# Estridentismo (Stridentist) Graphics

> Mexico's first avant-garde (1921-27), launched when Manuel Maples Arce pasted his manifesto Actual No. 1 on Mexico City walls. Irradiador (1923) boxed heavy block capitals between thick black rules beside a giant issue numeral in one bright ink; woodcuts and drawings by Jean Charlot, Ramón Alva de la Canal and Leopoldo Méndez show skyscrapers seen steeply from below, radio masts and faceted machines beside Mexican workers. In Xalapa, pictured as Estridentópolis, a city of radio, Horizonte (1926-27) set block mastheads over full-colour covers of torch-bearers, agaves and tiled roofs.

- Period: 1921–1927
- Where: Latin America & Caribbean
- Origin: Mexico City, where Manuel Maples Arce's broadside manifesto Actual No. 1 went up on the walls one night in December 1921, Irradiador was published (September to November 1923) and the group showed at the Café de Nadie (April 1924); Puebla, where the second manifesto appeared (1923); and Xalapa, Veracruz, where the group moved in 1925 with the support of Governor Heriberto Jara and printed Horizonte (April 1926 to May 1927) at the state government print shop, until Jara's fall in 1927 broke it up
- Branch: Avant-garde
- Also known as: Stridentism, Estridentismo, Movimiento Estridentista
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/estridentismo-graphics/

## How it works

- Make the radio city the subject: cut or draw skyscrapers seen steeply from below, lattice radio masts, broadcast rays and wheels in black-and-white relief or hard pen line, and set them beside Mexican workers rather than in place of them; in the Xalapa years, turn the same angular hand to barefoot torch-bearers, a woman before an agave with a bowl of fruit, and tiled rooftops.
- Print one bright ink per issue on cheap cream paper: a single green, orange-red or blue for the masthead and a giant issue numeral, black for everything else, and red and black for a woodcut book cover; on the later Xalapa magazine covers, run one full-colour picture, flat-cut or painted, in red, yellow, green, blue and black under a block title in a single colour.
- Box the cover with thick black rules and set its texts in heavy condensed capitals, then break the masthead itself: split the title into stacked syllables and blow one part up (IRRA / DIAD / OR), and turn the numeral or the date on its side.
- Cut the lettering into the block with the picture: shadowed capitals under a skyline, a word stacked letter by letter down a vertical sign, the author's name in fat hand-cut type.
- Tilt and radiate: hang the image on steep diagonals, let hand-lettered words spray out from a centre and run sideways or upside down, and point the reader on with arrows.
- Take the page to the street: a broadside manifesto pasted on walls and corners, signed with a long directory of names, and woodcuts plastered on the café wall.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Diagonal axis](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/diagonal-axis/) (defining)
- [Dynamic asymmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dynamic-asymmetry/) (characteristic)
- [Radial & concentric](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/radial-and-concentric/) (characteristic)
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Extreme scale contrast](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/extreme-scale-contrast/) (defining)
- [Illusion of depth](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/illusion-of-depth/) (characteristic)
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (characteristic)
- [Visual tension](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/visual-tension/) (characteristic)

### Typography
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (defining)
- [Hand-lettering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-lettering/) (defining)
- [Condensed display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/condensed-display/) (characteristic)
- [Grotesque & neo-grotesque](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/grotesque-and-neo-grotesque/) (characteristic)
- [Type as image](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/type-as-image/) (characteristic)
- [Rotated & vertical setting](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rotated-and-vertical-setting/) (characteristic)
- [Experimental & distorted](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/experimental-and-distorted/) (occasional)
- [Ornamented display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ornamented-display/) (occasional)
- [Eclectic mixing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/eclectic-mixing/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Limited spot colours](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/) (defining)
- [Monochrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/monochrome/) (characteristic)
- [Light ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/light-ground/) (characteristic)
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (characteristic)
- [Earth & mineral](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/earth-and-mineral/) (occasional)
- [Full polychrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-polychrome/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Angular & zigzag](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/angular-and-zigzag/) (defining)
- [Rectilinear](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rectilinear/) (characteristic)
- [Stylised figuration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/stylised-figuration/) (characteristic)
- [Geometric primitives](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/geometric-primitives/) (occasional)
- [Non-representational](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/non-representational/) (occasional)

