The history of art in Colombia divides into four time periods: 1) pre-Colombian, 2) Colonial, 3) post-Independence, and 4) modern.

There is evidence of pre-Colombian culture going as far back as 5940 BC, mostly by the animal, human, and geometric designs on pottery dating from that age. However, the scarcity of information regarding this people who made them has many assessing the meaning of such work a challenge. Later civilizations such as the Taironas and the Muiscas were skilled metallurgists, particularly with gold, and their work – pendants, figurines, necklaces – was rich with political and religious detail.

However, due to this work being made of gold, much of it has been lost owing to the officially sanctioned looting on behalf of the Spanish crown, which resulted in many sacred and ceremonial artifacts and sculptures being taken to Spain and melted down.

After the Spanish conquest, Colombian art was almost entirely thematically ecclesiastical and derived from previous medieval, mannerist, and renaissance styles imported from Europe, but the native Colombians who were trained in these arts retained some of their own cultural legacy in their work, particularly in the older churches in Colombia, which evince elements of indigenous design.

However, at this stage in history, Spanish-born or Spanish-descended artists prevailed on Colombian soil. The first notable artist, Alonso de Narváez, is such less for a particular originality than with a legend about a particular portrait he painted on cloth of the Virgin and child, flanked by two saints. Reportedly the colors quickly faded and the canvas began to rot, yet after it was put away in storage it was found years later to have become completely restored.

The dominant style during this time was Baroque; emotional to the point of visual melodrama. Baltasar de  Figueroa, like Narváez, from Seville, integrated native influences to his European sensibility, and his legacy was continued by his sons. 

The most important painter of the colonial era was Gregorio Vázquez de Arce y Ceballos. A prolific painter, his original portrait of the Trinity as a three-faced being (inverting Dante’s three-faced Satan from the Divine Comedy) was later condemned as heresy partly due to its resemblance to Hindu idols.

The artist responsible for a series of paintings known as the Sopo Archangels is unknown, but the paintings retain are notable for the androgynous nature of their subjects.

The 19^th century Republican period, after Independence, is considered negligible by most scholars. Some attribute this to Colombia’s geography, which kept artists isolated from each other and the world, and thus retarded the evolution of new forms. However, two notable painters in the latter part of the century were Mercedes Delgado Mallarino de Martinez, one of the few women artists of the time, and Ricardo Acevedo Bernal, a combination painter, composer, photographer, and even diplomat.

Colombia’s Modern Art movement began in 1920, with artists such as Santiago Martínez Delgado and Pedro Nel Gómez imported the Mexican muralist movement to their native country. Later artists, such as Ricardo Gómez Campuzano and Carlos Correa revealed the influence of post-impressionism and cubism in their work. The Spanish-born Alejandro Obregón introduced his own expressionist romanticism, influenced by Picasso, and with a heavy environmental, political, and sexual focus.  Along with Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar, Édgar Negret, Enrique Grau, Fernando Botero he was considered a member of Colombia’s “Big Five” artists. Of the latter, Fernando Botero is also the most famous Colombian artist ever, sharing a celebrity status rivaled only by novelist Gabriel García Márquez and singer Shakira. His “fat people” and “fat animal” sculptures and paintings, often humorous, are sold for millions, yet he is not shied away from tackling any number of controversial themes, from criticizing the Church to human rights abuses committed by the American government.

Culture and Arts

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