Art of Colombia - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Colombian art has 3,500 years of history and covers a wide range of media and styles ranging from Spanish Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

devotional painting to Quimbaya

Quimbaya civilization

The Quimbaya civilization is a South American civilization, noted for spectacular gold work characterized by technical accuracy and detailed designs. The majority of the gold work is made in tumbaga alloy, with 30% copper, which imparts beautiful color tonalities to the pieces...

gold craftwork to the "lyrical americanism" of painter Alejandro Obregón

Alejandro Obregón

Daniel Alberto Alejandro María de la Santísima Trinidad Obregón Roses commonly known as Alejandro Obregón was a Colombian painter, muralist, sculptor and engraver.-Career:...

(1920–1992). Perhaps the most internationally acclaimed Colombian artist

Colombian artists

-Painters and plastic artists :In alphabetic order by surname:*José del Carmen Hernández, painter and sculptor *Julio Abril, sculptor and painter*Ramiro Areiza, sculptor and painter *Rodrigo Arenas, sculptor...

is painter and sculptor Fernando Botero

Fernando Botero

Fernando Botero Angulo is a Colombian figurative artist. His works feature a figurative style, called by some "Boterismo", which gives them an unmistakable identity...

(1932).

Pottery

There is archaeological evidence that ceramics were produced on Colombia's Caribbean coast earlier than anywhere in the Americas outside of the lower Amazon Basin

Amazon Basin

The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...

. Fiber-tempered ceramics associated with shell middens appeared at sites such as Puerto Hormiga

Puerto Hormiga archaeological site

The Puerto Hormiga archaeological site is located in the Bolivar department, Colombia, on the Atlantic coast. It has an uncertain date, between 4000 and 12,000 BC....

, Monsú, Puerto Chacho, and San Jacinto by 3100 BC. Fiber-tempered ceramics at Monsú have been dated to 5940 radiocarbon years before present

Before Present

Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...

. The fiber-tempered pottery at Puerto Hormiga was "crude", formed from a single lump of clay. The fiber-tempered pottery at San Jacinto is described as "well-made". Sand-tempered coiled ceramics have also been found at Puerto Hormiga.

Goldwork

The earliest examples of gold craftsmanship have been attributed to the Tumaco people of the Pacific coast and date to around 325 BCE. Gold would play a pivotal role in luring the Spanish to the area now called Colombia during the 16th century (See: El Dorado

El Dorado

El Dorado is the name of a Muisca tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and, as an initiation rite, dived into a highland lake.Later it became the name of a legendary "Lost City of Gold" that has fascinated – and so far eluded – explorers since the days of the Spanish Conquistadors...

).

One of the most valued artifacts of Pre-Columbian goldwork is the so-called Poporo Quimbaya
Poporo Quimbaya
Poporo Quimbaya is a precolumbian artpiece of the classic quimbaya period, currently exhibited in the Gold Museum in Bogotá, Colombia. Its primary use was as a ceremonial device for chewing of coca leaves during religious ceremonies...

, a small (23.5 × 11.4 cm), hollow, devotional object (used to mambeo or coca leaf chewing ritual) made of gold whose aesthetic harmony, simple elegance, and mathematical symmetry are striking and almost modern.

The Museo del Oro in Bogotá

Bogotá

Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...

displays the most important collection of pre-Columbian gold handicraft in the Americas.

Stone

Roughly between 200 BCE and 800 CE, the San Agustín culture, masters of stonecutting, entered its “classical period". They erected raised ceremonial centres, sarcophagi, and large stone monolith

Monolith

A monolith is a geological feature such as a mountain, consisting of a single massive stone or rock, or a single piece of rock placed as, or within, a monument...

s depicting anthropomorphic and zoomorphhic forms out of stone. Some of these have been up to five meters high.

Related to the San Agustín culture were the inhabitants of Tierradentro
Tierradentro
Tierradentro is a National archeological park in the jurisdiction of the municipality of Inza, Department of Cauca, Colombia. The park is located 100 km away from the capital of the Department, Popayán....