### Surface & texture
- [Carved line](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/carved-line/) (defining)
- [Paper & letterpress bite](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/paper-and-letterpress-bite/) (characteristic)
- [Halftone & Ben-Day dots](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/halftone-and-ben-day-dots/) (characteristic)
- [Hard offset shadow](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hard-offset-shadow/) (occasional)

### Ornament
- [Rules & bars](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rules-and-bars/) (characteristic)
- [Restrained accents](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/restrained-accents/) (characteristic)

### Imagery
- [Line illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/line-illustration/) (defining)
- [Painterly illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/painterly-illustration/) (characteristic)
- [Straight photography](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/straight-photography/) (occasional)
- [Typography only](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/typography-only/) (occasional)

### Medium & production
- [Woodblock & linocut](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/woodblock-and-linocut/) (defining)
- [Letterpress](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/letterpress/) (characteristic)
- [Pen, brush & ink](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/pen-brush-and-ink/) (occasional)

### Tone & intent
- [Technological & futurist](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/technological-and-futurist/) (defining)
- [Rebellious & subversive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rebellious-and-subversive/) (defining)
- [Utopian & idealistic](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/utopian-and-idealistic/) (characteristic)
- [Agitational & persuasive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/agitational-and-persuasive/) (characteristic)

Avoids: Floral & vegetal, Abundant decoration, Whiplash line, Pastel, Script, Nostalgic & retro, Gloss & highlights

Palette: #e8d6b6, #161412, #2f8a55, #e0552b, #2f6f9c, #be2d33

Typefaces: Heavy condensed block capitals (Irradiador masthead and cover texts between thick black rules, with giant block-built issue numerals, 1923), Hand-cut woodcut capitals (the shadowed VRBE and the MAPLES ARCE letters built from circles and triangles on Jean Charlot's Urbe cover, 1924; ESTRIDENTISMO stacked down a sign in Alva de la Canal's Edificio estridentista), Radiating hand-lettered capitals (Diego Rivera's calligram across pp. 2-3 of Irradiador no. 1, 1923, sideways and upside down, with arrows), Slotted geometric block capitals (Horizonte mastheads and month-and-price lines, Xalapa, 1926-27: condensed blocks with narrow slot counters, stencil-bridged on the October 1926 cover), Typewriter-style letterpress (Gonzalo Deza Méndez's typographic poem La marimba en el patio, Irradiador no. 2, 1923)

