Quotes & Sayings About Mexican Art

I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage, to love my first language, Spanish, to learn about Mexican history, music, folk art, food, and even the Mexican candy I grew up with. — Salma Hayek

I know now that he who hopes to be universal in his art must plant in his own soil. Great art is like a tree, which grows in a particular place and has a trunk, leaves, blossoms, boughs, fruit, and roots of its own. The more native art is, the more it belongs to the entire world, because taste is rooted in nature. When art is true, it is one with nature. This is the secret of primitive art and also of the art of the mastersMichelangelo, Czanne, Seurat, and Renoir. The secret of my best work is that it is Mexican. — Diego Rivera

"I was born in the US and l have lived in Mexico since 1946. I believe that all these states of being have influenced my work and made it what you see today. I am inspired by Black people and Mexican people, my two peoples. My art speaks for both my peoples" ~ Elizabeth Catlett — Melanie Anne Herzog

Valentine
my friends stitched it up with golden thread
like a red
satin pillow they gave me other whole ones too
roses and charms and red candles
milagros to repair the real one
they told me i was no longer allowed to give it away
a pretty pin cushion
a piece of mexican folk art
a hundred beating poems left unanswered
like a thing to wear around the neck
they said you must heal we will protect you
but i sat weeping at the computer forging ahead anyway
with the small stitched thing struggling in my chest
it knew that it had needed to be torn
so that it could recognize and receive the hundred kindnesses
traveling across three thousand miles at the speed of light
a storm of petals and beautiful words and tiny hearts to keep it
company — Francesca Lia Block

Because all men are but reflections of their upbringing, education, and experiences, we also expend considerable effort scrutinizing both the man and the general who led the Army of Northern Virginia north that summer. Robert E. Lee was trained as an engineer at West Point, studied extensively the campaigns of the Great Captains of military history, and learned the art of command and maneuver at the elbow of General Winfield Scott during the Mexican War. The aggregate of these experiences had a profound and demonstrable influence on his generalship. It is against this backdrop of education and experience that Lee's decisions during the Gettysburg Campaign must be examined, understood, and judged. — Scott Bowden

I understand when there's no money for the arts in the government, but it should maybe pressure private companies to support more filmmakers. These exhibition and distribution companies are huge, and there might be incentives for them to invest more in Mexican cinema. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Do not set out to make Mexican art, or American, Chinese, or Russian art. Think in terms of universality. — Rufino Tamayo