Porfiriana Photography: Intentionality and the look in the magazine El Mundo Ilustrado

Abstract

During the Porfiriato the photographic image acquired great popularity and importance in society, it reflected the aspirations of the members of the ruling class formed by large landowners, large industrialists, merchants and bankers who sought to maintain their wealth and maintain their political and ideological control, by financing most publications. Although freedom of expression and printing had been guaranteed in the Constitution of 1857, the Gag Act of 1882 punished subversive and immoral journalists who intended to disrupt public order, incite disobedience of laws or damage moral and moral canons social behavior.

The Porfirista press legitimized the order and progress that sustained the government through a significant amount of graphic content, illustrations and photographs that showed progress and social stability. In the pages of the illustrated magazines, among which we can mention the illustrated world (1894 - 1914), the Mexican elite was reflected in written reports and in photographic images as faithful copies of reality, a photograph that as a mirror gave exact account of conservatism and social catholicism.

Rafel Reyes Spíndola, owner, director and editor of the Dominican weekly newspaper El mundo illustrated, 2 ... bought large print presses and began using both German linotypes and the halftone technique. (De la Torre, 1998, p. 348)