The paintings that illustrated our school manuals They are the ones that allowed us to imagine, from childhood, the main instances of the national past. The declaration of Independence, the battles of San Martín or the personality of Rosas or Belgrano they exist in our memory thanks to the works created by painters or engravers, who were not always witnesses of the events they captured on the canvas.
With this guiding idea, The National Historical Museum decided to gather in the exhibition “Painters of history”, a set of oil paintings from his collection that today are part of the imagination of Argentines. These are, for the most part, paintings made at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, around the date of the Centennial of the May Revolution. “At that time there was an operation to create images of the Argentine past -explains Gabriel Di Meglio, historian and current director of the National Historical Museum-. One of those who intervened in this creation was precisely this Museum through its first director, Adolfo Carranza, who commissioned some of these paintings, which later became very famous. The objective in the paintings of this time was to relate moments of which there were no images, transmit patriotic and epic values, and show who the builders of the country were.
Within the exhibition some of the most famous works of Cándido López on the War of the Triple Alliance, “The last moments of Manuel Dorrego” by Fausto Eliseo Coppini, “Baile de negros. Carnival in the time of Roses” by Pedro Figari and “The Capitulation of Salta” by Augusto Ballerini.
To understand the context in which these paintings, which have been reproduced thousands of times to this day, were created, we asked Di Meglio to choose three essential paintings from the Museum’s collection. Here the plot of three images, their authors and the historical moments they reflected.
the painter of battles
Son of a Chilean diplomat, Pedro Subercaseaux Errazuriz was born in Rome in 1880. He trained as an artist in schools in Germany, France and Italy. In 1902 he settled in Chile and became the great painter of historical subjects of the time, with great skill in reflecting the dynamism of battles. Two of the paintings chosen by the director of the National Historical Museum belong to him.
The first of these works is “The open town hall of May 22, 1810”, which was painted in 1908 and represents one of the highlights of the week of May. “It was commissioned by the Museum, by the founder and first director, Adolfo Pedro Carranza, who in an epistolary dialogue told him about Subercaseaux how he wanted the painting to be seen,” Di Meglio explains. As many of the historical art painters of the time did, Subercaseaux documented himself and asked Carranza who had to be in the painting, which is one of the most famous in Argentina.
In the work you can see several characters who intervened in the debate, such as Juan José Paso, Juan José Castelli, Bishop Benito Lué and several others. “Carranza was a great admirer of Mariano Moreno, which is why he asked the painter to place him in the painting, although Moreno did not have an important participation that day. He put it on the far right, sitting and thinking about the situation that is happening, ”explains Di Meglio. The painting became a classic and was reproduced so many times that many believe that what it shows really happened that way.
The other painting by Subercaseaux chosen is “Battle of Chacabuco”, also from 1908, which portrays San Martín in front of his troops, at the end of the Andes Crossing. “Chacabuco is going to be the victory that will allow the patriots to start the process of independence for Chile,” says Di Meglio. What is interesting is that Subercaseaux chose to paint Saint Martin on a white horse, a decision that highlights his place as a hero in the image. However, it is not documented that San Martín was, at that time, on a white horse. But the data will remain in the collective imagination. That is why it is a painting that has had a very important place in the construction of the image of San Martín as father of the country and hero”.
the great artist
Surely everyone remembers Juan Manuel Blanes (1830-1901) by “An episode of yellow fever in Buenos Aires”, a painting that has become famous in recent years, illustrating articles and books on the pandemic. But Blanes was also a great painter of historical subjects, who received important training in Europe. “The magazine of Rancagua” (1872), today a heritage of the National Historical Museum, is part of the exhibition “Painters of history” and is another of the jewels of this exhibition.
“It is one of the great works that initiate historical art in the region. What is interesting is that it describes an event that did not really exist”, explains Di Meglio.
In 1820, upon learning of the collapse of the government of the United Provinces, San Martín preferred to resign his position at the head of the Army of the Andes. But the officers under his command met in Rancagua and decided to designate him themselves as his chief, in the name of the town. The act that was signed for this purpose is now exhibited in the Historical Museum. “Part of that army that you see in the painting are troops of Afro-descendants, who made up the 8th Regiment of freedmen, that is, men who had the promise of freedom at the end of their military service. You can also see a child from behind and a dog in the image. There were always dogs in Blanes’ paintings. They are like a way of entering painting”.
Instead of putting up the flag of the army in the Andes, Blanes painted those of Argentina and Chile. In the midst of a period of consolidation of national identities, no one was amused that the painting celebrated the two countries. “Blanes couldn’t sell it- concludes Di Meglio-. Finally, the Uruguayan government acquired it and gave it to Argentina for the centenary of the birth of San Martín. This is how it came to the country and became part of the collection of the National Historical Museum”.
Image gallery
