, or better said, demigoddesses, highly idealized, wear the magnificence of their figure, in a movement attitude.” * *Justino Fernández. El arte del siglo XIX en México, Mexico, Imprenta Universitaria, 1967, p. 77.
C.M. MAYO: What do you consider Rebull’s most essential achievements as an artist?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: His personal career is bound to the history of San Carlos Academy; we may consider him as a founding painter of Mexican art of the first decades of independence, when the elite and middle classes were shaping an identity of their own, which they found in the expressions of Academicism and Neoclassic Art.
He perfected his education with the European sojourn—not remaining solely in Rome, but traveling extensively through Spain—and returned with a refined paintbrush imbibed by Purism and Nazarene precepts.
The preparative drawings are a testament of Rebull’s expertise of trace and copying, the two cornerstone of a XIX century Academic education. Upon his return he grew as a prolific portraitist, the most important being that of Emperor Maximilian.
But his talent was enjoyed not only by royals; both Presidents Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz were also depicted by the artist. The latter, is embodied as a young aspiring president, unlike later representations where an elderly and heavily ornamented military men is shown. Furthermore, common and quotidian characters were also portrayed by him.
Santiago Rebull, Portrait of Porfirio Díaz, 1872
Santiago Rebull, Portrait of an unknown man, undated
C.M. MAYO: Why is the show in the Museo de Diego Rivera? Can you talk a little about Rebull’s influence on Diego Rivera?
ALAN ROJAS ORZECHOWSKI: Since the Museo Mural Diego Rivera has the commitment of preserving Diego Rivera’s legacy, promoting the artistic expressions created during the XX century and especially those influenced by Rivera himself, we thought there was a great breach with his predecessors. Who were they? Who particularly influenced him?
Rivera was educated at the San Carlos Academy of Arts in Mexico City where he was an accomplished student, tutored by the great artists of the XIX century Academic movement. He received a refined instruction from painters such as José Salomé Pina, José María Velasco and Santiago Rebull. Diego always felt in debt towards the latter, recognizing him as his mentor.