Known for: Manuel Maples Arce, Actual No. 1, 'Hoja de vanguardia. Comprimido estridentista' (Mexico City, December 1921): a broadside manifesto posted on a city wall one night in December 1921, with fourteen points, a photograph of the author and a directory of names (Germán List Arzubide remembered three hundred) (SISMO/INHA; es.wikipedia); Irradiador no. 1 (September 1923), edited by Maples Arce and Fermín Revueltas: the masthead in green block capitals between thick black rules, a giant green 'Nº 1' turned on its side beside a halftone of Revueltas's painting El restoran (so captioned); inside, the title broken into IRRA / DIAD / OR around a faceted cut emblem of rays and zigzags; Diego Rivera's hand-lettered calligram across pages 2-3, with arrows and IRRADIADOR ESTRIDENCIAL on the first page and, on the second, words radiating sideways and upside down from a central DR that supplies their first letters (RASTACUEROS, RONCADORES, DESPIERTENSE, DESASNAREMOS); and Jean Charlot's woodcuts of indigenous workers (Monoskop scans); Irradiador no. 3 (November 1923): the same masthead in blue with a huge blue block-built '3' beside Edward Weston's photograph of smokestacks (captioned STEEL / WESTON), 'NOV.' and '1923' set vertically on the inside cover (no. 2 sets 'OCT.' and '1923' the same way), and Leopoldo Méndez's faceted drawing La costurera inside (Monoskop scans); The El Buen Tono cigarette advertisements on Irradiador's back covers (1923): a black-and-white design of faceted planes, wheels and a bird with BUEN TONO broken across the shapes between two bars of the issue's colour (nos. 1 and 2), and a pen drawing of a city of radio masts, rays, stars and skyscrapers for 'RADIO, los cigarros de la época' lettered in blue block display capitals (no. 3) (Monoskop scans); Gonzalo Deza Méndez, the typographic poem 'La marimba en el patio' (Irradiador no. 2, October 1923), across a two-page spread: a drawn ring, repeated lines and words falling letter by letter down the page in steps, and MARIMBA growing in size letter by letter, in typewriter-like letterpress, signed 'México 1923'; the issue is printed in orange-red, and its cover sets the giant '2' beside a halftone captioned LOS MINEROS ... RIVERA (Monoskop scans); Jean Charlot, woodcut cover for Maples Arce's Urbe: super-poema bolchevique en 5 cantos (Mexico City: Andrés Botas, 1924, edition of 500): red skyscraper blocks gridded with black windows over huge shadowed VRBE letters, with MAPLES ARCE and MEXICO 1924 in fat hand-cut capitals (Jean Charlot Collection, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library, M57); Charlot also cut the cover for List Arzubide's Esquina (Ediciones del Movimiento Estridentista, 1923); Ramón Alva de la Canal, Edificio estridentista, a woodcut of a skyscraper seen steeply from below with ESTRIDENTISMO stacked down a vertical sign (Monoskop dates it 1921, which is doubtful: en.wikipedia says he learned woodcut from Charlot in 1922), and his Estación de radio de Estridentópolis (c. 1925), a tonal drawing of an angular white building under lattice radio masts, the radio station List Arzubide credits to him in El movimiento estridentista (Monoskop); Horizonte (Xalapa, April 1926 to May 1927), ten issues of 8,000 to 10,000 copies directed by List Arzubide and printed at the Talleres Gráficos del Gobierno del Estado, with seven covers by Alva de la Canal and three by Méndez, each with the title, one large image and the month, year and price; the four covers viewed set the title in block letters in one colour over a full-colour picture: September 1926 (RAC, a barefoot torch-bearer in white among dark mountains and smoke, under blue lettering), October 1926 (RAC, an indigenous woman, eyes closed, before an agave with a bowl of fruit, under a red stencil-bridged title), the issue PGDA dates July 1926 (LM, an angular print of a white house among hatched tiled roofs and trees in green, yellow and blue) and March 1927 (uncredited, two figures with torches, a hammer and a sickle over a fallen burning man, in red, yellow and black) (es.wikipedia; People's Graphic Design Archive, from the Swann Galleries catalogue and, for July, The Guardian)

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Grew out of: [Italian Futurism](https://stylogeny.com/styles/futurism.md) (1909–1944)
- Influenced by: [Cubist Pictorial Space](https://stylogeny.com/styles/cubism.md) (1907–1925)
- Influenced by: [Dada](https://stylogeny.com/styles/dada.md) (1916–1924)
- Alike in its design choices: [Vorticism & BLAST Typography](https://stylogeny.com/styles/vorticism.md) (1914–1920), 72% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Expressionist Woodcut Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/expressionist-graphics.md) (1905–1925), 70% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Mavo](https://stylogeny.com/styles/mavo.md) (1923–1925), 70% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/brazilian-modernismo-graphics.md) (1922–1929), 66% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Russian Constructivism](https://stylogeny.com/styles/constructivism.md) (1917–1934), 64% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Taller de Gráfica Popular](https://stylogeny.com/styles/taller-grafica-popular.md) (1937–1977), 59% alike

