Pre-Columbian sculpture
At an altitude of almost 4,000 metres, the Tiwanaku civilization takes us back 3,500 years. However, its apogee was between the5th
and 11th centuries. The remains of the Tiwanaku site attest to the political and cultural influence that the pre-Inca Empire exercised for six centuries. The Tiwanaku are distinguished by their mastery of stonework, particularly in the monoliths, these austere figures, sometimes carrying a sceptre or a weapon. Their art reveals similarities with the Huari, a people of builders who also produced exceptional ceramics. But the most striking common feature is the tear in the corner of the eyes of the figures sculpted by these two civilizations. On the site, in the heart of the City of the Sun, the Sun Gate, made of a ten-ton stone block, has a finely chiseled pediment. A deity appears surrounded by dozens of winged creatures, some with human faces, others with condor heads. Legend has it that the door holds a secret destined to guide a future humanity.Another masterpiece, the Ponce monolith is also decorated with engravings. Among its motifs from the Aymara symbolism, fish, pumas and eagles. In the Tiwanaku Archaeological Museum, the famous Bennett Monolith is enthroned, a red stone giant with a face hidden by a ceremonial mask. Dated to 1,700 years ago, it is more than 7 meters high.
Spirituality continues to be celebrated every year at this place of worship, during the summer solstice.Emergence of painting
In the 14th century, the pictorial research underway in Europe slowly reached America. The materials available in Bolivia forced artists to adapt. However, painting served above all as a means of evangelization and the religious mission could not wait. This is why painting on canvas and frescoes were favoured. Polychrome sculpture, painting on metal and on wood were also used to a lesser extent to convert the Indians.
In the Andes, painting on canvas was spread by masters who arrived from Italy in the 16th century. Three painters had a considerable influence on colonial painting by bringing Mannerism, a style that was prevalent in Latin America, even though Flemish engravings were already instilling the trend in small ways: the Jesuit Bernardo Bitti (1575), Mateo Pérez de Alesio (1588) and Angelino Medoro (1600).
Bitti arrived in America at the age of 28. His solid, idealized figures with gentle faces are reminiscent of Michelangelo. The natives appreciate his luminous and colorful paintings, which explains his influence on Bolivian popular art. Bitti practiced his art in Indian villages and urban centers such as Cuzco and Potosí.
At that time, artists led a nomadic life. Their constant travels helped unify the vision of art throughout the Viceroyalty. For their part, the Indian artists learned from the Europeans. The influence of Bitti on Cusi Guamán, or of Diego de Ortiz on the sculptor Tito Yupanki is undeniable.The School of Potosí
In the 17th century, European models gave rise to original interpretations. The rare portraits, those of donors and benefactors, remain stereotyped.
Nicolas Chávez de Villafuerte, active around 1600, is considered the last Mannerist in Potosí. His contemporaries include Francisco López de Castro and Francisco de Herrera y Velarde. Herrera's art uses chiaroscuro in the manner of Caravaggio. These artists constitute the School of Potosí from which Melchor Pérez de Holguín emerged. Born around 1660, this baroque painter signed his first work in 1687 and then opened his studio in this city, which he never left. Nicknamed the Golden Brush, he developed a style recognizable by his curiously shrunken figures. The immensity of the landscapes in which he grew up is no doubt a factor in his representation of the world. His main disciple was Berrío, born in 1708, who gradually departed from his teaching to develop an assertive style covered in gold. The Convento Museo santa Teresa de Potosí
offers thirty rooms of colonial art.A contemporary of Berrío, the Indian Luis Niño obtained the title of painter and woodcarver. His works reflect the conventional Indian taste, an Americanized version of the Baroque. The Virgin of Victory of Málaga and the commissions for the Bishop of Charcas are noteworthy. The National Museum of Art in La Paz houses paintings from the colonial period, the Flemish, Spanish and Italian schools. The second room shows Holguin and his followers; the next two rooms show the painters of La Paz. The Archangel Arquebusier by the master of Calamarca or The Rite of the Virgin
by Berrio are among the most beautiful examples of an art intended to propagate Christianity. The reforms of King Charles III marked a radical change. The Academies of Arts replaced the associations of craftsmen. Art became scholarly, and Baroque was banished in favour of neo-classicism.Towards modernism
After various classical phases, emerging contemporary painting focuses on Bolivian reality, everyday life, landscapes, urban life. Arturo Borda tackled the first indigenous paintings before Cecilia Guzman took over (1899-1950).
