page_title: Chilean art
section_title: Foreign Precursors of Chilean painting
hierarchical_section_title: Chilean art / Foreign Precursors of Chilean painting
context_page_description: Chilean art refers to all kinds of visual art developed in Chile, or by Chileans, from the arrival of the Spanish conquerors to the modern day. It also includes the native pre-Columbian pictorial expression on modern Chilean territory.
context_section_description: Among historians, it is established that the beginning of the arrival of foreign artists to Chile is marked by the arrival of the Peruvian artist José Gil de Castro. The popular painter was dedicated to painting portraits of the leaders of the revolution against the Spanish, such as Ramón Freire, Bernardo O'Higgins, Isabel Riquelme, José de San Martín and Simón Bolivar. His technique largely resembles the Cuzco School so his portrayal of faces was not particularly accurate, appearing flat and lacking in expression. Regardless of his skill as a portrait painter, the decorative details of his work are appreciated by Ricardo Bindis in his book History of Chilean Painting, who praises the way the artist treated the medals and other details present on the Caudillos and Revolution leaders’ outfits.
  
   
  Another foreign painter of great importance to the newly formed nation was Charles Wood, an English painter who specialised in nautical scenes and contributed a large collection of paintings of remarkable historical value. Among his most famous works are Naufragio del Arethusa (Shipwreck of Arethusa) Toma de la fragata Esmeralda por la Escuadra de Chile de Lord Cochrane (The Capture of the Frigate Emerald by the Chilean Fleet of Lord Cochrane) and El General Baquedano en Campaña (General Baquedano on Campaign). According to literature, Charles Wood personally witnessed the capture of the Esmeralda frigate and he later created several reproductions of this scene. He is also credited with the design of the national coat of arms of Chile, an important contribution to the Chilean Republic.
  Both the German artist Mauricio Rugendas and the French artist Ernesto Charton de Treville had an important role in portraying the typical customs of the country. Their travel through Chile produced many pictorial scenes of the birth of the newly formed republic. Among the most popular works of these artists, we find Fiesta campestre (Country Festival), La Batalla de Maipu (Battle of Maipu), and El huaso y la lavandera (Huaso and the Laundress) from Rugendas; and Plaza de Armas de Santiago (Central Square of Santiago) and La Casa de la Moneda (House of La Moneda) from Charton. Both artists are examples of travelling painters who documented what they saw.
  One of the most renowned painters in Chile was French artist Raymond Monvoisin, the pioneer of the portrait in Chile. His work focused on the representation of the top aristocrats of his time, most notably Carmen Alcalde y Velasco Cazotte, General and President Manuel Bulnes, Mariano Egaña and Venezuelan politician Andrés Bello who became a Chilean national. The French artist popularised portrait painting within the Chilean elite; his direct disciples were Francisco Javier Mandiola and Jose Manuel Ramirez Rosales who inherited much of his technique and his colour schemes as well as a fascination with French culture. Mandiola, unlike Rosales and Monvoisin, preferred to portray peasants, children and homeless people, depicting the lower Chilean classes. Monvoisin was asked several times to assume the role of Director at the Academy of Fine Arts which the government looked to found but the artist had refused on several occasions previously, before Alejandro Ciccarelli  finally took the position.
  Foreign Artists belonging to this group
  Claudio Gay  = French botanist and naturalist, one of the first students of Chilean wildlife.
  José Gil de Castro  = Transition artist whose arrival in Chile marked the beginning of the period; pioneer portraitist of America's independence heroes, such as Bernardo O'Higgins, José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar.
  Charles Thorold Wood = English documentary painter and designer of the national emblem of Chile at the time, adding the huemul and Andean condor.
  Mauricio Rugendas = German painter and illustrator, toured several Latin American countries detailing their culture and wildlife. Worked with the father of modern geography, Alexander von Humboldt.
  Raymond Monvoisin = French portrait painter, contributed to the formation of a national painting academy in Chile. Left seve
caption: Combate Naval Iquique (The Battle of Iquique), Thomas Somerscales
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