FORMA: REVISTA DE ARTES PLÁSTICAS. PINTURA, GRABADO, ESCULTURA, ARQUITECTURA, EXPRESIONES POPULARES, VOL. I, N° 1
México: SEP-UNAM, Octubre 1926. b/w and color plates, b/w illus., facs., plans, advts., wrps. (Lacks rear wrapper, chipping on spine, 1 inch tear at top of front cover not affecting text; o/w vg. Item #93268
A monthly publication ideated by painter Fernandez Ledesma and dedicated to Mexican plastic arts with participation of noted artists, architects, art critics and intellectuals. Contents include: Vol. I, No. 1. Octubre 1926: Agustin Lazo; Los daguerrotipos/ comentados por Weston -- Las escuelas al aire libre/ por S. (Salvador) Novo -- La Caricatura/ por S. Ramos - Ilustraciones de Covarrubias - Pinturas murales mexicanas/ J.Charlot - Móvil/ G. Fernández Ledesma - El sentimiento estético de los juguetes mexicanos -- Proyecto de Diego Rivera para un teatro en un puerto del Golfo de México/ colaboración técnica de ingeniería de don Benito García Benítez -- Photographs by Agustin Jiménez.
In that environment and thanks to the efforts of some of the characters, the magazine form was created - the painter Gabriel Fernández Ledesma served as director and the poet Salvador Novo as literary censor and representative of the artistic criterion - which was constituted as one of the first Mexican publications that Was concerned with studying and disseminating articles on plastic arts (painting, engraving, sculpture and architecture) and popular expressions. According to the literary and popular arts researcher, Porfirio Martínez Peñaloza, its importance is comparable to that of Modern Magazine (1898-1911) or to the so-called El Maestro (1921-1923).
In the editorial of the first issue of the magazine Forma, dated October 7, 1926, the Secretary of Education, J. M. Puig Casauranc, wrote in this regard:
It is for the Secretariat of my office to pay special attention to the promotion and development of the plastic arts in the country, which constitute not only a strong spiritual bond ... but also the clear and clear revelation of the formidable flow Of creative force that encourages our race. This primordial quality of the race, which no one will deny [...] creative force and artistic fantasy, which after three centuries of dark silence continues to strip the pawn and the Indian of their misery and their abjection by the art manifested in the tilma de Mild grace.... This is how this pristine ability to produce real beauty has been preserved in our country, from generation to generation, as a sacred fire. [...] It is surely for us to congratulate ourselves on living the solemn historical moment of the awakening of a race. Who knows whether we should not, in essence, congratulate ourselves on the fact that Spanish domination first and Creole and later mestizo pride, Have given up the sublime task of revealing to the world the ignored and naive and genuine treasures of our nationality.
General features of the magazine Forma
Between 1926 and 1927 seven issues of the magazine Forma were published, although only six were published. It was sponsored by the Secretary of Public Education and the National University, which means that it had official support, not only for publication but also for the propagation of ideas, so that the diffusion of the visual arts and popular expressions were Seconded by the State, until it became part of the Mexican cultural heritage. By that time muralism had developed with ease and exalted the characteristics of Mexican art, calling it "the Mexican Renaissance."
Form became an important means of spreading the national culture. In this regard, the editor of the magazine Form expressed in the first issue, in an article entitled "Mobile":
In this great moment, we, the artists, are entrusted with the enormous task of solving the problem of our own expression, so that, once defined, we try to relate it to all our common things ... We are the product of one The same race and the fruit of the same land ... And let us work, of course, to achieve the pure formation of the art of the country, of the art that reflects our particular physiognomy. This elucidation will be our truth ... Let us devote ourselves to the task of educating the people in the new racial aesthetic concept (our present race). We, plastic artists, must discover the expressive ideological formula of our country [ ...] to understand the enormous value of HAVING AN OUR ART, concretized in thought and ideas, in our concepts, forms and structures. [...] Forma is the new voice of the plastic artists of Mexico. (3)
As can be seen, it was intended to show the public everything related to national artistic production; In fact, since the first issue the artists were summoned to collaborate, which shows much of the spirit of this movement. Among them were distinguished artists and intellectuals such as Ignacio Asúnsolo, Emilio Abreu Gómez, Anita Brenner, Miguel Covarrubias, AE Cumming, Jean Charlot, Francisco Díaz de León, Dr. Atl, Fernando Gamboa, Tamili Kitagawa, Agustín Lazo, Fernando Leal, Manuel Manilla , Tina Modotti, Renato Molina Enríquez, Roberto Montenegro, José Clemente Orozco, Máximo Pacheco, Samuel Ramos, Fermín Revueltas, Diego Rivera, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Manuel Romero de Terreros, David Alfaro Siquieros, Rufino Tamayo, Manuel Toussaint, Xavier Villaurrutia, Edward Weston and, of course, the previously mentioned Salvador Novo and Gabriel Fernández Ledesma.
FORMA was directed by the plastic artist, professor, writer and cultural promoter Gabriel Fernández Ledesma (1900 - 1983). Among his artistic activity was that of being a founding member of the group "30-30", composed of artists who fought against the anquilosados methods of the academy through the promotion of artistic exhibitions with a popular accent. "Among his productions is the book Toys Mexicanos, published in 1930. In number 1 of FORM was published The aesthetic sentiment of the Mexican toys.Entre los colaboradores que contribuyeron en el número 1, edición de 42 páginas, se pueden mencionar a Xavier Villaurrutia, E. Weston, J. Charlot, Salvador Novo, Agustín Lazo, entre otros. En el número 3, edición de 44 páginas, colaboraron Diego Rivera, Ana Brener, Dr. Alt, Gabriel F. Ledesma y otros. FORMA was a magazine that diffused the plastic arts of Mexico at a time when there were different artistic, poetic, literary and political manifestations. These were the years in which the different currents of avant-gardism developed.
Price: $350.00