Mural decoration in Venezuela: notes for a history
Mural | The author has deliberately avoided the term “mural painting” or “muralism” to refer to Venezuelan art that, since the arrival of the Spaniards, has been practiced on walls, ceilings, and vaults, either in tempera on surfaces whitewashed, in coatings made with mosaics, in reliefs or in stained glass windows that replace the walls; even in the practices of covering the walls with tapestries, blankets, pictures or paper, even if they only contain geometric or floral motifs. Roldán Esteva-Grillet has preferred to use the expression “mural decoration” for a simple reason: the phenomenon of large-format painting intended to cover architectural surfaces, mural painting, has a very different social nature and historical burden than They arose in Mexico since pre-Hispanic times.
Abstract
The author has deliberately shied away from the term “mural painting” or “muralism” in order to discuss Venezuelan art which, since the arrival of the Spaniards, has been expressed on walls, roofs, and vaults, on surfaces ranging from whitewashed temple walls to mosaics, reliefs or stained-glass windows. This practice also includes covering walls with wallpaper, hangings, pictures, or paper, despite only containing geometric or floral motifs. Roldán Esteva-Grillet has preferred to use the term “mural decoration” for a simple reason: the phenomenon of large-scale painting designed to cover architectural spaces or mural painting has a social nature and historical connotation that differ considerably from those characterizing Mexico since pre-Hispanic times.
Introduction _
Among us there was not properly a parietal painting within pre-Hispanic art, as in Teotihuacan or Bonampak (Mexico), only schematic petroglyphs, more linked to magical or mythical thought than to a historical consciousness or a naturalistic record of the surrounding world.1 The practice of muralism in Venezuela can be dated, therefore, from colonial times, both in convents and in private homes, and in both environments, the importation of European techniques and motifs prevailed. On the other hand, our tradition lacks a tributary art that could cover up an autochthonous practice, with buried indigenous symbolism, mixed with techniques and images learned from Hispanic Christianity, as in the Augustinian convent of Ixmiquilpan (Mexico). At most, one or another case of incorporation of tropical fauna and flora, either as a concession to the natural environment of the indigenous or as an identification of the richness of the tropics.
With the demands of a new republican iconography, Wall Murals painting acquires the academic artistic relief that we recognize today. In the 20th century, author muralism began to bifurcate between an officialized practice, quickly exhausted in the Bolivarian vicissitudes, and an Americanist proposal with Mexican influence and sociopolitical or supposedly revolutionary content.
The experience of the University City in the 1950s makes room for non-figurative avant-garde currents.
Mural decoration
Throughout these five centuries, mural decoration has varied in techniques and motifs, from the use of tempera paint on whitewashed walls to coatings based on mosaics, reliefs or, replacing the wall, by means of stained glass; without forgetting the practices of covering walls with blankets, paintings or papers with geometric or floral motifs. By mural decoration, we will also understand here that intended for ceilings, whether in applications to the woodwork of churches (alfarje), or in ceilings or vaults of other buildings.
The country has continued to live, in a variety of technical and stylistic solutions, the mural practice, sometimes understood as plastic integration, now extended from the architectural to the urban. The noblest continuation of that integrationist experience today is undoubtedly the Caracas Metro.
As a late derivation, we should mention the murals of popular and anonymous origin or character, of such varied utility for suburban and rural communities that do not have access to the large information and advertising media. Art that only aims to communicate with simple messages of daily urgency or ideals of collective happiness, reveals how useful the artistic image can be to the common man.
The colonial tradition
Among the decorative arts developed in Venezuela, some had a special destiny: to decorate the interior or exterior walls of private or public buildings. Within this last type of mural decoration, we should include the reliefs and moldings of the masonry facades or, exceptionally, of carved stone: portals, lintels, pilasters, dust covers, and shields.
From the chronological point of view, some decorative forms coexisted; others disappeared before the push of new fashions, only to reappear later. Only through testamentary and the few examples that have come down to us has it been possible to establish a certain periodization. The first references refer to the “blankets” with figures and heraldic symbols in the house of Don Pedro de Barrionuevo, in Nueva Cadiz (16th century).
chronological point
Once on Tierra Firme, when the colonization process had begun, the Church, due to doctrinal necessity, was the promoter of all the arts, including mural decoration. Unfortunately, from churches and convents, places par excellence of Christian indoctrination, that decoration has almost completely disappeared. There are also only photographic testimonies of the decorations of the front of Clarine’s temple (Anzoátegui state). As a concession to the mestizo culture, we must point out the testimony of Alejandro de Humboldt during his visit to the east of the country in 1799:
The exceptional nature of Nueva Cadiz, of rapid prosperity and decline, would explain a case that would only be verified again in the second half of the 18th century, in Tierra Firme, due to the new circumstances of social wealth provided by the Compañía Guipuzcoana. Thanks to the archival investigations of Carlos F. In the inventory of Doña María de la Concepción Palacios y Blanco, mother of the Liberator, there are eight wool tapestries with “figures”
walls that in some
The European industrial revolution brought, however, the substitution of fabric (wool, damask, silk) for printed or hand-painted paper. The ranch house of Don Ignacio Aristiguieta, in El Valle, had its dais covered with this new wallpaper. A variant was the “sprinkled paper” that imitated in certain parts the original texture, like the one registered in 1782 in the house of Don Clemente del Valle, in Petare: “paper upholstery molded in the wool”. By the end of the 18th century, this type of decoration also entered public buildings, such as the chapter house of the Caracas City Hall.
Entered public buildings
This stimulated the appearance of autochthonous decorations commissioned by local painters, replacing imported wallpaper. In 1782, in Caracas, the house of the priest Juan Felix Aristiguieta had baseboards painted in fresco and tempera but also figures in the bedroom. The “link” house, donated by Aristiguieta to the boy Simón Bolívar, was located on the corner of Gradillas, and was the official residence of Captain General Juan Vicente Emparan (1747-1820) before being occupied by María Antonia Bolívar, sister of the Liberator. . From that time would derive the decorations described and criticized in 1822 by the English colonel William Duane:
The fashion for illusionist decoration spread from Europe under the influence of the discoveries of Pompeii and Herculaneum. That neoclassical taste for medallions with busts of philosophers or mythological scenes will last during the 19th century (Casa de Boves, Villa de Cura, Casa de Páez, and Valencia, both decorated by Pedro Castillo; figures 1 and 2 ).