## Sources

- Monoskop, 'Irradiador', https://monoskop.org/Irradiador, and its scans of Irradiador nos. 1-3 (September, October, November 1923), every page viewed: edited by Fermín Revueltas, three issues; directed by Manuel Maples Arce and Fermín Revueltas (cover); masthead and giant issue numeral in green (no. 1), orange-red (no. 2) and blue (no. 3) between thick black rules on cheap paper, tan in the scans; halftone of Revueltas's painting captioned 'El restoran' (no. 1 cover) and a halftone captioned 'LOS MINEROS ... RIVERA' (no. 2 cover); title split IRRA / DIAD / OR around a cut emblem (inside covers); 'OCT.' and 'NOV.' with '1923' set vertically (nos. 2 and 3); Diego Rivera's calligram in no. 1 ('Its first issue contains a calligram by none other than the muralist Diego Rivera'), across pp. 2-3, the radiating words taking their first letters from a central DR; woodcuts captioned 'Grabado en madera de Jean Charlot'; 'La costurera. Dibujo de Leopoldo Méndez' (no. 3); Weston's photograph captioned STEEL / WESTON (no. 3 cover); the typographic poem 'La marimba en el patio' (no. 2, pp. 4-5), signed 'Gonzalo DEZA MENDEZ' and 'México 1923'; El Buen Tono advertisements on the back covers; the magazine's aesthetic combining 'Charlot's woodcuts of indigenous workers' with modern technology, 'The city all polarized crackling in the radiotelephonic antennas' ('Inaugural Irradiation')
- Monoskop, 'Estridentismo', https://monoskop.org/Estridentismo (group active 1921-1927; 'They followed Futurism in a complete rejection of academicism'; the manifesto in the first issue of Actual 'included a directory of avant-garde artists and writers' and 'borrowed from Marinetti's Futurist manifestos and Spanish Ultraist ideas'; periodicals Ser (1922), Irradiador (1923), Semáforo (1924) and Horizonte (1926-27); exhibitions at the Café de Nadie; images of Ramón Alva de la Canal's Edificio estridentista, captioned 1921, and Estación de radio de Estridentópolis, c. 1925)
- Germán List Arzubide, El movimiento estridentista (Xalapa: Horizonte, 1926), repr. in Luis Mario Schneider (ed.), El estridentismo: México, 1921-1927 (México: UNAM, 1985), pp. 261-296, PDF at Monoskop, read in the text layer: 'Una mañana aparecieron en las esquinas los manifiestos (Actual número 1)' with 'una lista de trescientos nombres de rebeldes'; 'las torres de radio de Estridentópolis'; 'la Estación de Radio de Estridentópolis, obra de Ramón Alva de la Canal'; landscapes 'que decoraron de amplitud Ramón Alva de la Canal y Leopoldo Méndez'; the Café de Nadie exhibition of Alva de la Canal, Méndez, Charlot, Revueltas and others
- SISMO (INHA), record for Actual (Mexico, 1921-1922), https://sismo.inha.fr/s/en/item/7875 ('La première livraison est placardée sur un mur de la ville de Mexico, une nuit de décembre 1921')
- Jean Charlot Foundation, 'Urbe (cover), 1924', https://jeancharlot.org/illustrations/urbe (woodcut; Manuel Maples Arce, Urbe: Super-poema bolchevique en 5 cantos, printed by Andrés Botas in an edition of 500; Jean Charlot Collection, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library, M57; cover image viewed)
- Jean Charlot, interview with John Pierre Charlot, 12 June 1971 (Twenty-Fifth Interview), https://vault.jeancharlot.org/interviews/JohnCharlot/interview25.html (covers for List Arzubide's Esquina and Maples Arce's Urbe; the poets 'would plaster them on the walls of the café where they got together, Café de Nadie')
- Wikipedia, 'Estridentismo' (es), https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estridentismo (Actual No. 1, December 1921, 'Hoja de vanguardia. Comprimido estridentista', fourteen points and a photograph of the author; Esquina, first book of Ediciones del Movimiento Estridentista, 'Portada: Jean Charlot'; Café de Nadie exhibition; move to Xalapa in 1925 under Governor Heriberto Jara; dispersal after Jara's fall in 1927) and 'Stridentism' (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estridentismo (chronology 1921-1927; shares characteristics with Cubism, Dadaism, Futurism and Ultraism)
