In this article, Carlos Mérida points out that the popular arts, as regards education, represent a point of departure. However, if one intends to produce high painting and/or national expression, the popular element must be an animator, a basis for the expression transformed by the artist, so that such element does not later come to mind. Concerning the painters Erasto Cortés and Ricardo X. Arias, Mérida comments that they are on the right track, since in their work the personal touch is noticeable as well as the giving up of a slavish copy of popular decorations.

In this article, just as in others of the same period, Carlos Mérida (1891-1984), the Guatemalan painter settled in Mexico, reiterated the compelling need to find a visual language connected to the popular arts. For him, the result of a serious search would result in a more poetic and essential expression, transfigured to the extent that it does not bring to memory the inspiring object. In later years, Mérida translates this thesis as the need of abstraction of the visual arts language. Mérida shows us through his writings an overview of over six decades of artistic activity in his adoptive country. His vision—extremely critical and seductive at the same time—mirrored the thought of a character who not only shares, in space and time, the several developments of artistic activity, but also that his ideas contribute new readings and different analytical aspects to those that characterized his time. In addition to the visual arts development in Mexico, Mérida wrote about topics such as caricature, photography, dance, cinematography, design, and popular art—from Mexico as well as Guatemala—among others. He also produced profound reflections about visual art composition, and the sense and function of art.