The sacred image Fotohagiography of José de León Toral

Abstract

This text analyzes a photographic album that have a particular religious meaning for having being attributed a devotional zeal to the figure of José de León Toral, the catholic fanatic who assassinated Mexican president Álvaro Obregón in 1928. The pictures are considered relics by believers, a fact that allows us to question the value of photography as a mere extension of the human body. The album not only recreates Toral's memory, but recovers the long tradition of the lives of Christian saints to present Toral as a model life that, from the materiality of the photo album, makes a body-object which can be considered a photo-hagiography of one of the most controversial characters in the history of the Mexican 20th century.