19e20.X2.13b [Español]

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1. In the brochure of June 1923 El Gráfico, a cultural weekly newspaper, published in Bogota an article entitled “National Sculpture”. With a title promising to define what was understood by national sculpture or what its conditions and what its guidelines were at that time, the text falls short, as it could be expected from a one-page text. However, its importance is vital for the study of the subject, given that it not only sets forth a number of fundamental issues in terms of sculpture, but also reinforces cultural concerns in general.

2. Together with Lecturas Dominicales and Cromos, El Gráfico was perhaps one of the oldest weekly publications among those which addressed cultural topics in Colombia. Founded in 1910 by Abraham and Abadías Cortés, typographers and brothers, it was published on a weekly basis until 1941 with a circulation of 1,500 copies, becoming a significant reference in terms of graphic design and publishing news that included events of Bogota’s society, innovations in various fields and comments on art.[2]

3. The specific article this text will be referring to concerns a central topic in the discussions, not only in the Colombian publications, but also in different magazines around Latin America, which is that of a national art. The editors open the text stating that the Fine Arts in Colombia are not in decline, but in a very visible regression; according to them, “any period of decline presupposes a previous period of virility and youth, and there was only one moment in Bogota, unique in the history of our arts, in which these glowed quickly just to be extinguished immediately. It was the magnificent period in which Alberto Urdaneta [3] moved all spirits with a longing for art and beauty”. Alberto Urdaneta, admits the author, was not a great artist, but a good guide that “provided young people with an unquenchable love for the arts and beauty”.[4]

4. The article argues that there are only a few examples of sculptors who have made “praiseworthy efforts” in Colombia, amongst which are Francisco Antonio Cano and some of his students, such as Gilberto Mora.

5. Despite the pessimism about the art panorama in Colombia, the text ends in a unique way:

6. This weekly publication will always have words of encouragement for enthusiast young people dedicating the waking hours of their best years to art. Indeed, what else gives a higher idea of a Nation besides the spiritual forces required for its enhancement? The civilization of a people is not measured by the huge buildings that are the pride of the Yankee plutocracy [...] A race cannot lose its intrinsic character due to a few decrees and laws, neither can it be transformed if not in the long run, and within their own ethnic characters.[5]

7. In this way, the article on “National sculpture” goes beyond the topic it had initially proposed, and in fact only mentions it briefly, making instead an ethic-aesthetic statement on the construction of a national identity in terms of what the author considers a civilized world is.

8. Exactly four years later, El Gráfico published the article “A young Colombian painter and sculptor”, initially published in Paris in the Revue Internationale, dedicated to praise the work of the Colombian artist Luis Alberto Acuña with an introduction by the editors. Here, the parameters of what can be considered national sculpture, and national art in general, took a 180-degree turn, not so much in the discourse, but in the artist chosen to exemplify it. The text is about the successful participation of Acuña in the Salon d'Automne in Paris and the Salon of Decorative Arts with his painting “Nessus seduces Dejanira”, which was incidentally bought by the French government for the Luxembourg Museum’s collection.

9. Besides highlighting the innate ability of the artist, the author and publishers of El Gráfico emphasize the importance of his training at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and of his travels around Europe.

10. Eager to learn, Luis Alberto Acuña visits the main museums in Europe to improve his education by getting acquainted with masterpieces. According to him, France, the heir of the great and noble Mediterranean civilization bequeathed to us by Greece and Rome, is the sacred torch to which all artists should come for inspiration, enlightening the spark of their genius.[6]

11. Although in terms of discourse both articles seem to refer to the same kind of academic art as the best example of national art, by looking at the works mentioned it is possible to infer that the canon has changed significantly.

12. Indeed, in the early 1920s, Colombian sculpture was deeply influenced by the Academy and Neoclassicism. We just have to look at works from Marco Tobón Mejia or Eugenio Zerda, who also advocate for a national art as much as the landscapers of the 1899 salon, such as Ricardo Borrero Alvarez, Jesús María Zamora and Roberto Páramo, to realize that the idea of a national art associated with figures belonging to pre-Hispanic cultures was not a relevant consideration at that time.

13. What were, then, the conditions that determined this kind of transformation in such a short period of time? Reviewing magazines of that period, one might realise that the parameters affecting the definition of a national art in Colombia are precisely a series of information flows going not only from Europe to America, but also amongst the Latin American countries themselves. The first article is preceded by a heated discussion about the exhibition of Modern French Painting held in Bogota and Medellin in 1922, which included some cubist works. The critique did not acknowledge this exhibition, and in this sense the text of 1923 can be understood as a part of the adverse reaction to this exhibition, described as decadent in Cromos. The French exhibition caused such an impact on the critique that they felt they had the task of endorsing academic art in order to prevent the national art from accomplishing the extremes achieved by the French art, so much admired in the past.

14. The second article – the one referring to Acuña – was accompanied by a strong government policy sending artists to study in Paris, Madrid and Mexico so they could, from there, project the image of Colombia as a modern nation.

