ARTS OF MEXICO
The Series
By Rita Pomade
- Her Bio
The Legacy of Agustin Victor Casasola
(Photographer 1874 - 1938)
(Click images for
annotated enlargements.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Agustin Victor Casasola was not a painter or a poet or one of the many intellectuals or revolutionaries during the early decades of the twentieth century who consciously strove to forge a Mexican identity. Yet, as witness and recorder of those tumultuous years, his influence was as great and may prove to be more lasting.
There is no medium that has greater immediacy than the photograph. And as such, it has great power. Whether Casasola knew this intuitively or intellectually doesn't matter. What does matter is that he left a legacy to the people of his country that has etched in the minds of every Mexican, a visceral connection to whom they were at the rebirth of their nation. And he has assured future generations of Mexican that their past will never fall into oblivion.
It's interesting that he never thought of himself as an "art" photographer like Edward Weston or Manuel Alvarez Bravo, two men who sought to capture the face of Mexico and whose work he would have certainly known at the time. He saw himself as a journalist first - a man who took pictures to tell a story. Yet, many of his photographs transcend the craft of photojournalism and reach the level of art. In this respect, he is reminiscent of the great "Life Magazine" photographer W. Eugene Smith whose photographs not only told a story, but captured a depth and humanity beyond the impersonal image.
Agustin Victor Casasola was born in Mexico City on July 28,1874. His father died when he was six years old, and the family's financial situation didn't permit him to pursue higher education. He apprenticed himself at a young age to a typographer. Typography demands precision, a sense of form and style, and an understanding of the need to communicate. This early training served him well in his later incarnation as a photographer.
By the time he was twenty years old he had moved from setting type to writing stories and became a reporter for El Imparcial, one of the official newspapers of the Porfirio Díaz regime. By the end of the century he had moved into photojournalism.
He couldn't have been better placed in history. The early 1900s brought great innovative advances into photography, one of which was the half tone. Its use on high-speed presses revolutionized the printed image. Editors and readers demanded the "real thing", and photographs quickly replaced drawings and etchings on the printed page.
As those were the Porfirio Díaz years, the demand was for "happy" pictures. Anything else wasn't good business for the newspapers. 85% of the public was illiterate, and the public that could read - businessmen, large landowners, and the emerging middle class - didn't want their sleep disturbed.
Casasola worked within those narrow confines along with the others in his field. His early photographs document the comfortable lives of the elite, and he was even there to photograph Porfirio Díaz during the inauguration celebration that led to his last days in office. But he was also there to shoot the crowds cheering on the day of the great dictator's exile and Madero entering Mexico City in triumph. His subject matter is starting to change, and these photographs will take on enormous power in time.
In 1904 Casasola left El Imparcial to work for El Tiempo, . . .
Subscribe and read all the complete articles . . . Plus view the annotated photographs.
= Subscribers only
Miguel de Allende
