The history of Latin American art is far reaching from the period before colonization up to the present time. As there is only limited space at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, this exhibition will only cover a portion of Latin American art history in one gallery. The theme of this exhibition will focus on Academic History painting from the nineteenth century with the title "Contradicting Political Messages from the Academies." The exhibition will cover the countries of Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba, and address key historical subjects for each area that were popularized through the academies. In this essay, I am going to provide the layout of the exhibition, along with information about each specific piece that I would like to feature in this
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The painting embodies the feeling of violence through the subject of the Conquest. The artist wanted viewers to feel bad when viewing this painting seeing the native figures dead on the stairs and clinging to the central religious figure. As the title of this work highlights, the man standing in the center of this work in Friar Barolome de las Casas. Las Casas traveled to Latin America to prove that the natives should not be enslaved by the Spanish government. His goal was to attest that the natives were only barbaric, because they had not been taught Christianity. His argument was in contrast to Sepulveda, who wanted to enslave the people based on Aristotelian philosophy. This contrast of the dying and begging native figures and Las Casas displays the church as a privileged entity for defending the indigenous peoples ' rights and as a savior to the people. While not a classical subject matter, this painting reflects a historical subject for the Mexican populace. It also depicts the atrocities of the Conquest with key stylistic forms that Parra learned in the academy. For instance, the dead male on the steps highly resembles Caravaggio 's dead Christ in The Entombment of Christ, as his arm hangs down in a similar manner. The expressions displayed through hand placement also are included, …show more content…
Landaluze was concerned with the tempting nature of the African population, so he sought to prevent that idea with his artwork. While Landaluze was a political caricaturist and an editor for Don Juipero, he was also the director of the San Alejandro Academy in Havana. Landaluze 's painting of Corte de Cana displays an idyllic and clean countryside, where slaves are working peacefully. This scene represents a large, modern plantation farm for sugar. There is no brutality in this scene, and the plant overseers do not punish the slaves that are standing around not working. The slaves, however, are not individualized. The slaves on the left side of the painting just represent laboring bodies working in the mud. This is in contrast to the little girl and old woman watching them. The girl is too young to work in the field, and the woman is too old to work. This creates a paradox where the girl may be looking into her future, if she was born before 1868 when slaves born in Cuba were freed, and the woman is looking into her past. Landaluze created this painting to give the semblance that the emancipation of the slaves would not change the overall dynamic and social structure of
The painting embodies the feeling of violence through the subject of the Conquest. The artist wanted viewers to feel bad when viewing this painting seeing the native figures dead on the stairs and clinging to the central religious figure. As the title of this work highlights, the man standing in the center of this work in Friar Barolome de las Casas. Las Casas traveled to Latin America to prove that the natives should not be enslaved by the Spanish government. His goal was to attest that the natives were only barbaric, because they had not been taught Christianity. His argument was in contrast to Sepulveda, who wanted to enslave the people based on Aristotelian philosophy. This contrast of the dying and begging native figures and Las Casas displays the church as a privileged entity for defending the indigenous peoples ' rights and as a savior to the people. While not a classical subject matter, this painting reflects a historical subject for the Mexican populace. It also depicts the atrocities of the Conquest with key stylistic forms that Parra learned in the academy. For instance, the dead male on the steps highly resembles Caravaggio 's dead Christ in The Entombment of Christ, as his arm hangs down in a similar manner. The expressions displayed through hand placement also are included, …show more content…
Landaluze was concerned with the tempting nature of the African population, so he sought to prevent that idea with his artwork. While Landaluze was a political caricaturist and an editor for Don Juipero, he was also the director of the San Alejandro Academy in Havana. Landaluze 's painting of Corte de Cana displays an idyllic and clean countryside, where slaves are working peacefully. This scene represents a large, modern plantation farm for sugar. There is no brutality in this scene, and the plant overseers do not punish the slaves that are standing around not working. The slaves, however, are not individualized. The slaves on the left side of the painting just represent laboring bodies working in the mud. This is in contrast to the little girl and old woman watching them. The girl is too young to work in the field, and the woman is too old to work. This creates a paradox where the girl may be looking into her future, if she was born before 1868 when slaves born in Cuba were freed, and the woman is looking into her past. Landaluze created this painting to give the semblance that the emancipation of the slaves would not change the overall dynamic and social structure of