During the XIX century, sailing and steam ships continued been painted, and unt il a short time ago, Dawson painted them with excellent colours and moving waves, but always the sea was only the support of the vessels. It was until the end of the XIX century and the XX that the sea was painted for itself. tempests and Turner does studios of the swell, the surf, winds effects, and gives to his masterpieces a rich palette of colours. In Spain, Haes and Larraga did coastal landscapes. Verdugo painted high seas in 1892. Some others, like Gomez Gil, Fernandez Copello, Bilbao, Canovas or Cervero represent marine scenes, until the arrival of the brilliant Sorolla, who sees the light in another way and paints remarkable marines, even if, rarely, the sea is the principal theme. Other Spaniards who cultivated this art, were Buforn, Gordon, Solis, Martinez Abades, and Zubiaurre, that styled the sea to have it at the back of a portrayed seaman.
In France, Huet made some beach scenes, as Isabey too, who made ships navigate through squally waters; Daubigny essayed marines; Courbet painted scenes of the swell near to shores and studied the secrets of the sea movement, Boudin was also a marine painter. Later, Monet, with his peculiar way of colouring the reflections of light in water, painted too, as also did some of the impressionists. In Italy, the Count Corsi di Bosnasco painted beautiful shore or cliff scenes.
In the United States, Homer, as almost all of the landscape painters who lived near the sea, dedicated part of his work to create coastal scenes and left traces of the north Atlantic waves in oil and watercolour. Other painters of that country, such as Heade, Moran and Harrison took the same theme.
Many artists in other countries, such as Zorn, Lindholm or Mac Taggart painted the sea, but very few of them had it as a main theme, and nobody has pictured it as the Mexican painters.
Joaquin Clausell, the best known of them, dedicated almost half of his work to paint seas, something with which he was acquainted since his childhood, in Campeche. He made a stand out for his marine scenes, beaches, swell in rocks, always depicted with great skill and diversity of techniques. His strong brushwork to represent the different shades of waves or the white of the surf and foam gave him a great celebrity.
(Some underlined words will soon link to more of Mayorga's paintings)
Gomez Mayorga's marines, which are in my sense, best to all others, have been one of the best-kept secrets of Art. His paintings are not exhibited in museums and seldom shown, there is no literature about them, almost nothing is said about the life of the painter; nonetheless, their prices are increasing exponentially in art markets and they shall be soon present in international auctions.
The interest in knowing more about his life and work, made me inquire about them, and I got many grateful surprises. I saw and photographed a great diversity of works, from big canvasses to small sketches, about very different themes, with great differences in style, colour, and, strange, with signatures quite dissimilar. The more I knew of his works; more mysteries appeared of the life and inspirations of Gomez Mayorga.
Almost all his paintings decorate private homes, some of them offices, but almost none is publicly exposed. Those who own them, have them in great esteem, almost always they belong to families that inherited them from somebody who had a personal or a friendly relation with the author.
His marines cover all the tints of the sea, from the black of the deep ocean, to the blue or green of shallow and transparent waters, the dark green of moonlight, or the pink, violet; orange or yellow projected by the sun. They join with the white, silver and gold of the sun glare in the surf. Where the genius of Gomez Mayorga is most notorious is in swell and waves. In a calm sea, in gale or in tempest, in high seas, in beaches or in reefs, it seems so natural that one has the feeling of the continuous movement of waves. His tempests have great force and the water seems to spate out of the frame. It is almost possible to hear the roar of waves exploding on the reefs. The only living beings in those scenes are seagulls, anonymous inhabitants of shores.
The skies and clouds have also every shade of colour, sometime they remember those of Velasco, but his genius is mostly displayed in overcast skies. The dark gray of tempestuous skies has a reality rarely seen in other painters of land or seascapes. His works are done with broad brushwork, with grand texture, great colouring, and reveal the free and untied hand of a great master. The rocks, of different colours and various lightings, also evidence his genius.
