Studio: international art (60.1914)

The Colour Lure of Mexico

women. In the village of San Angel itself, there was more
than one could do. There, too, was a small but attractive
market. It was in San Angel that we saw so often the
breadman’s donkey, pausing with his cowhide panniers
Detore the green door of the pulque shop, while the bread-
man himself disported therein. Around the corner from the
pulque shop, cactus vines fell jaggedly over a rose-coloured
wall in which was set a shell-shaped fountain, and graceful
Indians in flowered gowns that match so well their houses
filled pottery just as graceful with water. These fountain
episodes have all the allurement of the overture of the
“ Cavalleria Rusticana.”

Romance plays such a part in the life of Mexico. Never
in any country have I seen such leisure on the part of man
for the gentle art of wooing. Picturesque they are too,
these Mexican lovers, with their tight silver-trimmed trousers,
the great rolling hat entrancing with its embroideries of gold

“over the garden wall”

FROM A WOOD-PRINT IN
COLOUR BY HELEN HYDE

religious-looking seats of the most delightful colour,
soft creams and ochres, pinks and reddy purples.
And there are children to paint if you have the
philosophy to accept a month-old baby substitute
for a two-year-old without a moment’s warning.
Or a grandmother may come to take the place of a
pretty young mother because the younger one,
forsooth, was “ busy making tortillas.”

If you have patience, and a sense of humour and
much philosophy, I say you can paint in Mexico.
But we of the painter-craft well know that without
any of those three the way is rough for a painter in
any part of the world.

Without the stone walls of San Angel Inn grew
seas of periwinkle, climbing pink roses threw
abroad their branches, a mise-en-scene made to order
for Madonnas, groups of children, girls and young
3°

“A MEXICAN REBECCA.” FROM A WOOD-PRINT
IN COLOUR BY HELEN HYDE