As a nation fights to reclaim its independence, what is the artist's role in the drama? In this unparalleled study, an art historian spotlights contemporary paintings of Mexico from the years 1867-1881, a critical period for Mexican culture and politics.

The years bracket a series of seven biennial exhibitions held at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City and also encompass the consolidation of the liberal state, from the execution of Emperor Maximilian to the complete entrenchment of the liberal dictatorship of President Porfirio Diaz. The realization of a sovereign republic was on the horizon, and there was an intense and often very public demand for the creation of a national culture.

The call for national art, specifically national history painting, thrust upon Mexican artists the task of constructing a pictorial narrative as part of the new nation's definition of itself.

Embedding visual arts within a matrix of literature and of social, political, and economic conditions of the period, this book is an important contribution to the study of Latin American arts, humanities, and social sciences. Moreover, it offers general readers another perspective on Mexico's ongoing "image wars," which took root in the Spanish conquest and continue through today in the epoch of NAFTA and the Chiapas rebellion.