His landscapes include different themes; the most frequent, that of the volcanos located between Puebla and Mexico City, both cities where he was born and where he died. He painted them at different times of the day and from different sites. Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, alone or together, sometimes with the lakes that flooded in that epoch Mexico's Valley. In many pictures Popocatepetl shows the peculiar smoke column that gives its name to the volcano.
Xochimilco is another theme of his landscapes: canals with clean water from lake springs, showing water lilies, flowers in floating islands; the huts of natives, that evoke those of the ancient Tenochtitlan, laid near canals, the canoes with poles, the slender trees, and of course, the glare of the sun in the calm water. Evidence of a recent past that we will not see again.
Taxco was also the object of his landscapes: Santa Prisca, the parish church that he painted from different locations, streets, hills and tropical vegetation. He also painted the Pocito chapel, near to the Guadalupe Basilica, the domes of El Carmen church, in San Angel, Mercado Hill in Durango, and the Mount of the Cross, also near to the Basilica (Villa de Guadalupe), Zempoala's lagoons and Patzcuaro Lake. Some of his views correlate with contemporary photographs by Hugo Brehme. Had they traveled together? We do not know. Most of his themes were Mexicans, although he painted, occasionally, Mediterranean sites with maritime pines.
His flowers have great glamour, the bougainvillaea, those of the floating islands of Xochimilco, or those of Talavera or clay vases. Chrysantemus, dahlias and roses are the most frequent, with bunches of a sole variety, in Mexican style, reminiscent of painter Gedovius. Table covers, curtains and other elements complete his compositions.
His figures are done with few strokes, but with great dexterity, rarely he paints faces. Only two very shocking portraits are known: the body of the assassinated Aquiles Serdán and his self-portrait, from 1910 and 1911. They are of the very few where the date is known. He did some copies of other painter’s works, possibly as academic studies, before choosing the landscape and rejecting the portrait as a favourite way of expression.
Almost all of his works are signed; several of them time after they were finished. His varied strokes deserved a graphologycal study to show something about their chronological order; his mood when doing them, or his personality, but the variety among them is so big, and so scarce the available information, that nothing worth publishing was obtained.
Few people who knew him still live. Those who remember him, say he was generous with his friends, that, sometimes, he presented his pictures to his clients, that he painted some of them as an assignment, for instance, to decorate a chimney. It is said that he painted also for calendars, but no one has been found to prove it. He suffered economic shortages, and was a bohemian, who had to paint to live, or also to drink, something he liked to do in the company of his friends; he used to invite and entertain some of them at home for several days. On Sundays, he was surrounded by his grandchildren and devised stories for them, he invented nicknames for all of them, and they were entertained with "Master Belindres", an ugly and pockmarked manikin with a wooden leg he made. One of his granddaughters remembers that he dedicated some time to woodwork.
It is said of him that he never saw the sea, which he painted by heart. Others reveal that he traveled to Europe and studied in France and Italy, that President Madero recognized his genius and gave him a scholarship at San Carlos Art School and in Europe, and that he had great teachers. Others say that he learned by himself. Between such big contradictions, I developed strongly my interest to know how he really was, and how he could have such a mastery inspiration.
Why is he so much appreciated by his collectors and unknown to most of the art scholars? Why is he not known as much as his contemporaries? He had academic preparation, was a schoolmate with many well-known painters, made a great quantity of art works, and, differing from others, he remained in the shadow. Why? He was not interested in searching political contacts, he did not followed the path of mural painting, or the fashions of his time, his work had no political themes, he was not interested in the marketing of his work, and remained loyal to his taste. He was always independent and bohemian. Sometimes he essayed new techniques and changed his way of painting. Faithful to his ideas, he did what he liked, was glad to paint for pleasure, and to make happier his clients and friends.
In order to know more of this man, that I consider as the last of the Impressionists, and the best creator of marines and tempests, it was necessary to inquire among his admirers, those own his pictures, some antiquarians and to search in art galleries. I was supported by an important group of friends and investigators that helped me to locate some part of his copious work, to photograph it and to observe it, to get information about his life and studies, to interview his family, recreate as possible his biography and to know more of his character. To publish this book, I think, is the best way to do justice to one of the Mexican and Universal valuable artists of the first half of the XX century.
