Our Artists

Chilean Art History

In a century of art (1850-1950) and history, the feelings, ideas and the reality of a country are reflected. This is known as cultural identity, this is what gives importance to these sentences.

The first part of this history starts with the years before 1900, where painting gave birth to an idealized reality. The battles, the scenery, historic character are far away from the artist and the everyday life. Important characters here are Julio Fossa Calderón y Pedro Lira. As we see the years pass by, we can see that towards 1900 there still exists European influence, although the still exist an anxiety for showing ones own reality: The life, closeness and individuality of the big city.

"The invention of identity, the gesture and motive". This stage presents the discovery of the national scenery through the stain and the subjective mark, giving space to the artist personality. In this period artists such as Valenzuela Llanos, Alfredo Helsby, Eugenio Guzmán Ovalle, Pablo Burchard and Juan Francisco Gonzales outstand from the rest.

The Generation of 1913, just as the ones that came before, reflect in their work the inner side of the human being, the costumes of the people, the bohemia and the marginal life. In this way, the evolution of painting in its search of identity goes sailing in expressionism; deforming the faces and reality. In this stage it is artist such as Arturo Gordon, Pedro Luna and Exequiel Plaza that stand out.

The work of the generation of 1940 shows us paintings that emphasizes the psychological and emotional expression, this started a formal liberty and a segregation from the political and social environment. This elements where only remembered by embossments and wall paintings.

The local avant-garde is influenced by the strokes of futurism and cubism. Added to this in this stage of abandonment of reality and to give a place to the plastic art: "The theme does not matter as much as how it is built".