Latin American Art

Latin American art, artistic traditions that developed in Mesoamerica, Central America, and South America after contact with the Spanish and Portuguese beginning in 1492 and 1500, respectively, and continuing to the present.

The European discovery, conquest, and settlement of the Americas, beginning in 1492, created enormous changes in the indigenous cultures of the region. When Europeans arrived, primarily from Spain and Portugal, they brought with them traditions of painting and sculpture dating back to ancient times. For centuries, indigenous American peoples had similarly shaped civilizations with their own unique artistic practices, from the large political structures of the Inca and Aztec empires to the more dispersed presence of small groups of nomadic peoples. The importation of African slaves led to the presence of ancient African visual arts traditions in the region as well.

Over the decades and centuries following European contact, Latin America experienced radical cultural and political changes that would lead to the independence movements of the 19th century and the social upheavals of the 20th century. Visual arts production in the region reflected these changes. Latin American artists have often superficially accepted styles from Europe and the United States, modifying them to reflect their local cultures and experiences. At the same time, these artists have often retained many aspects of indigenous traditions. As Latin America has searched for its own identity, its artists have looked to its past, its popular culture, its religion, its political environment, and its personal imagination to create a distinct tradition of Latin American art.
Historiography

The appreciation of Latin American art and its history began as a nationalist effort in the second half of the 19th century, inspired in part by the independence movements that took place there at the turn of the century. At first, discussions of the visual arts were usually written by learned amateurs, often priests or architects, or by wide-eyed foreigners. These writings often had the structure of a travelogue, in which important monuments in each location were described in somewhat romantic and non-technical terms. The writers generally did not possess a great knowledge of art history, but often brought with them knowledge from having lived in Europe and seen the famous monuments that inspired works in various Latin American countries. After the secularization of church property in countries such as Mexico, some constructions were not maintained and their contents were looted, making such documentation important.

Native art historians initially had to go abroad for training, but national institutes for the study of the arts were established in Latin America in the 1930s as part of governments or major universities. As Latin American scholars of this period studied their own visual history, they tended to focus on the history of one nation, rarely examining it in relation to other countries.

During World War II, numerous European scholars fled fascist oppression by going into exile in Latin America. These art historians applied European scholarly methods to the body of cultural material they saw and developed a chronology for the region that related Latin American artistic styles to those of Europe. Many scholars in the United States, blocked at the same time from doing the on-site research in Europe for which they had been trained, also applied their methodology to Latin America. Scholars in Europe and the United States tended to emphasize similarities across national and regional borders in Latin America. Latin Americans themselves tended to emphasize their national traditions, with a few exceptions.

In the late twentieth century, as the realm of contemporary art became increasingly global, Latin American art entered the mainstream of international art criticism, and its artists were widely recognized, whether they lived as expatriates in New York City or Paris or exhibited in the cultural capitals of their home countries. The Internet linked the world even more than air travel, and international museums and critics became increasingly willing to look to Latin America for upcoming artists. At the same time, Latin American art centers such as Mexico City developed strong national art scenes with their own established critics, museums, and galleries.
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