Ptolemy and Copernicus in the New World: Juan O’Gorman and the South Wall of the UNAM’s Central Library

Abstract

The astronomical debate between the theories of Ptolemy and Copernicus and its re-signification in Modern Mexican painting forms the general subject matter of this essay. Mid twentieth-century painters who set about representing the opposition between geo- and helio-centrism included Antonio Ruiz and Juan O’Gorman: while the former’s small mural on this subject was the fruit of a private commission and took inspiration from conventions governing European cosmographic maps in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; O’Gorman’s, on the other hand, which dominates the south wall of the UNAM’s Central Library at Ciudad Universitaria, forms part of a complex iconographic program devoted to the meeting (or collision) of cultures and values that marked the colonial period. An important part of the argument of this article concerns the architect and painter’s aim to achieve a Mexicanist decoration setting in tension ancient prehispanic books or codices with the practical and intellectual functions of a modern library.