This Classical painter and muralist was born in Teziutlan, on (tomorrow) May 16, 1822. He has the longest name of any artist I've written about thus far: Juan Nepomuceno Maria Bernabe del Corazon de Jesus Cordero de Hoyos! He initially studied at San Carlos Academy before traveling to Rome to attend Accademia di San Luca. There he was influenced by the Nazarene movement**and returned to Mexico to show his finished canvases.
Cordero feuded with his former teacher Pelegrà Clave over the directorship of the Academy but when Clave was retained he resorted to traveling Mexico painting portraits. Later Cordero began painting murals and in 1874 he was hired to paint a mural at the National Prepratory School (which would later become the hub of the muralist movement). The mural is said to be the first secular themed philosophical mural: The Triumph of Science and Industry Over Ignorance and Sloth. It was an attempt to encourage students to bring the scientific methodology of Benjamin Franklin to Mexico. Later the mural met resistance from (president) Porfirio Diaz who saw it as a threat to his oligarchy and was subsequently destroyed. Cordero was ostracized and for the rest of his life; although he continued to paint he was not able to exhibit his work. Today we are left with a copy of the controversial mural by Juan de Mata Pacheco, which I am including today.
**Nazarene Movement- Group of German Romanticists who desired to bring back honesty and spirituality in Christian art.
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