Juego de la oca (ca.1920)
Background
Juego De La Oca was created between 1900-1910 by Jose Guadalupe Posada in Mexico. Given that the text and images are in black and white and not raised, this artifact was probably made using relief printing given its time of creation. Created for entertainment purposes and to be used as a recreational device for the user, this artifact is a board game. The game did not originate in Mexico, but was adapted to include Mexican culture in its design.
About the Game
The majority of text provided are instructions, making it a nonfiction guide. These instructions inform the player of the game’s rules, objectives, and obstacles. Outside of instructions, the title of the game is listed in the bottom right corner of the artifact. The publisher’s name is written on a banner to the right of the instructions. There are also numbers one through sixty-three written in frames around the board. · The artifact contains roughly sixty-seven images. These images depict people, animals, and structures. The pictures within the game depict popular Mexican figures during this time in history. Each image and space correlates to a different outcome within the game.
Video - Instructions
- Juego De La OcaIn this video, instructions for a modern version of Juego De La Oca are provided (English subtitles available).
Image courtesy of Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections
Abstract
Broadside, 12.2 x 15.8 inches. Illustrated with people, birds, animals, and objects of Mexican culture during the 19th century. Created by Jose Guadalupe Posada. Published by Imprenta De A Vanegas Arroyo, Sta Teresa No 1. (Mexico City)
Purpose
The artifact's targeted audience is children given the high use of imagery and simple instructions. Even though it is simple and intended for children, people of all ages have enjoyed the game over the years. The creator appreciates people from all walks of life as all the images of people it contains are different in their appearance or depicted profession. Being that it seems very affordable by the way it was printed, it seems as if it was created for people who had a simple lifestyle and were interested in simple entertainment. The time period of the artifact can be seen through some of the outdated practices being performed by some of the images containing people.(I.E. man carrying water pails over his back using a stick).
Further Reading
Posada's Broadsheets: Mexican Popular Imagery, 1890-1910 by ISBN: 0826319041Publication Date: 1998-08-01José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913), a Mexican graphic artist, lived during one of Mexico's most chaotic times. The graphic illustrations he produced for the "broadsheets," the tabloids of the day, distributed on the streets of Mexico City became icons of Revolutionary Mexico, portraying murder, suicides, robberies, and disasters endured by the citizens, especially the Mestizo, of Mexico City. "In this well-written and handsomely illustrated book, art historian Patrick Frank examines the European (i.e. French and Spanish) and Mexican influences on Posada's art as well as the many stories that served as the sources for his illustrations."--The Historian "Posada's broadsheets detail many stories that were front-page news at the time and include a variety of colorful characters, among them Jesus Negrete, a Mexican Robin Hood-type career criminal, as well as a man who killed his parents and ate his baby son. . . . Frank shows that Posada took the point of view of the working class, not from the defenders of the regime or of its organized opposition."--Umbrella
Intersected Identities: Strategies of Visualisation in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Mexican Culture by ISBN: 9781845452919Publication Date: 2007-05-01There has always been an important visual element to the construction and questioning of national identity in post-Independence Mexico, though one that has not always been given its due, outside of the celebrated and much-studied muralists. Ranging from the early nineteenth century to the present - from the vogue for the picturesque, illustrated periodicals and the influential writings of Altamirano to a wealth of twentieth-century graphic artists, filmmakers and photographers - this book re-examines the complex variety of ways in which that visual element has operated. In particular, it looks at the ways in which discourses concerning ethnicity and cultural hybridity have been echoed and transformed in Mexican visual culture, resulting in fields of visual discourse which are eclectic and increasingly self-reflexive.
Seen and Heard in Mexico: Children and Revolutionary Cultural Nationalistm by ISBN: 9780803264861Publication Date: 2015-01-01During the first two decades following the Mexican Revolution, children in the country gained unprecedented consideration as viable cultural critics, social actors, and subjects of reform. Not only did they become central to the reform agenda of the revolutionary nationalist government; they were also the beneficiaries of the largest percentage of the national budget. While most historical accounts of postrevolutionary Mexico omit discussion of how children themselves experienced and perceived the sudden onslaught of resources and attention, Elena Jackson Albarrán, innbsp;Seen and Heard in Mexico, places children’s voices at the center of her analysis. Albarrán draws on archived records of children’s experiences in the form of letters, stories, scripts, drawings, interviews, presentations, and homework assignments to explore how Mexican childhood, despite the hopeful visions of revolutionary ideologues, was not a uniform experience set against the monolithic backdrop of cultural nationalism, but rather was varied and uneven. Moving children from the aesthetic to the political realm, Albarrán situates them in their rightful place at the center of Mexico’s revolutionary narrative by examining the avenues through which children contributed to ideas about citizenship and nation. nbsp;
