|
Image1
|
|
We have already studied the art of Mexican muralism. This serves as a
perfect segue to considering some of the larger issues of realism in Latin
American art of the first half of the century. The artists of the "Mexican
School" proposed, in large part, to establish a "Mexican identity" through
a depiction of "real" views of the "people" of Mexico (notice all of these
quotation marks, as these are problematic issues and are strategies that
must be called into question). Rivera and the other muralists, as well as
other artists not necessarily affiliated with the muralist tradition such
as Jesus
Guerrero Galvan, the members of the Taller de la
Grafica Popular
(Jose Chavez
Morado, Leopoldo Mendez etc) and others consistently depicted scenes
of the contemporary indigenous populations in Mexico. This was a
phenomenon
that had serious consequences in many other nations of Latin America in
the 1920s, 30s and 40s. In the Andean countries, artists such as
Jose
Sabogal
in Peru developed a strong "Indigenist" vocabulary. Social protest
and the depiction of the realities of the everyday life of the
economically under-privileged formed the bulk of the subject matter of the
Indigenistas. Ecuador is a particularly rich case study for
Indigenism. The principal artists of the movement in this country were
Camilo Egas, Eduardo Kingman and Osvaldo
Guayasamin. The later two artists
brought Indigenism well into the second half of the century. In Brazil the
1930s witnessed a bourgeoning of indigenist-type representations of
workers, mainly Afro-Brazilians. Artists such as Candido Portinari and
Emiliano DiCavalcanti gave a visual voice to the disenfranchised coffee
plantation workers as well as those who had been forced to migrate from
the countryside (devastated in the 30s by drought and other unfortunate
situations) to such large cities as Rio and Sao Paulo.
Indigenism is, of course, intimately linked with the type of social
realism that developed in other nations which did not have substantial
indigenous populations such as Uruguay and Argentina. The social realism
of such a major painter as Antonio Berni (Argentina) mirrors international
trends of realism, such as U.S. social realist art in the hands of Ben
Shahn and others active in the 1930s.
Home
|
