Latin American themes

At the turn of the 19th century, while stiff and haughty portraits of aristocrats were still commissioned, the genre of self-portraits by native-born painters also emerged, leading to works that reveal a more informal, human quality. A fine example of this tradition is a pastel (an informal, spontaneous medium much favoured by Rococo artists) self-portrait by José Luis Rodríguez de Alconedo from 1810. He depicted himself as a mestizo, with tousled hair and an open-necked shirt. His torso, in half-length, is turned in a different direction from his head, which looks spontaneously out at the viewer. This posture, in combination with his disheveled dress, captures an informality much desired by Rococo artists, but it also reflects his identity as a Mexican. Soon after painting this self-portrait, he died in the war for independence.

Signaling their willingness to go beyond the traditional commissions provided by the church and the government, Latin American painters increasingly created scenes of daily life in New Spain in its half-century before independence. In paintings created to document the viceroys’ travels, these artists began to depict actual Latin American landscapes in the background, rather than idealized backdrops. Other works began to depict pure landscape and require no narrative pretext—whether religious or political—as justification. Artists such as Antonio Pérez de Aguilar also began to depict common forms of earthenware and blue-and-white majolica in their bodegones (kitchen still lifes). The land and daily life of Latin America were thus increasingly becoming legitimate subject matter.

One of the more interesting genres to emerge from the period was the portrait that examined ethnic “types.” About 1725 Juan Rodríguez Juárez had created the first documented set of so-called “caste paintings,” which used 16 different scenes to show the effects of the intermarriages of indigenous people, enslaved Africans, and Europeans. This genre gained popularity on the eve of independence, when the different strata of colonial society were depicted in several series called castas created by artists who often chose to remain anonymous. The paintings represent the intermarriage of different “races” and assign terms to refer to each “caste,” or variety of mixture. Colonial legal restrictions on intermarriage are mocked in these paintings, which show people ignoring the law. The more ethnically mixed couples produce offspring with ironic names like “throwback” and “hanging in the air”; these motley families behave poorly and live in humble surroundings. One might expect the Spaniards, who were after all still the ruling class, to be presented in a dignified manner, yet “pure” Africans and Indians are also depicted as beautifully dressed and decorous. Castas often labeled the local products and animals, further highlighting the exoticness of the scene. Even though these households are more allegorical than historical, their painted backdrops, clothing, and lifestyles are believable renderings of 18th-century colonial life.

Latin American identity—a reality deeply enmeshed with such cultural and ethnicity issues—was further explored by contemporary artists in South America on the eve of independence. A South American variant on castas appeared in Quito in 1783, when Vicente Albán created idealized portraits of indigenous and Latin American-born Spanish people in their typical costume. In his set of six paintings titled Fruits of Ecuador, both people and fruits are labeled. Similarly, about 1790–1800 an anonymous artist from Bolivia rendered pairs of different ethnic groups and social classes in their distinctive indigenous dress from the new Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (which had been formed in 1776 to include what is now Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina). This interest in Latin American culture would be taken up by the costumbristas in the period after independence (see costumbrismo).

State-sponsored art and Neoclassicism

As colonial Latin America thus began to develop its own traditions and culture, the Spanish and Portuguese became increasingly estranged from their colonies. In order to remedy this situation and to learn about his realm and document the range of animals, plants, landscapes, and humans in the empire, the Spanish king Charles III commissioned explorations by Spaniards and other Europeans. The first such exploration was the Botanical Expedition in New Granada (now Colombia) under the direction of Celestino Mutis from 1784 to 1817. This was followed by Antonio del Río’s archaeological expedition to Mayan and other pre-Columbian ruins in Mexico from 1786 to 1787. Alejandro Malaspina sailed up the western coast of North America from 1789 to 1794. Finally, Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist and explorer, commanded the most extensive expedition, exploring all the Americas between 1799 and 1804. Draftsmen accompanying these expeditions made many illustrations highlighting the unique qualities of Spain’s soon-to-be independent colonial empire.

Spain attempted to discipline the increasingly independent, riotous colonial American arts by establishing the Royal Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City in 1783. The king sent Spanish artists to be the instructors of each area: architecture, sculpture, medal casting, and various types of painting. The first director of the academy was the Spaniard Antonio Gil, a medal designer who influenced the creation of coinage in Mexico. The painting instructor was Rafael Ximeno y Planes, best known for his airy, pale murals, including one in the dome of Mexico City Cathedral (now destroyed) and one in the chapel of the School of Mines illustrating the legendary appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe to an Indian convert now canonized as St. Juan Diego.

The Neoclassical style, which combined conscious Greco-Roman references with a return to the calmer, balanced, and more-rational forms of antiquity, became popular among Iberian academics in the period before the wars of independence; its clear connection to European history was no doubt appealing to Iberian rulers seeking to reassert their presence in the colonies. The most impressive Neoclassical artist associated with the academy in Mexico City was Manuel Tolsá, who at first taught sculpture and later served as the second director of the academy. Tolsá’s major surviving sculpture is the equestrian bronze statue of Spain’s King Charles IV, once situated in the central square of Mexico City. This larger-than-life-size Neoclassical work, cast in 1803 in a size not equaled in the art of the colonial period, conveys the command and benevolence of the king, who looks like the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in his toga. Similarly Neoclassical is Tolsá’s central retable in Puebla Cathedral, which is a clear, perfectly circular construction supported by Doric columns (on which are seated a number of polychrome wooden angels).

In the Mexican mining state of Guanajuato at the turn of the 19th century, the architect Francisco Eduardo Tresguerras, born in Mexico and self-educated from architectural books, proved to be also a painter of considerable talent. His self-portrait recalls that of his Spanish contemporary Francisco de Goya in its severe coloration, absence of background, and unflattering realism. In addition to designing the church of El Carmen for Celaya, his birthplace, Tresguerras painted the murals for one of its side chapels; these display geometric stylization and composition rendered in muted primary colours.

About this time (1808–21), while Portugal itself was occupied by Napoleonic troops, the Portuguese moved the royal family and court to their colony in Brazil. In 1816 the monarchy brought over a group of French academicians for an artistic mission to make Rio de Janeiro an appropriate capital. Two such imports were the brothers Auguste-Marie and Nicolas-Antoine Taunay, each of whom had a separate task: Auguste-Marie created Neoclassical busts of the emperor and generals—a format from the Roman tradition—while Nicolas made Neoclassical oil paintings of Rio, with an emphasis on realistic details and the New World’s great expanse of space. Nicolas also rendered impressive history paintings, depicting moments such as the arrival of the princess Leopoldina from Europe. In this and other paintings by academic artists of the period, human figures assume their accurate scale in relationship to their surroundings, rather than a dramatizing heroic proportion. These works were intended to reflect the stability and order imposed on the world by “enlightened” European rulers.

Such attempts to establish colonial control over the Spanish and Portuguese Americas were no longer effective, however—in the arts or otherwise—and so, at the beginning of the 19th century, Latin America moved toward independence.