Aguinaldo para las señoras del Perú y otros ensayos, 1854–1869

Abstract

Francisco Laso (1823–69) is familiar to Latin American art historians as the painter of El Indo Alfarero/The Indian Potter, ca. 1855, and a few other remarkable images of the indigenous people of Peru. Often described as the isolated forerunner of twentieth-century indigenismo, Laso was an enlightened artist whose work was closely associated with the politics of his day. He invested his figures with a powerful dignity in an effort to reclaim the nation’s heritage and revive its ancient cultural and artistic traditions. Peru’s subsequent indigenista movement concentrated on the living traditions and environment of the Andes, not on the past. Laso’s imagery reveals an empathy and respect for the native people, past and present.After the wars of independence, a few Peruvian artists (like others throughout Latin America) attempted to create a national identity free of European restraints. Following the lead of the nation’s intellectuals and the vagaries of new political administrations, artists used imagery to visualize this new reality and assist in the dissemination of the independence message among the population. However, it was a difficult break from the Academic traditions brought by Europeans and learned in European schools and studios. Francisco Laso began his studies in Lima, then traveled to Europe in 1842 to paint in the studio of Charles Gleyre in Paris. Upon his return to Peru in 1847, he began a search for native subject matter (Europeans were already interested in “exotic” subjects). He actually painted his notable El Indio Alfarero in Paris. After a third trip to Paris in 1863–66, he returned to Lima and became an active participant in Peruvian politics, representing Lima in the Constitutional Assembly and devoting himself to writing. Increased involvement with the intellectuals of the day affected his artistic production, although he is still respected as a painter and the premier artist of the republican period and less recognized for his writing.Editor Natalia Majluf is an art historian whose doctoral thesis was titled “The Creation of the Image of the Indian in Nineteenth Century Peru: The Paintings of Francisco Laso.” Undoubtedly, this research required an understanding of his political writings and the intellectual environment of Peru at that time; her publication of these essays may be seen as a tribute to his work and an effort to reclaim the significance of his activities for the nation’s history. Her comprehensive introduction is an excellent summary of his life’s work and puts it into a context of time and place. The introduction describes Laso as writer and political activist, explaining his role in a generation born with independence and given the responsibility to break with the colonial past and establish a new national iconography and symbolic language, both visual and written. As an accomplished and dedicated artist and writer, Laso could do both. The question Majluf wishes to address is, why have his contributions been overlooked?The most immediate response must be that, despite their relevance to an understanding of Peruvian nation building in midcentury, Laso published relatively few essays. Their publication in newspapers, reviews, and journals—often difficult to access—compounds the problem. This publication will change that situation for Peruvianist historians, offering new material relevant to the analysis of the country’s ideological, sociocultural, and political environment. Laso and his generation wanted to transform the entire populace of Peru (including Indians) into informed citizens. Their participation as writers and members of the new governing administration contributed to this effort. However, who was Laso’s audience? Did his words and actions penetrate the entrenched class system and offer new solutions?The essays are written with the energy of nineteenth-century idealism, which has familiar correlations to bohemian counterparts in revolutionary France. There are elements that may seem condescending in its preaching against European artistic domination, and Laso is also less indebted to the Indian artistic heritage (“almost primitive”) than we may hope for today. But it was the middle of the nineteenth century, and the true value of past Andean traditions—pre-Inca, Inca, and colonial—was not yet recognized. The essays must be read in context. They can also be appreciated as the product of an artist who references the language of painting for visual metaphors that are especially unique. I must disagree with Majluf’s comment that a direct correspondence does not exist between Laso’s paintings and writings (p. 17). Although his creative production as a painter diminished after 1860, he continued to write with the passion of an artist, as well as writing about art. These essays establish Laso as a valuable member of the intelligentsia of his day, both as an artist and a writer.