Culture of Colombia - Painting

Painting

Colombians have been producing art for thousands of years. Ornate golden figures, and jewelry from millennia ago have been discovered by both ruthless conquistadors and careful archaeological digs.

In the colonial time, the painting was characterized by the works of the three Figueroa, pioneers of this art: Baltasar de Figueroa, the old; Gaspar the Figueroa, his son and Baltazar de Figueroa, the young. Gaspar was the teacher of important artists, lie Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos. José María Espinoza Prieto, painter and engraver, also is important for his portraits, landscapes and caricatures. Epifanio Garay is highlighted, specially by his portraits.

After the war of independence, in 1819, the Colombian art still is dependent of the figurative. Some persons explain that delay in the evolution of the Colombian artistic styles doing reference to the geography of the country, that make difficult a contact and dialogue between the different creative tendencies

In the decades between 1920 and 1940, Marco Tobón Mejía, José Horacio Betancur, Pedro Nel Gómez, Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo, Santiago Martínez Delgado, and Alipio Jaramillo created some dynamics in the elaboration of murals. They were influenced by the Mexican art, although with neoclassic and Art Nouveau characterists. At the beginning of the 1940 decade, are created works that was new in Colombia, inspired in the post-impressionism and the academic French style.

Many historians of art believe that the Colombian art only began to has a distinctive character in the half of 20th century, with a new point of view, integrating the cultural and artistic traditional elements, with the concepts of the art in 20th century. Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo, for example, combine the new techniques with cultural elements, in his Portrait to the Greiff Brothers. Pedro Nel Gómez, highlighted in the drawing, the water color, the fresco, the oilpainting, and the sculpture in wood, stone, and bronze, shows, for example in "Autorretrato con sombrero" (1941), his familiarity with the works of Gauguin and Van Gogh. In other works, he reveal the influence of Cézanne. Alejandro Obregon, considered by many as the father of the Colombian art (most by his originality), has been acclaimed by critics and the public, because of his painting of national landscapes characterized by violent strokes and the symbolic and expressionist use of animals (specially birds, like the condor). His work is influenced by Picasso and Grahan Sutherland.

In last years, some Colombian artists, such as Fernando Botero, Enrique Grau, David Manzur, Luis Caballero, Santiago Martinez Delgado, Ignacio Gomez Jaramillo, Débora Arango, Kajuma and have received international fame, awards and wide public acclaim.