I went to see Mr. Rameo Martinez, the head of the Academia, and asked
him kindly to send a plaster moulder to my hotel to cast the little
sketch for a possible Russian Monument. I brought it from New York
to finish here. I had a perfectly excellent Mexican “boxer” model,
broadshouldered and full of muscles, that Mr. Martinez produced for me,
thus enabling me to finish it. I also asked him if I could visit his
open air school out in the country, at Cherubosco, which he accordingly
invited me to do.
Edith Bonilla motored me out there. The students work in a patio.
Martinez’ idea is the open air, no false lights. He has talked to
me too of his ambition that his students shall be _Mexican_, not
cosmopolitan, nor French in their art. The idea is right. But when one
has looked around: what _is_ Mexican Art? There is Toltec, Maya, Aztec
art. There is Spanish (colonial) evidenced in architecture. But one
looks in vain for evidences of modern Mexican Art. At the school some
perfectly mediocre studies were being done by students who, by their
years, should have been far beyond what they were doing. There were
mature men painting the eternal still life groups of pots and oranges.
There was the eternal model, an old woman sitting holding a bowl. Only
the model in this instance was brown instead of white. I realized with
overwhelming weariness the futility of schools.... I went to a school
once. A night school. I was paralysed. I achieved nothing, I was the
most unpromising pupil there. Moreover I hated it and dreaded it, and
only went out of sheer self-discipline. This is at a time when I had
quite a lot of commissions to work at in my own studio. I benefited in
no way from the school, and I don’t believe anyone else does. At best
it succeeds in turning out a mould, a type, a “school.” Only once in a
million times does _one_ arise, who would have arisen anyway, anyhow,
anywhere. Mr. Martinez, who has worked in Paris (why?) who has no more
“the soul of Mexico,” or the depth to realise it, will work in vain,
open air or indoor, unless he instils some spirit into those students!
Always these masters point to a student’s work and with pride call it
“du Gauguin”; easy enough to make a bad Gauguin. I wonder on whom it
reflects most discredit: Gauguin or the student. If only the teacher
would say, “My God! All this is _awful_, let’s have something new....”
There was one sculptor at the Country School. His Christian name was
Phidias, not his fault, and no one _could_ have foreseen. He looked
white and on the verge of suicide. He said he had been working in Paris
... but that he had done nothing since. He had been back six months.
He said there were no sculptors and no art appreciation in Mexico. He
certainly could not, even if he would, have worked in the room into
which he took me. It would be a perfectly fit room in which to hang
oneself. He looked very depressed,--I fear he will starve.
I came back, and went to the reception of the Pani’s. Like last time
full of cosmopolitans, diplomats, from South America, such as Uruguay,
Guatemala and the like, and also Mr. Malbran and Mr. Summerlin. There
were heaps of women and girls, sitting in rows, and men grouped in
doorways. That is the only unconventional part of the Pani parties,
that the sexes do not engage one another in conversation. Maybe it is
the habit of the country.
Today they had for diversion (besides the jazz band, which did bring
the sexes together for short intervals) the Indian girl who has won the
beauty prize, and 10,000 pesos with it. She was in her pretty Indian
dress and certainly looked very attractive, though more Roumanian
than Indian. Everyone was making a fuss of her, and she was being
photographed by flashlight with Madame Pani, and the highest of the
land. This little peasant girl was perfectly smiling and composed, not
a bit shy or awkward. Her naked feet reposed on the velvet cushions on
the parquet floor, and she seemed to gain a great distinction from her
surroundings. Behind her she has generations of noble Indian race. Her
dignity and calm had the effect of making the other women appear rather
banal. She looked as though a young Cortes should fling his fame and
fortune at her feet!