Mexican culture reflects the complexity of the country’s history through the blending of indigenous cultures and the culture of Spain, imparted during Spain’s 300-year colonization of Mexico. Exogenous cultural elements, mainly from the United States, have also been incorporated into Mexican culture.
Art
Mexico is known for its folk art traditions, mostly derived from the indigenous and Spanish crafts. Pre-Columbian art thrived over a wide timescale, from 1800 BC to AD 1500. Certain artistic characteristics were repeated throughout the region, namely a preference for angular, linear patterns, and three-dimensional ceramics. Notable handicrafts include clay pottery from the valley of Oaxaca and the village of Tonala.
Colorfully embroidered cotton garments, cotton or wool shawls and outer garments, and colorful baskets and rugs are seen everywhere. Mexico is also known for its pre-Columbian architecture, especially for public, ceremonial and urban monumental buildings and structures.
Between the Spanish conquest and the early 20th century, Mexican fine arts were largely in imitation of European traditions. After the Mexican Revolution, a new generation of Mexican artists led a vibrant national movement that incorporated political, historic, and folk themes in their work.
The painters Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros became world famous for their grand murals, often displaying clear social messages. Rufino Tamayo and Frida Kahlo produced more personal works with abstract elements. Mexican art photography is largely fostered by the work of Manuel Álvarez Bravo. The city of Taxco, Guerrero, which is one of the oldest mining sites in the Americas, is world-renowned for its silver work.
Architecture
With twenty-nine sites, Mexico has more sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list than any other country in the Americas, most of which pertain to the country’s architectural history. Mesoamerican architecture in Mexico is best known for its public, ceremonial and urban monumental buildings and structures, several of which are the largest monuments in the world. Mesoamerican architecture is divided into three eras, Pre-Classic, Classic, and Post-Classic.
The Spanish Colonial Style dominated in early colonial Mexico. During the late 17th century to 1750, one of Mexico’s most popular architectural styles was Mexican Churrigueresque, which combined Amerindian and Moorish decorative influences.
The Academy of San Carlos, founded in 1788, was the first major art academy in the Americas. The academy promoted Neoclassicism, focusing on Greek and Roman art and architecture.
From 1864 to 1867, during the Second Mexican Empire, Maximilian I installed emperor of Mexico. This intervention, financed largely by France, was brief, but it began a period of French influence in architecture and culture which lasted well into the 20th century.
After the Mexican Revolution in 1917, idealization of the indigenous and the traditional symbolized attempts to reach into the past and retrieve what had been lost in the race toward modernization.
Functionalism, expressionism, and other schools left their imprint on a large number of works in which Mexican stylistic elements have been combined with European and North American techniques. Most notably the work of Pritzker Prize winner Luis Barragán.
Enrique Norten, the founder of TEN Arquitectors, has been awarded several honors for his work in modern architecture. His work express a modernity that reinforces the government’s desire to present a new image of Mexico as an industrialized country with a global presence.
Other notable and emerging contemporary architects include Mario Schjetnan, Michel Rojkind, Tatiana Bilbao, Isaac Broid Zajman and Bernardo Gómez-Pimienta, Luis Vicente Flores, Alberto Kalach, Daniel Alvarez, and José Antonio Aldrete-Haas.
Literature
The literature of Mexico has its antecedents in the literatures of the indigenous settlements of Mesoamerica. The most well known prehispanic poet is Netzahualcoyotl.
Modern Mexican literature was influenced by the concepts of the Spanish colonialization of Mesoamerica. Outstanding colonial writers and poets include Juan Ruiz de Alarcón and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
Other writers include Alfonso Reyes, José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, Maruxa Vilalta, Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz (Nobel Laureate), Renato Leduc, Jaime Labastida, Mariano Azuela (“Los de abajo”) and Juan Rulfo (“Pedro Páramo”). Bruno Traven, from German origin, assimilated into the Mexican culture and wrote “Canasta de cuentos mexicanos” and “El tesoro de la Sierra Madre.”
Cinema
The history of Mexican cinema dates to the beginning of the 20th century, when several enthusiasts of the new medium documented historical events — most particularly the Mexican Revolution. The Golden Age of Mexican cinema is the name given to the period between 1935 and 1959 where the quality and economic success of the cinema of Mexico reached its peak.
Some of the present-day film makers include, Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores perros, Babel), Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), Carlos Reygadas (Stellet Licht), screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and cinematographers Guillermo Navarro and Emmanuel Lubezki.
