Salones darianos: fotografía, arte y literatura en la crónica modernista

Abstract

Based on what it has been called the salones darianos, that is, the chronicles that Darío wrote about several art exhibitions that he visited, this work aims to reflect on the role that the image played in the cultural project of modernismo. At the turn of the century, the image’s technological reproducibility broke into both the press and art salons. This was perceived by Darío, who explored the relationship of the photographic image with the incipient cultural industries. Less known than Mundial and Elegancias magazines, the first of Darío’s projects that included a strong presence of images, that is, the “Suplemento Semanal Ilustrado” of La Nación, goes beyond the lettered bias of literary criticism and opens new horizons to modernismo studies. Although this magazine was not directly under his direction, it does coincide with one of the high points of his career in the Argentine newspaper. Darío was for a time the main animator of this magazine, so his performance can be read as a scale model of his operations in pursuit of an expanded artistic field.