page_title: Chilean art
section_title: 19th Century - The Traveller-Artists
hierarchical_section_title: Chilean art / 19th Century - The Traveller-Artists
caption_attribution_description: Español: El huaso y la lavandera
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: "The traveller-artists of the 19th century", as they were known, began working at the start of Chile's independence and their influence remains to this day. The paintings and sketches created by these artists were, and continue to be, important in helping to understand, in a didactical way, the early years of republican existence, and are a graphic documentation of the battles that occurred during the country's independence and conflicts with neighbouring countries.
  According to the authors Ivelíc and Galaz, this artistic period should not be referred to as a "generation" or a "movement" as the precursors of Chilean painting did not form a group. They are related only in a chronological sense as they arrived in the country in close succession of one another.
  History
  The beginning of the independence revolution forced Chilean art into the background for a short period. However, soon after the process of independence began, various foreign artists came to Chile on scientific expeditions and to make documentaries, bringing with them their tastes and thematic frameworks, that would go on to influence the future direction of Chilean painting.
  This process created the initial signs of Chilean nationality and the consequent ideas of Chilean style. However, this originality would not be clearly recognisable in Chile until well into the 19th century.
  The concept of “Pintores viajeros del siglo XIX” (Traveller-Artists of the 19th century) was created by historian Luis Álvarez Urquieta, referring to the group of painters who arrived independently of one another in Chile towards the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century. There is a big difference between the style and themes of colonial art and those of this particular period, which lasted until approximately the 19th century. The latter was more varied and rich, ranging from portraits of famous people by artists such as José Gil de Castro and Raymond Monvoisin to the representation of folkloric scenes of independence by the Chilean Manuel Antonio Caro and the German Mauricio Rugendas, [C1] to scientific and bibliographic representation of plants, animals and cities by Claudio Gay, Charles Thorold Wood and the scientist Charles Darwin.
  Painting in the previous period was characterised by its functionality in the task of evangelisation and education. The new trend, however, appreciated art for its intrinsic aesthetic importance, and in this way, painting was no longer regarded as a complement to other arts and science and gained its own value.
  Chilean art suffered through the civil conflict, and it is very difficult to identify a particular trend or style from that era. During the period of the traveller-artists, realism, neoclassicism and romanticism coexisted without overshadowing one another, except in some cases where certain styles prevailed but for short periods only.
  Chronologically speaking, this was a period of profound upheaval in Chilean art. While at the beginning artists maintained a neoclassic Italian style, at the end of the fight for independence, romanticism became more popular as a technique among the patriotic and wealthy circles, which then give way to realism, a style that would prevail until 1840.
caption: El huaso y la lavandera (Huaso and the Laundress) by Mauricio Rugendas
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