Man of the Valley

A Mexican artist who died 33 years ago is now being referred to by critics as "one of the great landscape painters of modern times." The evidence for this judgment was on view last week at the Brooklyn Museum, which was showing no paintings and drawings by Jose Maria Velasco (1840-1912).

Velasco had been virtually forgotten, even in Mexico, until three years ago. Then President Avila Camacho suddenly declared the painter's work a "national monument." His rediscovery was doubtless hastened by the Western Hemisphere's new cultural self-consciousness and loss of contact with wartime Europe.

A devout, home-loving man, the father of 13 children, Velasco taught for years at the National Academy in Mexico City, encouraged such promising pupils as Diego Rivera. He visited the World's Fairs in Chicago; and Philadelphia, detested the hubbub of North American cities.

As some Renaissance painters never tired of painting the same Madonna again & again, Velasco concentrated a lifetime of work on one stretch of landscape: the Valley of Mexico. He always saw something new in its pines and pepper trees, the pure, cold light, the ancient volcanoes, the cactus maguey and prickly pears, the insubstantial clouds and the hard rock. Velasco's love for the valley was not merely esthetic: it was founded on his knowledge of botany, geology, religion. He always read a Psalm before he tackled any major work; it added a touch of mysticism to his solid realism.

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