Local customs and habits were of great interest in the 19th century, above all in Latin America, as the new nations had to forge their emerging identities, and painting was one way to represent the typical scenes from the provinces, popular festivals and the neighborhood lives in the cities that described the particular cultures.

The “costumbrismo” works of Emilia Ortiz can be divided into two sections: the first refers to a romanticization, characterized by the selection of scenes, the refinement of expressions and the elegance of composition.  The second more clearly avoids this showing the unadorned Mexican characters in the directness of everyday reality, the misery, despair, idle wanderings.

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Abstract from Emilia Ortiz, Pintora del siglo XX. Lourdes Pacheco Ladrón de Guevara, Miguel González Lomelí and Juan Ávila Lamas. Gobierno del Estado de Nayarit/ CONACULTA. 2011

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