The artist who fused science, history and national identity in sun-drenched landscapes

José María Velasco: a View of Mexico at London’s National Gallery shows an artist concerned for the human effect on the environment – as early as the 19thcentury.

José María Velasco, The Valley of Mexico from the Hill of Santa Isabel, 1877, Oil on canvas, 161 × 228.5 cm, Museo Nacional de Arte, INBAL, Mexico City, © Reproducción autorizada por el Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura. Photo: Francisco Kochen

In 1878, as Mexican artist José María Velasco sent his grandest canvas to the Exposition Universelle in Paris, seeking European acknowledgement and fame, he made very sure to state in his signature that it was painted in Mexico by a Mexican.

Velasco is a big deal in Mexican art – even though his paintings were recognisably linked to the European art tradition. At first glance they may seem like idyllic sunny landscapes from a tourist brochure. But Velasco was more complex than that. His depictions of flora have the precision of botanical drawings and, like his geological works, have both direct and metaphorical references to history and the changing environment. He was a storyteller.

José María Velasco, Cardón, State of Oaxaca, 1887, Oil on canvas, 61 × 46 cm, Museo Nacional de Arte, INBAL, Mexico City, © Reproducción autorizada por el Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura. Photo: Francisco Kochen

Unfortunately for him, the style in which he decided to paint rapidly fell out of fashion, so even though he was well regarded in his lifetime, his celebrity faded. His message, however, remains as current as ever.

Velasco was a botanist, naturalist and geologist with a keen interest in Mesoamerican and modern history and his paintings were a continuation of this scientific work. His depictions of local flora – especially the widely reproduced painting of a cactus – raised the status of plants to the level of national identity.

José María Velasco, Rocks, 1894, Oil on canvas, 163 × 105.5 cm, Museo Nacional de Arte, INBAL, Mexico City, © Reproducción autorizada por el Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, 2024

For Velasco, nature was just as important as people. His paintings of plants and rocks resemble portraits. Rocks (1894) is of human height and, in the vertical format normally reserved for portraiture, a simple geological study no more. It says: this volcanic formation on the hill of Tepeyac deserves our attention and respect. In uniting his deep knowledge of the subject with the grandeur of art, Velasco gives these rocks character.

Hot on the heels of Darwin’s discoveries, geology became a source of fascination for Velasco. New geological dating expanded and stretched the earth’s history well beyond what was thought previously. For the artist, this may have posed a dilemma – having to reconcile his Catholic belief with this new world view to which he was clearly strongly drawn. It also meant that a painting of rock was now, in essence, a history painting – depicting millions of years of Earth’s story.

José María Velasco, Study of a nopal cactus, date unknown, Pencil and coloured pencil on paper, 29.3 × 41.5 cm, Museo Nacional de Arte, INBAL, Mexico City, © Reproducción autorizada por el Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura. Photo: Francisco Kochen

Religion, nevertheless, forms part of Velasco’s multilayered paintings too. In his most celebrated work, the bird’s eye view of The Valley of Mexico from the Hill of Santa Isabel (1877), the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, even though miniscule, sits in the centre of the composition. The painting brings historical epochs together – from the founding of Tenochitlan by the Mexica in the 14th century, up to Velasco’s present day. Considered the pinnacle of the artist’s achievement, it was shown in both Mexico and France during his lifetime.

The show at the National Gallery brings together this important painting and preparatory studies for it. They demonstrate just how keen Velasco was to include careful depictions of plants and birds, which served both as true images of Mexican nature and as metaphors for specific historic periods.

José María Velasco, The Great Comet of 1882, 1910, Oil on canvas, 121 × 81 cm, Acervo del Gobierno del Estado de Veracruz, © Secretaría de Cultura de Veracruz, Colección Museo de Arte del Estado de Veracruz

Velasco’s desire to fuse natural phenomena with political symbolism lasted a lifetime. In one of his later paintings, an unusual nighttime landscape, he draws parallels between the Great Comet of 1882 and the Mexican Revolution. He made sketches after observing the comet; however, it was not until 18 years later, in 1901, that he made this dramatic painting – suggesting, perhaps, that he saw the comet as a premonition of the political events that happened a few years later.

José María Velasco, The Textile Mill of La Carolina, Puebla, 1887, Oil on canvas, 76.6 × 107.8 cm, National Museum of the Czech Republic, Prague, © The National Museum of the Czech Republic, Prague. Photo: Denisa Dimitrovova

The National Gallery, in recent years, has organised several shows dedicated to ‘national landscapes.’ From the US to Australia, and now Mexico, it is attempting to add to and widen the geographical span of its permanent collection, which is dedicated to European art. I came to this show to find out about an artist whose name did not ring a bell at all. I came out of the exhibition curious about the country I have never been to, and whose history is just as much a mystery to me as its landscapes.

Those landscapes have undergone a massive transformation since Velasco’s days; he was a witness to the beginning of that rapid process. In this show, Velasco, with the help of the National Gallery, continues his mission of showing the world Mexico painted by a Mexican. Even if that Mexico no longer exists.