Several of the sources and models for modern Mexican art come from the area of folk culture, and Gabriel Fernández Ledesma was, justly, a great promoter of the aesthetic worth of his type of manifestation, even elevating it to the degree of art. On the pages of the magazine Forma which Fernández Ledesma directed, one can see the laudatory essays on paintings of votive offerings, regional portraits, daguerreotype photography and decorative paintings of the "pulque" bars together with the murals of Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros and the achievements of the open painting and sculpting schools and workshops. In his pictorial work, Fernández Ledesma referred to these "cultured" references to folk art, as can be observed in the background of the picture of a girl seated, and on the wall a votive offering or "milagro" is hanging, done by a folk painter, which with the image expands thanks to the divinity which was granted a miracle to the devout because of the votive offering. This juxtapositioning between formal painting and folk painting is seen as a theoretical basis in many painters in the development of Mexican art.

Cf. Exhibition Catalog, Dones y promesas. 500 años de arte ofrenda (Exvotos mexicanos) (Gifts and promises. 500 years of art offering (Mexican votive offerings)), Mexico, Fundación Cultural Televisa, 1996.