A solitary rider, Marina Núnez del Prado (1910-1995) burst onto the artistic scene at a very young age. Soon, the sensuality of the curves and the treatment of the material characterize her sculptures. The young woman became fascinated by the theme of Indian dances, and then focused on the theme of women. The Indian woman is elevated to the rank of goddess. A great traveller, she met Marc Chagall, Jackson Pollock, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Picasso. Since the 1930s, Marina Núnez del Prado's sculptures have been exhibited on all five continents. Awarded the Condor de los Andes, the highest Bolivian distinction, she married at the age of 64 and ended her life in Lima. The sculptor managed to impose herself as a woman in a male world. The Bolivian woman who transgressed the norms was also one of the first artists to evoke social issues in addition to defending the status of women.Freedom of expression
The 1952 revolution was accompanied by greater freedom of expression. This wave is represented by Walter Solon Romero and Gil Imanà, an influential artist of the second half of the 20th century. Imanà's main theme, new for the time, was the representation of the creative woman.
With the return of democracy in 1982, painting received a new impulse: use of photography, recyclable materials. This was the development of conceptual art, exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Paz.
Nowadays, artists express themselves openly on the walls of La Paz. Street art, favoured in Bolivia, is a real way of life. On the walls, political messages rub shoulders with more aesthetic frescoes. In certain districts, the State finances street art projects with the aim of embellishing the daily life of the residents, while promoting the indigenous culture.
The artistic-bohemian district of La Paz, Sopocachi, is filled with open-air works. About forty artists of multiple nationalities have spread out over 3 zones. On the Avaroa square, Argentinean artists shared the walls of the Carlos de Villegas school. Chileans and Argentines concentrated their frescoes in the Gustavo Medinaceli passage. Finally, the area around the Academy of Fine Arts inspired a number of murals. Among others, the Argentinian Marcelo Carpita calls for respect for the environment. His mural raises awareness of the relationship between man and the Earth through symbols of the four elements.The rise of Bolivian art
Several Bolivian artists born at the beginning of the 20th century have left their mark on the international scene. The most important Bolivian painter is without doubt María Luisa Pacheco. Born in 1919 in La Paz, she worked as a newspaper illustrator before receiving a scholarship to study in Madrid. On her return, she moved to New York, but her paintings, which combine abstraction and figuration, remain impregnated by the Bolivian Aymara and Quechua peoples, as well as by the landscapes of the Andes.
Born the same year in La Paz, Jorge Carrasco expresses his talent through sculpture and painting. He trained in Vienna and Paris and then took a close interest in the Tiahunacu civilization, whose culture he helped to rediscover. During the São Paulo Biennial in 1953, he exhibited alongside Matisse and Picasso. In 1968, he moved to France. His quest for unstable balance may have found its counterpoint in the embellishment of the church of Le Menoux in the Indre.
Graciela Rodo Boulanger was born into a family of artists in 1935. She was destined for a career as a musician, before devoting herself to painting and engraving. In 1979, the United Nations designated her as an official artist for children. After more than 150 exhibitions throughout the world, the artist is now fully recognized.
In the field of photography, Freddy Alborta (1932-2005) is known worldwide for his posthumous portraits of Che Guevara. For a long time a correspondent for international press agencies, he became at the age of 20 the official photographer of President Victor Paz Estenssoro. At the end of the 1980s, he put an end to his journalistic career to become a leader of Bolivian photography. He is particularly interested in folklore and local customs.
Sonia Montéro Falcone, born in 1965 in Santa Cruz, started out as a painter. Elected miss Bolivia, doctor in psychology, she undertakes to create a bridge between her work as a psychologist, art and the social. Through her actions in the United States, she helps to get Latin American artists recognized abroad.
