Happy Birthday Jose Maria Velasco Gomez!
This landscape artist was actually born on July 6, 1840, in Mexico City. Jose Velasco Gomez was considered a "polymath" or a person whose knowledge and expertise span many subject areas. Leonardo da Vinci was also a polymath...In addition to art, he also studied science, mathematics, zoology, botany, etc. at the Academy of San Carlos. After deciding to focus on art, Velasco Gomez was a pupil of famed Italian landscape artist Eugenio Landesio. Velasco became the most well known landscape painter in Mexican history. His paintings educated viewers about the geography of Mexico.
His work falls into three categories: the academic years, French Impressionist influence, and his "personal" period. During each he created important works, but his masterpiece, which was repainted 7 different ways, is El Valle de Mexico (seen below), created during his association with the French Impressionists.
He won several distinctions and awards during his lifetime. It has also been said that Jose Maria Velasco Gomez was the first post-Revolution painter "to be elevated as an exemplar of nationalism". The Jose Maria Velasco Museum, which houses and preserves his work, opened in Toluca in 1992.
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