In the years following the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), government leaders called on artists and intellectuals to celebrate their country's triumph and traditions. Painters, architects, historians, philosophers, writers, anthropologists, and others embraced the task with enthusiasm, joining forces with politicians to create a new image of Mexico. Together they produced the proud portrait of a people: the descendants of a union that mixed blood and tradition. Neither Indian nor Spanish, Mexicans, they proclaimed, were a single people with a double heritage.¹