(“inner land”, so called because of its inaccessibility) who created over one hundred and fifty underground tombs, or hypogea; their walls and ceilings were richly decorated with geometric forms recalling the interior of palm huts. Also in the tombs were found funeral urns, bowls, and pitchers.

Modern sculpture

The Colombian sculpture from the sixteenth to 18th centuries was mostly devoted to religious depictions of ecclesiastic art, strongly influenced by the Spanish schools of sacred sculpture. During the early period of the Colombian republic, the national artists were focused in the production of sculptural portraits of politicians and public figures, in a plain neoclassicist trend. During the 20th century, the Colombian sculpture tried to develop a bold, innovative work, which reach a better understanding of the national sensibility.

Pre-columbian period

Colombian colonial art should include altar wood carving masterpieces and the statues for religious processions.

Colonial period

Painting in the colonial period reflected the power and prestige of the Catholic Church and the Spanish aristocracy in Colombia or as it was then known The New Kingdom of Granada

New Kingdom of Granada

The New Kingdom of Granada was the name given to a group of 16th century Spanish colonial provinces in northern South America governed by the president of the Audiencia of Bogotá, an area corresponding mainly to modern day Colombia and parts of Venezuela. Originally part of the Viceroyalty of...

(c. 1548-1717) and later The Viceroyalty of New Granada

Viceroyalty of New Granada

The Viceroyalty of New Granada was the name given on 27 May 1717, to a Spanish colonial jurisdiction in northern South America, corresponding mainly to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. The territory corresponding to Panama was incorporated later in 1739...

(1717–1819).

Early colonial period

Colombian painting in the early colonial period (1530s–1650) was mostly ecclesiastical in subject and based on mannerist, renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

, and medieval styles, with some minor influence from indigenous culture.

Spanish explorers first set foot on Colombian soil in 1499 and established Santa Marta

Santa Marta

Santa Marta is the capital city of the Colombian department of Magdalena in the Caribbean Region. It was founded in July 29, 1525 by the Spanish conqueror Rodrigo de Bastidas, which makes it the oldest remaining city in Colombia...

, the first city and government in the territory of Colombia, in 1525. King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabela of Castille had in 1492 year unified Spain and conquered the remaining Moorish

Moors

The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...

stronghold in southern Spain (Granada); expelled Jews with the Alhambra Decree

Alhambra decree

The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...

and continued the Inquisition

Spanish Inquisition

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...

; and sent Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

on his first expedition. It is from this context of reconquista
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

or the Christianizing of the Iberian peninsula that the similarly strongly Catholic colonial project in the Americas might be understood. In this period, Spain and Portugal were the greatest powers in Europe and the most dogged defenders (and enforcers) of Catholicism.

Workshops in Seville produced many of the early paintings sent to Colombia. Colombian artists in this period were mostly considered common tradesmen, like cobblers

Shoemaking

Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or...

or coopers

Cooper (profession)

Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden staved vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads...

. As throughout much of the history of art around the world, these usually anonymous artisans produced work that served the ideological needs of their patrons, in this case the Catholic Church.

The churches and homes of wealthy families in the main towns of Cundinamarca

Cundinamarca Department

- Origin of the name :The name of Cundinamarca comes from Kundur marqa, an indigenous expression, probably derived from Quechua. Meaning "Condor's Nest", it was used in pre-Columbian times by the natives of the Magdalena Valley to refer to the nearby highlands....

and Boyacá

Boyacá Department

Boyacá is one of the 32 Departments of Colombia, and the remnant of one of the original nine states of the "United States of Colombia".Boyacá is centrally located within Colombia, almost entirely within the mountains of the Eastern Cordillera to the border with Venezuela, although the western end...

contain some of the oldest extant examples of colonial art in Colombia, mostly in the form of mural painting.

The first colonial-era painter to work in Colombia, or as it was then known as, Nueva Granada

Viceroyalty of New Granada

, was the Seville native Alonso de Narváez (d. 1583). He is credited with painting an image of the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of the Rosary

Our Lady of the Rosary

Our Lady of the Rosary is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary in relation to the rosary....

) that later became itself an object of devotion, known as Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquirá thanks to, as Catholics believe, a miraculous repairing of the painting's fabric.http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/mary0007.htm

Baroque period

Baroque art (starting in Rome around 1600), including Latin American Baroque (1650-1750 :es:Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos), tended towards emotionalism, an appeal to populism

Populism

Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...

