Creation Date
1825
Height
13
Width
38
Medium
Genre
Description
During the Romantic period, panoramas—particularly those of exotic places—emerged as a popular form of public entertainment (Comment 7-8). Bullock’s View of the City and Valley of Mexico, from Tacubaya is the first panoramic landscape image produced in Mexico, and became the basis for the first public panorama of a Mexican locale to be exhibited (in London) anywhere in the world.
William Bullock went to Mexico for six months in 1822, accompanied by his wife and oldest son (Baigent). Arriving in Veracruz from Jamaica, he journeyed to Xalapa, Pulque, Puebla, and Cholula before finally arriving in Mexico City, where he spent the remainder of his journey. Bullock’s expedition was primarily used to write observations for his 1825 book, Six Months Residence and Travel in Mexico, and to collect artifacts, documents, and illustrations for his 1824 exhibition, "Modern Mexico," shown at the Egyptian Hall in London (Bullock, Six Months' Residence; Bullock, Catalogue). “View of the City and Valley of Mexico, from Tacubaya” was printed for the first time in Six Months Residence and Travels in Mexico (1825), and never circulated in any other context.
Bullock’s original image is the fold-out frontispiece of his Six Months Residence and Travels in Mexico (1825), which necessarily draws an analogy between the panoramic view of Mexico and the wide-ranging journey one takes as they read Bullock’s book. The image was later adapted to a large-scale public panorama by Robert Burford in London, making it one of the first panoramas in the world of a Mexican locale. This panoramic vista of the Valley of Mexico depicts Mexico City in the background, lying low in the landscape and surrounded by short vegetation and plants. A small Spanish church stands in the bottom right, and a variety of Mexican flora—including trees, bushes, and cacti—fill the foreground. A woman at front center appears to be eating out of one of the cacti. In the background, the vista recedes into mountains rising into a lightly clouded sky.
Associated Works
Locations Description
Tacubaya—known today as Tacuba—is now a section of northwest Mexico City, though it originally functioned as an autonomous municipality of Mexico until its incorporation into Mexico City in 1928. It is from Tacubaya that William Bullock drew his View of the City and Valley of Mexico, from Tacubaya in 1822. The drawing is featured as the frontispiece to Six Months Residence and Travels in Mexico, which was converted into a panoramic painting exhibited by Robert Burford at Leciester Square, London, in 1825 (Bullock, Six Months' Residence).
Copyright
Copyright 2009, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Accession Number
G95 B87
Additional Information
Bibliography
Baigent, Elizabeth. “Bullock, William (b. early 1780s, d. 1849).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Web. 2 April 2009.
Bullock, W. Six Months Residence and Travels in Mexico; Containing Remarks on the Present State of New Spain, Its Natural Productions, State of Society, Manufactures, Trade, Agriculture, Antiquities, &c. 2d ed. London, 1825. Print.
Bullock, William. Catalogue of the exhibition, called Modern Mexico : containing a panoramic view of the city, with specimens of the natural history of New Spain ... at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. London London, 1824. Print.
Burford, Robert, J. Burford, and W. Bullock. Description of a View of the City of Mexico, and Surrounding Country, Now Exhibiting in the Panorama, Leicester-Square. London, 1825.
Comment, Bernard. The Panorama. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004. Print.