- Wikipedia, 'Horizonte (revista estridentista)' (es), https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizonte_(revista_estridentista) (April 1926 to May 1927, ten issues of 8,000-10,000 copies, directed by List Arzubide, printed at the Talleres Gráficos del Gobierno del Estado; design and illustration by Alva de la Canal, seven covers, and Méndez, three; covers with the title, a large image and month, year and price; Ediciones de Horizonte books including El movimiento estridentista and El café de nadie, 1926, and Poemas interdictos, 1927)
- Wikipedia, 'Ramón Alva de la Canal', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Alva_de_la_Canal (Stridentist member; states without a citation that he learned woodcut from Jean Charlot in 1922 and that his first woodcut was the cover of List Arzubide's Plebe, 1925, a credit not confirmed elsewhere and so not used here) and 'Leopoldo Méndez', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopoldo_M%C3%A9ndez (engravings for Irradiador and Horizonte; in Xalapa 1925-27; co-founded the Taller de Gráfica Popular in 1937)
- Wikimedia Commons, 'El café de nadie.jpg', https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_caf%C3%A9_de_nadie.jpg (Ramón Alva de la Canal, El café de nadie, 1930, oil and collage on canvas, Museo Nacional de Arte, gift of the Maples Arce Vermeersch family, 1992)
- People's Graphic Design Archive, four Horizonte covers, images from the Swann Galleries catalogue (sale 2433, lot 128) unless noted, each cover image viewed: 'Horizonte (September 1926 Issue)', https://assets.peoplesgdarchive.org/item/18926/horizonte-september-1926-issue (artist Ramón Alva de la Canal; a barefoot man in white with a torch, a white banner across his chest, abstracted mountains and smoke; 'bold blue geometric typography'); 'Horizonte (October 1926 Issue)', https://assets.peoplesgdarchive.org/item/18925/horizonte-october-1926-issue (RAC; an indigenous woman in traditional clothing, eyes closed, a bowl of fruit before her and a large agave behind; 'calmness and serenity'); 'Horizonte (July 1926 Issue)', https://assets.peoplesgdarchive.org/item/18731/horizonte-july-1926-issue (LM signature attributed to Leopoldo Méndez; 'an abstract depiction of a house and trees' in green, brown, blue and white; image sourced from The Guardian; the file is named Jul1927, but the run ended in May 1927, so July 1926 stands); 'Horizonte (March 1927 Issue)', https://assets.peoplesgdarchive.org/item/18923/horizonte-march-1927-issue (no artist credited; three heroically stylised figures in 'reds, blacks, and yellows'; 'all caps bold san-serif type'); a crowd-sourced archive
- Fine Books Magazine, report on Swann Galleries' December 2016 art-books sale, https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-news/20th-century-artists-dominate-swann-galleries-december-art-books-auction (the most complete set of Horizonte, 1926-27, ever offered; 'edited by Leopoldo Méndez and Ramón Alva de la Canal', which conflicts with es.wikipedia, where List Arzubide is the director and the two artists design and illustrate it)
- Tatiana Flores, Mexico's Revolutionary Avant-Gardes: From Estridentismo to ¡30-30! (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013); publisher's description (Publishers Weekly listing, https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780300184488): Actual No. 1, 'a manifesto affixed to walls across Mexico City in 1921'
- Lynda Klich, The Noisemakers: Estridentismo, Vanguardism, and Social Action in Postrevolutionary Mexico (University of California Press, 2018) (book; publisher and year from the Americas Society/Council of the Americas book-launch page, https://as-coa.org/events/book-launch-noisemakers-estridentismo-vanguardism-and-social-action-post-revolutionary-mexico; the Phillips Collection's 2016 book-prize announcement says it 'examines one of Mexico’s earliest modernist movements, Estridentismo'; not consulted directly for this entry)
- Elissa J. Rashkin, The Stridentist Movement in Mexico: The Avant-Garde and Cultural Change in the 1920s (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009) (book; listed in the SISMO and Monoskop bibliographies, not consulted directly for this entry)

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From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “Estridentismo (Stridentist) Graphics”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/estridentismo-graphics/