Colombian art

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Colombian art has 3500 years of history and covers a wide range of media and styles ranging from Spanish

Pre-Columbian sculpture

Pottery

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

The Piartal culture (750–1250 AD) in the mountainous region on the Colombia–Ecuador border produced unique methods of producing pottery as well as patterns inspired by animal or snake skin. Vessels were created for use in secondary burial, or the practice of allowing the flesh to decompose and then reburying the bones. These vessels were also used to hold relics and jewelry belonging to the deceased.^[5]

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).

One of the most valued artifacts of Pre-Columbian goldwork is the so-called

]

The

Museo del Oro in Bogotá

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 monoliths 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 (“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.

• 
  Tolita-Tumaco gold figure
• 
  The

  Muisca (Pasca, Cundinamarca

  ), gold, 600 CE - 1600 CE
• 
  El Infiernito archaeological site
• 
  Zoomorphic

  San Agustin sculpture
• 
  Monumental tomb, Middle San Agustín period (San Agustín, Huila), 100 BCE - 700 CE

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

trend. During the 20th century, the Colombian sculpture began to develop a bold and innovative work with the aim of reaching a better understanding of national sensitivity.

• 
  Monument to Bachué by Luís Horacio Betancur, Medellín
• 
  Monument to the

  tayrona deities. Santa Marta
• 
  Monument to India Catalina in Cartagena
• 
  Vargas Swamp Lancers Memorial is the largest sculpture in Latin America
• 
  Monumento a la Raza, located in La Alpujarra Administrative Center in Medellín
• 
  Botero Plaza in Medellín with permanent display of several sculptures by Fernando Botero
• 
  Bird ( By

  terrorist attack in 1997, Medellín

  where 17 people died. The remains of the sculpture are displayed in San Antonio Square as a memorial for the victims
• 
  Ranas bailando. (Dancing frogs) 1990. By María Fernanda Cardoso
• 
  Cascada. By

  Edgar Negret

Painting

Pre-Columbian period

• 
  Chimitá

  petrographs, circa 1300 B.C. Santander Department

Colombian colonial art includes 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 (c. 1548-1717) and later The Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717–1819).

Early colonial period

St. Andrew the Apostle

) by Alonso de Narváez, tempura on rustic cloth, 16th century

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

styles, with some minor influence from indigenous culture.

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

.

Workshops in

.

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

.

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

Baroque period

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Baroque art (starting in Rome around 1600), including

(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 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.

(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

(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.

• 
  San José y el Niño by

  Gregorio Vasquez de Arce y Ceballos

  , oil on wood, ca. 1670
• 
  St. Catalina weddings by Gregorio Vasquez de Arce y Ceballos, (Desposorios de Santa Catalina) 18th century. Oil on canvas 176 x 130 cm
• 
  Holy Trinity, by Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos. Oil on canvas.62 x 44 cm
• 
  "Coronación de la virgen", by Baltasar de Vargas Figueroa (1663) – The catholic influence is very strong in the colonial period
• 
  Sopo Archangels

  , a series of archangels painted around 1650 in colonial Colombia.
• 
  Baraquel- Blessing of God: The archangel of virtue
• 
  Guardian Angel-Company of God: The angel of children
• 
  Esriel-Justice of god: The archangel of divine discipline

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

, 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.

Republican period

• 
  Policarpa Salavarrieta portrait by Mercedes Delgado Mallarino
• 
  Portrait of Francisco de Paula Santander (1874) by Martín Tovar y Tovar (1827-1902). Oil on canvas
• 
  Portrait of Joaquín Mosquera by Ricardo Acevedo Bernal (1867)

20th century and modernism

From 1920 to 1940,

.

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 paradigmatic “Naturaleza muerta en silencio” (silent dead nature), combines geometrical abstraction and

.

• 
  Chicago fair (1933), by

  Santiago Martinez Delgado
• 
  Mural by Santiago Martinez Delgado in the Colombian Congress
• 
  "The Colombian Republic". Mural by Pedro Nel Gómez
• 
  "Coffee dance". Mural by Pedro Nel Gómez
• 
  "Painting of a contrabass" by

  Alvaro Valbuena

  (1970)
• 
  Zibebiz. Omar Rayo. Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino

21st century

During the 21st century, Colombian artists have focused in the intersection between new media and traditional crafts, as well as narratives that reflect on the Colombian conflict and the consequences it has had on Colombian society, territory and bodies.^[7][8]

• 
  "Fourth Circle" by Nicolas De la Hoz, oil and acrylic on canvas, 2005

Film

Theater

Theater was introduced in Colombia during the Spanish colonization in 1550 through zarzuela companies. Colombian theater is supported by the Ministry of Culture and a number of private and state owned organizations. Among the most important organizations are the National Association of Scenic Directors (ANDE), Performing Arts Workers Associations, Antioquia Storytellers Association, Colombian Association of Critique and Theater Research (ACIT), Puppeteers Associations (ATICO), Colombian Corporation of Theater among others.

Colombian theater was introduced during the

by the Spanish between 1550 and 1810. At the end of the 19th century and beginnings of the 20th century the most important center of theater in Colombia was the Colon theater in downtown Bogota. These theaters were built resembling Italian architecture style. During the 20th century interest for theater had spread all over Colombia and many theater were built in the biggest cities of Colombia. Colombia currently holds one of the biggest theater festivals in the world, properly called the Ibero-American Theater Festival. As in many other parts of the world, future actors and actresses begin their performing experience in theater many of them with the goal of making it to television or film. Theater in Colombia is informally known as "tablas" (woods) because of the wooden stages on which actors perform their plays. Colombia has a mature system of theater companies which reaches an audience mostly in the city of Bogota.

Dance

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See also

• Muisca art
• Colombian handicrafts
• List of Colombian artists
• Culture of Colombia
• Colombian architecture
• Latin American culture
• Art Galleries in Colombia

References

Further reading

• Londoño Vélez, S. (2001). Colombian Art: 3,500 Years of History. Bogotá: Villegas Editores

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Art of Colombia.

• (in English) Official site - Gold Museum, Bogotá
• (in English) Virtual museum of Pre-Columbian gold in Colombia
• (in English) Current information on Colombia´s Art Scene
• (in Spanish) Official site Museo de Bogotá Archived 2008-05-16 at the Wayback Machine
• (in Spanish) Official site Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá
• (in Spanish) Digital collection Archived 2010-09-23 at the Wayback Machine - Luis Ángel Arango Library
• (in Spanish) Official site Directorio Nacional de Arte Colombiano
• (in Spanish) Museum of Antioquia