Eugenio Landesio

Landesio’s career in Mexico was marked by his years at the Academy of San Carlos, where he exercised an influence on later exponents of Mexican landscape painting such as José María Velasco.

In January 1855, at the invitation of the Catalan painter Pelegrín Clavé, who was director of the figure painting section of the Academy, he went to Mexico to give classes in landscape, perspective, and the principles of ornamentation.

Landesio wrote three books on landscape painting that served as textbooks for the students of the Academy of San Carlos: Los cimientos del artista dibujante y pintor.

He wanted to be succeeded by José María Velasco, but Ignacio Manuel Altamirano imposed his own candidate, Salvador Murillo, provoking a public dispute between the painter and the novelist.

Landesio distinguished two large parts or integral sub-totalities of landscape: “localities” and “episodes.” The former include the different kinds of landscape surroundings and environments (skies, foliage, lands, water, buildings), while the latter include the different figurative groups that confer on a given place a sense of scale, differentiating topical features, narrative interest, or historical density (history, popular, military, or family scenes, portraits, animals).