In order to present Fine Arts History in Argentina from its origins to the present day, we have to make a segmentation which enables us to offer, if not a complete knowledge, at least the most relevant landmarks. On this occasion, we decided to focus on painting and leave the discussion of sculpture for a next opportunity. This summary will be divided into four large spans: Pre-Hispanic Period, Colonial Period, 19th century to the 1920s, From 1920s to the present day. From one period to the other, there were sudden leaps which were closely related to major political, economic and cultural changes occurring in the country. Every thing here, in El Sur del Sur: Argentina: The country, its culture and its people.
Historiography of Argentine art coincides in naming Argentine Painting since 1920, as the period when the modernization of the Argentine pictorial language took place. Several events support this view: Emilio Pettoruti, the Paris Group and Alfredo Guttero returned from Paris. Xul Solar, the Artists of the People, the Boca Group...
The Argentine Painting from Independence to the 1920 is the period that initiates with the May Revolution. As from May Revolution -and under the influence of lines of thinking derived from French Revolution-, religious subjects, as mentioned for the colonial period, were less present; this time, pictorial activity mainly developed around...
The feature characterizing works from Colonial Period Argentine Fine Arts is, as Héctor Schenone states, “The predominance of religion… and the functionality attributed to art as a tool for persuading and conveying ideas” . Artists and craftsmen worked for the benefit of a community whose life was centered on the...
In the Pre-Hispanic Period Argentine Fine Arts, the most outstanding are the North-west cultures regarded as the ones which reached the highest degree of development before the Spaniards’ arrival. They engaged in agriculture and pottery, basing their economy on agriculture and knowing the techniques for the working of metals, ceramics and...
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