Que Chiquito es el Mundo [How Small the World Is]
Primary
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
(Mexico City, Mexico, 1902–2002)
NationalityMexican, North America
Date1942
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsSheet: 8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm)
Framed: 15 1/2 × 18 × 2 in. (39.4 × 45.7 × 5.1 cm)
Image: 6 1/2 × 9 1/2 in. (16.5 × 24.1 cm)
Framed: 15 1/2 × 18 × 2 in. (39.4 × 45.7 × 5.1 cm)
Image: 6 1/2 × 9 1/2 in. (16.5 × 24.1 cm)
Credit LineBlanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Burt Wolf on behalf of Ian H. Zwicker of NYC; Gift from The Contemporary Austin to the Blanton Museum of Art, 2017.611.11
Rights Statement
Collection AreaLatin American Art
Object number2017.611.11
On View
Not on viewManuel Álvarez Bravo studied briefly with Italian-born, Mexico-based photographer Tina Modotti. When she was deported from Mexico in 1930 for political reasons he purchased her cameras and took up her practice of capturing everyday images in the streets of Mexico City. “Que chiquito es el mundo” is a common expression that is often paired in conversation with the well-known proverb “el mundo es un pañuelo” [“the world is a handkerchief ”]. Both mean that the world is a small place because you may travel far only to run into the same people you know at home. Álvarez Bravo plays with these ideas, linking a chance encounter on an empty street with the small square cloths blowing under a stormy sky.
![El ensueño [The Daydream], from Fifteen Photographs by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, 1974](/internal/media/dispatcher/17092/thumbnail)
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
1931
![El eclipse or Sábanas [Sheets], from Fifteen Photographs by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, 1974](/internal/media/dispatcher/17091/thumbnail)
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
1933
![El sistema nervioso del gran simpático [Greater Sympathetic Nervous System], from Fifteen Photographs by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, printed 1974](/internal/media/dispatcher/17089/thumbnail)