The Paricutín volcano emerged in a cornfield in the western part of the state of Michoacán in February 1943. The most violent activity took place over the first year, as the cone grew to 336 meters in height. The lava flows eventually covered about 25 square kilometers, destroying the town of San Juan Parangaricutiro, until the mountain fell dormant in 1952. And Dr. Atl, painter, author, vulcanologist and polemicist, was there practically from the beginning. Along with views of his beloved Ixtaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl in the Valley of Mexico, Atl created hundreds of paintings and rich tonal drawings of Paricutín. He lived near the volcano for over a year, and unlike most spectators, moved in as close as possible to the crater, even suffering health problems after inhaling poisonous gases. In 1950, he published Como nace y crece un volcán, a careful and extensively illustrated study of the new mountain. A selection of his Paricutín images was displayed at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in 1950. The powerful landscape of Paricutín in the Blaisten collection resembles others, including several donated by the artist to the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Whirling clouds of smoke, soaring fumaroles, diagonal slopes of ash, and the surging forces of burning and steaming lava, are all observed with almost scientific precision. His primary materials, the Atl-colors he created by combining wax, resins, pigments and petroleum to create a thick, matte surface, emulate the chemical processes taking place before us. Although the silhouettes of several charred pine trees to the right provide a sense of scale, Atl’s point of view is so close to the action that the picture becomes almost abstract. The result is a spiritually charged expressionism conceptually closer to the work of Van Gogh than to that of Atl’s great 19th century predecessor, José María Velasco.

Vide James Oles, Arte moderno de México. Colección Andrés Blaisten, Mexico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005.