JOAQUÍN CLAUSELL: BIOGRAPHY, PAINTING, OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

Joaquín Clausell (1866-1935) was a Mexican painter, journalist, political activist and lawyer related to the current of Impressionism. In addition to his artistic work, he stood out for the political and ideological struggle in opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, at the end of the 19th century.

He founded the newspaper El Demócrata in 1893, as a means of intensifying his constant struggle from word of mouth and action against the management of Porfirism, highlighting his revolutionary ideals as a defender of freedom of expression and the independent press.

He is one of the pioneers of the artistic trend of impressionism in Mexico. Photo: Campeche a day.

Biography

Years of rebellion

He was born on June 16, 1866 into a humble family, in San Francisco de Campeche, Mexico, the only son of José Clausell and Marcelina Traconis.

From an early age he dazzled with abilities to communicate his ideas in public, which would lead him in his youth to become a political activist emerging with a defiant and irreverent character.

These qualities led him during his student days at the Campechano Institute to lead constant demonstrations against the policies of the governor of Campeche, Joaquín Baranda, which had their turning point in 1883.

That year he starred in a controversial public dispute with Baranda, a confrontation that cost him expulsion from the institute and the state of Campeche as a result of his blunt speech against the government's management.

Arrival in Mexico City

Thus he arrived in Mexico City, where he worked hard in tasks that were completely remote from his true vocation, jobs that he assumed in order to survive at a time in his life marked by economic problems.

He had very little money, even to get ahead with his studies. Despite the chaos that rigged her day to day, she managed to enter the National School of Engineering for a short time, then enter the School of Jurisprudence where she found the professional values that were in harmony with her academic aspirations.

His little time outside of work and law school was spent reading a large number of books at the National Library, where he found the motivation to go out on the streets again, this time at the head of the university movements against President Porfirio. Díaz, becoming one of the most popular representatives of the opposition.

Personal life

He married Ángela Cervantes, a descendant of Hernán Cortés and the counts of Calimaya, a wealthy family with whom he enjoyed certain privileges.

As a result of his marriage to Cervantes –with whom he had four children-, Clausell moved to the Palacio de los Condes de Santiago de Calimaya, where he arrived after a great experimental tour of Europe in which he found his passion for painting. It was in this palace, which today is the Museum of Mexico City, where he created his artistic studio.

Painting

During his most active period at the political level, when he led the opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, he published in the newspaper El Demócrata an article written by journalist and novelist Heriberto Frías about the Tomóchic rebellion, an indigenous conflict in which the inhabitants of the locality declared themselves in autonomy in response to the centralist project of the president.

This publication brought serious consequences to Clausell, once again falling prisoner by the Porfirian regime. Some time later, when he was released, his era in painting began, which he marked when he left Mexico for the United States and then settled in Paris.

In the French capital, he met figures from the Impressionism movement such as Claude Monet, Émile Zola and Camille Pissarro, among others, who awakened his artistic vein and inspired him to dedicate himself to the visual arts.

From the roof of the Palace of the Counts, Joaquín Clausell gave free rein to his creativity, printing large works of Mexican landscapes characterized by intense colors that highlighted the light with carefree brushstrokes on canvas.

The seasons, sunsets, rivers, forests, stones and especially the sea, served as a muse for him to create more than 400 works, although curiously he was never considered an outstanding artist.

That is why he did not even sign his paintings and even gave them away frequently to his friends and acquaintances, without charging for any of them.

His artistic work was based mainly on the landscapes of Mexico. Photo:

His landscapes, enriched with a large number of colors, highlighted his particular vision of the effects of light on the contours. He was one of the pioneers of Impressionism in Mexico, a trend that boomed after the end of the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship.

The Valley of Mexico, the sprouting springs, the beauties of Xochimilco, the Tlalpan forest and his native Campeche are some of the areas of his country that he immortalized in paintings in such an illustrious way that they came to be recognized by legendary artists such as Diego Rivera and Gerardo Murillo Cornado (“Dr. Atl”).

Other contributions

Before pioneering impressionism in Mexico with his artistic works, Joaquín Clausell starred in a tireless struggle of political activism and journalism against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz.

He led the opposition movement that achieved through incessant actions on the streets and public denunciation, postpone a bill that sought the consolidation and conversion of the debt that Mexico had in London in 1884.

A year later, the president ignored the intentions of his detractors and passed the law. The demonstrations that Clausell led along with other journalists and students who supported his cause, cost them their freedom. They were incarcerated in the Bethlehem jail in 1885.

Time passed and now free he found a bridge to spread and express his ideals and intensify his political struggle: journalism. Around 1892, when he was just obtaining his law degree, he led a campaign to oppose Díaz's second reelection to the presidency and made his debut as a columnist in the newspaper El monitor republicano.

His lines were devoted to emphatically denouncing the problems that from his point of view would imply a new period of Porfirian government, meaning a delay in achieving democracy. This categorized him as a public enemy of the current Mexican government.

Among his other journalistic collaborations, he worked as an editor and political cartoonist at El Universal and as an author in El Hijo de Ahuizote, works that eventually led him to create his own media outlet.

This is how he founded the newspaper El Demócrata in 1893, which became a bastion of the political struggle against the regime through independent journalism until it was closed by the dictatorship.

Death

Joaquín Clausell tragically died on November 28, 1935 in an accident when, during his stay in the Zempoala lagoons, a landslide occurred that cost him his life. Some of his works - most of them untitled - can be seen in the National Museum of Art (MUNAL) in Mexico City.

References

1. Bernal Mora, Héctor, The explanation of Impressionism Painting. Nomads. Critical Journal of Social and Juridical Sciences, 2012.
2. Pleasure and order, Orsay at the Munal. munal.mx.
3. Levi, Giovanni, “On microhistory”, in Peter Burke et al., Ways of making history, Alianza, Madrid, 1991.
4. Navarrete, Silvia, Joaquín Clausell, 1866-1935, Mexico, MOP, 1988.
5. Cosío Villegas, Daniel, The Porfiriato. The inner political life, t. X. Modern History of Mexico, Mexico, Hermes, 1972.
6. Gantús, Fausta & Gutiérrez, Florence. (2009). Liberalism and antiporfirism. The journalistic incursions of Joaquín Clausell. Relations: Studies of history and society, ISSN 0185-3929, Vol. 30, Nº. 118, 2009.