Music
The foundation of Mexican music comes from its indigenous sounds and heritage. The original inhabitants of the land, used drums, flutes, maracas, sea shells and voices to make music and dances. This ancient music is still played in some parts of Mexico. However, much of the traditional contemporary music of Mexico was written during and after the Spanish colonial period, using many European instruments. Some instruments whose predecessors were brought from Europe, such as the vihuela used in Mariachi music, are now strictly Mexican.
Mexican society enjoys a vast array of music genres, showing the diversity of Mexican culture. Traditional music includes Mariachi, Banda, Norteño, Ranchera and Corridos. Mexicans also listen to contemporary music such as pop and Mexican rock. Mexico has the largest media industry in Latin America, producing Mexican artists who are famous in Central and South America and parts of Europe.
Folk songs called corridos have been popular in the country since the 16th century. It may tell the story about the Mexican Revolution, pride, Mestizo, romance, poverty, politics or crime.
Today, musical groups known as Mariachis perform along streets, festivals and restaurants. A Mariachi group includes singers, guitar, trumpets, violin and marimba players. The most prominent Mariachi group is Vargas de Tecalitlán, which was originally formed in 1897.
Other styles of traditional regional music in México: Son Jarocho (Veracruz, with guitars and harp), Huapango or Son Huasteco (Huasteca, northeastern regions, violin and two guitars known as quinta huapanguera and jarana), Tambora (Sinaloa, mainly brass instruments) Duranguense, Jarana (most of the Yucatán peninsula) and Norteña (North style, redoba and accordion).
Folk dances are a feature of Mexican culture. Significant in dance tradition is the “Jarabe Tapatío”, known as “Mexican hat dance”. Traditional dancers perform a sequence of hopping steps, heel and toe tapping movements.
Among the most known “classical” composers: Manuel M. Ponce (“Estrellita”), Revueltas, Jordá (Elodia), Ricardo Castro, Juventino Rosas (“Sobre las olas”), Carrillo (Sonido 13), Ibarra, Pablo Moncayo (Huapango) and Carlos Chávez.
Popular composers includes: Agustín Lara, Consuelo Velázquez (“Bésame mucho”), “Guty” Cárdenas, José Alfredo Jiménez, Armando Manzanero, Luis Arcaraz, Álvaro Carrillo, Joaquín Pardavé and Alfonso Ortiz Tirado.
Traditional Mexican music has influenced the evolution of the Mexican pop and Mexican rock genre. Some well-known Mexican pop singers are Luis Miguel and Alejandro Fernández. Latin rock musicians such as Carlos Santana, Café Tacuba and Caifanes have incorporated Mexican folk tunes into their music. Traditional Mexican music is still alive in the voices of artists such as Eugenia León and Lila Downs.
Sports
The traditional national sport of Mexico is Charreria, which consists of a series of equestrian events. The national horse of Mexico, used in Charreria, is the Azteca. Bullfighting, a tradition brought from Spain, is also popular. Mexico has the largest venue for bullfighting in the world — The Plaza de toros in Mexico City which seats 48,000 people.
Football (soccer) is the most popular Sport in Mexico. Most states have their own representative football teams. Among the country’s significant teams include Chivas de Guadalajara, Club América, Cruz Azul and Pumas de la UNAM.
Association football has been played professionally in the country Mexico since the early 1900s. The first Mexican club, C.F. Pachuca, is still well in existence. Notable players include Hugo Sánchez, Claudio Suárez, Luis Hernández, Francisco Palencia, Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Memo Ochoa, Jared Borgetti, Rafael Márquez, Pável Pardo, Ramón Ramírez, Jorge Campos, Javier Hernandez, and Oswaldo Sánchez.
American football (gridiron) has been played in Mexico since the early 1920s, and is a strong minority sport at Mexican colleges and universities, mainly in Mexico City and Monterrey.
Mexico is also known for its boxing tradition, having produced world champions such as Julio César Chávez, Salvador Sánchez, José Nápoles, Ricardo Lopez, Rubén Olivares, Carlos Zarate, Érik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, Sugar Ramos and Juan Manuel Márquez.
Although there is some dispute about exactly when and where baseball started in Mexico, baseball has a long and colorful history in Mexico with historians placing its origin there as early as the 1840s. Today, baseball flourishes in Mexico, where it is played professionally with a 16-team Summer League, and an 8-team Winter League.
Other popular recreational activities include lucha libre (Mexican professional wrestling), fishing, scuba diving, Jai alai, and basketball.
The country hosted the summer Olympic Games in 1968 and the FIFA World Cup in 1970 and 1986 and was the first country to host the FIFA World cup twice.