On several occasions during the second decade of the twentieth century, the national press dedicated its pages to reviews of the work of Fernando Best Pontones, who was then considered an excellent painter and a great promise for Mexican art. Based on the comments by Carrillo Gabriel in an article devoted to Best Pontones, in 1919, Best was also considered an exponent of true national art. The review affirmed that all of the artist’s production was a hymn to his country; being work created within an environment that was hostile to expressions imbued with a national character. Maybe the reproach derived from the great commercial success that his work had achieved, implying that the artist painted pretty pictures in order to please his clients. In one of Carlos Mérida’s first articles—published in Mexico around 1920, and entitled “La verdadera significación de la obra de Saturnino Herrán: los falsos críticos” [The true significance of Saturnino Herrán’s work: the fake critics] (see doc. 733457)—the author wrote a stern critique concerning the publicized concept about the aesthetic values of the national art. In his article Mérida disqualifies the description of Best Pontones’ œuvre as nationalistic, by commenting that in Mexico the existing criteria with regard what national painting should be was mistaken, arguing that the audience was content with little, which explained the success of the commercial exhibits by Best, García Núñez y Fernández. Throughout the 1920s the papers very seldom commented on the painter’s work. However, just as in the case of Alberto Garduño (see doc. 736634) it was the magazine Nuestra Ciudad where the name of Best Pontones reappears once more. On this occasion, the article, also written by Carlos Mérida, no longer refers to the promising work of the artists nor to his noteworthy ability as a landscape artist, but to the manner in which he develops the decorative drawings by using motifs of the popular craft. This was the basis, in the beginning, of the Mexican renaissance of the painting, but by that time – and particularly for Mérida – this type of work was only the point of departure for the applied arts.
Fernando Best Pontones has been studied and remains unrecognized by the historiography of Mexican art. Nevertheless, Ph.D. Esther Acevedo wrote the most complete essay about him and his œuvre. Cf., “De Caín y metralla”, [“About Cain and gunfire”] published in Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, no. 64, Mexico City, 1993: 83/92.