, and large gestures and flowing garments. In line with the Counter-Reformation a generation prior, the Jesuits, an order formed to counter Protestantism

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

, were the first to embrace the Baroque

Baroque

. The major influences on Colombian artists in this period were Spanish Baroque painters like Francisco de Zurbarán (1580–1664), as well as Flemish, Italian, and also Quito and Cuzco influences, through engravings and various original images imported for churches and monasteries.

Another Seville native, Baltasar de Figueroa El Viejo (1629–1667), settled in Bogotá

Bogotá

in the early 17th century and set up an artist's workshop. He and his many descendants would be prolific and would invent a kind of creolized Colombian form of Baroque painting that combined the borrowing of forms and subjects from European engravings (mostly religious in nature: saints in various states of mortification or ecstasy, the Virgin Mary, or Christ) with native motifs and decoration. But it would be one of the Figueroa family's apprentices, Gregorio Vázquez de Arce y Ceballos, who would stand out among all painters of the colonial era.

Gregorio Vasquez de Arce y Ceballos
Gregorio Vasquez de Arce y Ceballos
Gregorio Vasquez de Arce y Ceballos , commonly referred to as Gregorio Vasquez, was a Colombian painter, including the Quitenian Miguel de Santiago, was one of the leading artist in the Latin American Baroque movement, which extended from the mid 17th to the late 18th century in the Viceroyalty of...

(1638–1711) is considered the greatest master of the colonial period. In his lifetime he produced around five hundred paintings, mostly devotional, with a technique that juxtaposed figures taken from paintings by European masters using innovative materials found in the New World. His depictions of the Trinity as a single figure with four eyes and three faces, an innovation unique to Latin America, would be later condemned as heretical in part because they resembled Hindu deities.

The Sopo Archangels
Sopo Archangels
The Sopo Archangels is a famous collection of oil paintings from the Colombian colonial period which is located in the Church of the Divine Savior in the Colombian municipality of Sopó....

is a series of twelve painting, each featuring an archangel

Archangel

An archangel is an angel of high rank. Archangels are found in a number of religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Michael and Gabriel are recognized as archangels in Judaism and by most Christians. Michael is the only archangel specifically named in the Protestant Bible...

(three canonical, plus eight apocryphal, and one guardian) engulfed in a tenebrous (cloudy) background. Their figures are life-sized, clad in rich apparel, full of drapes and folds, and are meant to be "read" through their various iconography. Like many depictions of angels, these ostensibly male figures are depicted with soft, feminine faces and round hips. The origin of this series is unknown, as is the artist. It is considered one of the enduring enigmas of Colombian art.

The Virreinato and rococo

The raising of the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1717 coincided roughly with the ascension of the Bourbons to the throne of Spain. This period marked a period of resurgence and the first sparks of Enlightenment in Spain

Enlightenment Spain

The Age of Enlightenment came to Spain in the eighteenth century with a new Bourbon dynasty after the decay of the Spanish economy, bureaucracy, and empire in the latter years of the former Habsburg dynasty...

. Rococo

Rococo

Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...

, a decadent form, replaced baroque as the dominant style. The new viceroy court in Bogotá led to a surge in demand for portraits of civilians and clergymen. The leading portrait painter of this period was Joaquín Guttiérrez. He depicted members of the aristocracy in frozen forms, surrounded by richly embellished furniture and decoration, and usually printed the subject's name and family title beneath their image.

20th Century and modernism

From 1920 to 1940, Marco Tobón Mejía, José Horacio Betancur, Pedro Nel Gómez

Pedro Nel Gómez

Pedro Nel Gómez was a Colombian engineer, architect, painter, and sculptor. He started the Colombian Muralist Movement with Santiago Martinez Delgado, strongly influenced by the Mexican movement. With the fresco mural technique, Pedro Nel Gómez created 2,200 square meters of murals in public...

, Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo

Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo

Ignacio Gomez Jaramillo was born in Antioquia. Master Gomez Jaramillo was one of Colombia's most important artists of the 20th century. He was part of the Colombian Muralist Movement along with Santiago Martinez Delgado and Pedro Nel Gómez...

, Santiago Martinez Delgado

Santiago Martínez Delgado

Santiago Martínez Delgado was a Colombian painter, sculptor, art historian and writer. He established a reputation as a prominent muralist during the 1940s and is also known for his watercolors, oil paintings, illustrations and woodcarvings....

and Alipio Jaramillo produced several mural paintings influenced by the Mexican muralists, with neoclassic

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

features and influences of Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

. During the 1940s, a raising internacional disinterest in the Colombian art caused to the local artis to try new ways of expression such as post-impressionism

Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...

and French scholar style. An example of this is the landscape painter Ricardo Gómez Campuzano and his depictions of Cartagena

Cartagena, Colombia

Cartagena de Indias , is a large Caribbean beach resort city on the northern coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Coast Region and capital of Bolívar Department...

.

Several art critics point to the 1950s as the time when Colombian art started to have a distinctive point of view, reinventing the traditional elements under the 20th century concepts. Examples of this are the Greiff portraits by Ignacio Gomez Jaramillo, showing what the Colombian art could do with the new techniques applied to typical Colombian themes. Carlos Correa, with his paradigmathic “Naturaleza muerta en silencio” (silent dead nature), combines geometrical abstraction and cubism

Cubism

Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...

in a style still recurrent today in many artists. Pedro Nel Gómez, in his “Autorretrato con sombrero” (1941) (self-portrait with hat) shows influences from Gauguin and Van Gogh. He also shows a strong influence of Jose Clemente Orozco in his series about the Barequeras (women extracting gold from the rivers banks) and his self portrait (1949) shows strong influences from Cézanne. Alejandro Obregón

Alejandro Obregón

Daniel Alberto Alejandro María de la Santísima Trinidad Obregón Roses commonly known as Alejandro Obregón was a Colombian painter, muralist, sculptor and engraver.-Career:...

is often considered as the father of modern Colombian painting, and one of the most influential artist in this period, due to his originality, the painting of Colombian landscapes with symbolic and expressionist use of animals, (specially the andean condor

Andean Condor

The Andean Condor is a species of South American bird in the New World vulture family Cathartidae and is the only member of the genus Vultur...

). In his work is noticeable the influences of Picasso and Graham Sutherland

Graham Sutherland

Graham Vivien Sutherland OM was an English artist.-Early life:He was born in Streatham, attending Homefield Preparatory School, Sutton. He was then educated at Epsom College, Surrey before going up to Goldsmiths, University of London...

. Currently, some of the most recognized painters in the international scene are Fernando Botero

Fernando Botero

Fernando Botero Angulo is a Colombian figurative artist. His works feature a figurative style, called by some "Boterismo", which gives them an unmistakable identity...

and Omar Rayo

Omar Rayo

Omar Rayo was a Colombian painter, sculptor, caricaturist and plastic artist. He won the 1970 Salón de Artistas Colombianos. Rayo worked with abstract geometry primarily employing black, white and red. He was part of the Op Art movement. Rayo's work shows that geometric art is as much a part of...

Film

Main article:
Cinema of Colombia

Cinema of Colombia

Colombian Cinema has struggled to develop as a solid industry throughout its history. During the beginning of the 20th century some production companies tried to maintain a level of constant production but lack of government support and a strong international industry ended up diminishing initiative...

External links

Gold Museum
Gold Museum
The Gold Museum is a museum located in Bogotá, Colombia. It displays an extraordinary selection of its pre-Hispanic gold work collection - the biggest in the world - in its exhibition rooms on the second and third floors...

, Bogotá Official site
Virtual museum of Pre-Columbian gold in Colombia
Museo de Bogotá Official site
Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá Official site
Luis Ángel Arango Library
Luís Ángel Arango Library
Luis Ángel Arango Library, is a public library located in Bogotá, Colombia. It was founded in 1923 as a small library with a few books on economics. It is currently under the administration of the Bank of the Republic...

digital collection
Directorio Nacional de Arte Colombiano
Museum of Antioquia
Current information on Colombia´s Art Scene

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