15. On the other hand, towards the mid-1920s, it can be observed that an active movement of the ideas of seminal figures such as Peruvian Jose Carlos Mariategui or Mexican José Vasconcelos make issues such as modernity, nationalism, imperialism and the Hispano-American very clear. Mariategui’s ideas were discussed and spread in Colombia through the filter of intellectuals such as Armando Solano, who proposed the creation of a cultural movement centred on indigenous people. Concerning this, Solano writes, in Universidad, that by “Studying the historical and ethnic factors that constitute our group, we will find the true motto for the nationalist movement”.[7] Meanwhile, another of Mariátegui’s interpreters, Darío Samper, pondered in the same publication, “Are we going to produce our painting by our own means, through autochthonous procedures, by artists of our people, or will we go on being copyists of Zuloaga and manufacturers of Manolas?”[8] And thus, he calls for hearing the message of “the Mexican young men of Ulysses and the Argentinians of Martin Fierro”.[9] This publication, as well as Amauta, was read and profusely commented by Colombian intellectuals.

16. Also, Vasconcelo’s speeches during his tour through Latin America were followed with particular interest. In the case of the Mexican intellectual, interpretation was direct, since he actually visited the country. In 1926, El Gráfico publishes an article about his visit to Colombia and people were advised not to fear the message conveyed by Vasconcelos, who had published La raza cósmica (1925) just a year before his visit to Bogota.

17. In El Gráfico, the article “Something about Indo-American art”, authored by the Critic D. F. Eguren Larrea, follows the text on Acuña. Eguren Larrea’s text reveals another motivation for the change of perspective on the issue of a national art. The author states that “Countless writers and art critics in Europe and the United States argue that this black art frenzi that is taking over in the big cities will be followed by a long-lasting reign of Indo-American art in all of its phases”.[10] By rescuing the pre-Hispanic cultures, this prediction promised the entrance, so to say, into European modernity.

18. In 1927, the year of publication of the second article, Roberto Pizano returned from Europe and was appointed director of the School of Fine Arts in Bogotá. As a director, he was known for encouraging students to be innovative, recognizing the possibility of carrying out an “autochthonous” art. However, as from 1927, the school decided to hire a number of European teachers who shaped the development of artistic production during the following years. That was also the year in which the magazine Universidad (1927-1929), in its second phase, published chronicles and critiques on the works of artists who, according to art historian Alvaro Medina, “aspired to be up-to-date and modern”.

19. In the early 1930s, this idea of a “national” identity transfigured once again so as to include more frankly the observations of what Pizano called “the autochthonous”, and maybe this was taken into consideration when choosing Romulo Rozo to work on the Colombia pavilion of the Ibero-American exhibition in Seville. In July 1929, El Gráfico published “Colombia in the Seville exhibition – A great Colombian artist” on the work of Rozo. According to the weekly publication,

20. Refraining from vernacular rules, turning to indigenous jewellery and pottery for inspiration... Rozo’s delicate hands improve Colombian national art, idealized by the influence that Egyptian and Etruscan sculpture and ornamentation had on the artist, so similar in its overall appearance to those of pre-colonial Colombia.[11]

21. So, from these articles it is possible to trace a complete trajectory of the concept of national art, from an academic art learned from the French school, through a synthesis of the French academic school and Acuña’s figures from pre-colonial mythology figures, to a forthright assertion of cosmopolitanism in the appreciation of Rozo’s work. That which was once conceived as national art suffers transformations following the swift pace seen in the changes of Colombia’s international cultural relations.

22. There are many factors that can be seen as definitive in the turn of what is meant by national art in Colombia in the early 20th century; a turn towards the Academy, the circulation of ideas through regular publications and travellers, the disenchantment of France, and Europe in general, as reference, as well as the compliance with Rodó, who died in 1917, and his call for searching for the continent’s freedom beyond politics. A comparative study of these two texts that may seem trivial at first allows us not only to see the process of negotiations through which art criticism defined national art in Colombia in the beginning of the century, but also to give this theme the due importance in terms of process rather than of results, demonstrating its relevance before what was about to come in the two following decades.

Bibliographic references

Colombia en la exposición de Sevilla – Un gran artista colombiano, El Gráfico, Bogotá, July 1929.

La escultura nacional. El Gráfico, junio de 1923.

EGUREN, D.F. Algo sobre arte indoamericano, El Gráfico, 1927.

SOLANO, Armando. La campaña nacionalista. Revista Universidad, Bogotá, July 1927.

SAMPER, Darío. La afirmación de los que surgen. Revista Universidad, Bogotá, May 1929.

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[1] Translation by Elena O’Neill

[2] Since regular publications on art were so scarce, El Gráfico is an important reference for art history in Colombia.

[3] Founder of the illustrated newspaper in 1881, he created the First Annual Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1886, where he included important works in the history of Colombian art, including Gregorio Arce.

[4] La escultura nacional. El Gráfico, June 1923.

[5] Ibidem.

[6] In 1924 Acuña left Colombia to study in Paris with a grant awarded by the Colombian government, returning to Colombia in 1929.

[7] SOLANO, Armando. La campaña nacionalista. Revista Universidad, Bogota, July 1927.

[8] SAMPER, Darío. La afirmación de los que surgen. Revista Universidad, Bogota, May 1929.

[9] Ibidem.

[10] EGUREN, D. F. Algo sobre arte indoamericano, El Gráfico, 1927.

[11] Colombia en la exposición de Sevilla – Un gran artista colombiano, El Gráfico, Bogota, July 1929.