Resumo

BONILLA, Helia. Posada, Continuity and Innovation in the Turn of the Century Printed Image of Mexico: Lithography and Photolithography. An. Inst. Investig. Estét [online]. 2023, vol.45, n.122, pp.45-99.  Epub 22-Jan-2024. ISSN 0185-1276.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iie.18703062e.2023.122.2814.

This article explores, from the specificity of the history of graphic arts in Mexico and the tracing of technical clues, how José Guadalupe Posada positioned himself with respect to the old and new technical procedures. This leads us to propose that the first photomechanical technique applied to José Guadalupe Posada’s early output in Mexico City was a new type of photolithography. This technique was not executed by the artist himself, but by a workshop of French origin that processed illustrations for various publications, including the weekly magazines La Patria Ilustrada, La Juventud Literaria and Revista de México, for which Posada himself and some of his contemporaries worked. It also shows that he, and those who were affiliated with the trade of the printed image in the capital, witnessed a gradual transition at the end of the 19th century; on the one hand, the technical innovations, which were also part of the discourse surrounding the quality and modernity of the Mexican publications which aspired to equal their prestigious foreign counterparts. On the other, traditional lithography continued to be used in the Mexican publishing field in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and Posada himself continued its practice in his small establishment, these two issues have been subject to question, as the assumption has been that traditional lithography was then an obsolete technique in Mexican publications, just as it was in Europe and the United States.

Palavras-chave : José Guadalupe Posada; lithography; photolithography; ink-photo; line blocks; graphic arts; graphic techniques; technical innovation; technology transfer; modernization; 19th century; Ireneo Paz; Arturo Paz; Moreau y Hermano.