National Museum of Fine Arts (Chile)
The National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA) is one of the main centers for the dissemination of visual arts in Chile. Founded on September 18, 1880 under the name of Museo Nacional de Pinturas, it is the first art museum in Latin America. Since 1910 it occupies a building located in the Forestal Park in downtown Santiago, the Palace of Fine Arts, the work of the architect Franco -Chilean Emile Jéquier built to commemorate the centenary of the country and declared a Historical Monument in 1976. Its design is inspired by the Petit Palais in Paris.
The museum has an artistic patrimony made up of more than 3000 pieces, acquired through purchases, donations and awards from official salons; It has the main selection of Chilean sculpture and the second most complete national painting in the country after the Casa del Arte or Pinacoteca of the University of Concepción. The works cover national artistic production since colonial times; In addition, it preserves nuclei of universal art, highlighting its collections of Spanish, Flemish and Italian paintings, its collection of kakemonos and engravings, its collections of drawings and photographs, and a set of African sculptures.
It has a library specializing in visual arts with approximately 100,000 volumes, holds temporary and traveling exhibitions, maintains an educational program, with workshops, courses, and guided tours, and produces informative material.
History
Background
In the middle of the XIX century, the consolidation of a period of great cultural effervescence was observed in Chile, the product of a series of government policies that were part of a national republican project, with a view to creating, developing and disseminating culture, science and the arts in the country. This historical process gave rise to the foundation of institutions such as the University of Chile (1842), the Academy of Painting (1849) and the National Conservatory of Music (1850). The birth of the Academy of Painting, in particular, made it urgent to create adequate spaces to preserve and exhibit the works of art that made up its collection. In addition, the directors of the academy, such as Alejandro Ciccarelli, Ernesto Kirchbach and Juan Mochi, were obliged, by contract, to produce and donate to the institution a certain number of works at the end of each term.
In parallel with the growth of the academy's collection, other events contributed to the formation of a favorable environment for creating an art museum in the country. One was the Artistic Society, founded by Pedro Lira and Luis Dávila Larraín in 1867, created with the aim of promoting national pictorial and sculptural production which, after changing its name to Unión Artística, built its own building to house annual exhibitions: the Parthenon of the Quinta Normal, today the headquarters of the Museum of Science and Technology. Another, the first official exhibition, organized by Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna in the Central Market, in which some members of the Painting Academy participated, such as Antonio Smith, Manuel Antonio Caro, Cosme San Martín, Onofre Jarpa and Alberto Orrego Luco.
In November 1879, the sculptor José Miguel Blanco published an article in the Chilean Magazine, then directed by Diego Barros Arana and Miguel Luis Amunátegui, where he proposed establishing a museum of fine arts, in the line of those existing in Europe. With the support of General Marcos Segundo Maturana, Blanco managed to attract the interest of the Chilean government, which, by decree of the then Minister of Justice and Public Instruction, Manuel García de la Huerta, appointed a commission —made up of Maturana, Blanco and Juan Mochi— to create the museum the following year.
Inauguration and early years
Inaugurated in the presence of President Aníbal Pinto on September 18, 1880 under the name of the Museo Nacional de Pinturas, at that time it had 140 paintings by Chilean and foreign artists, as well as copies of consecrated works of Western art. The original collection was made up of pieces transferred from La Moneda, the Municipality of Santiago, the National Library and the University of Chile, among other public institutions. Juan Mochi, who headed the Academy of Painting, was appointed its first director. In its first seven years of existence, the museum functioned precariously, in the premises of the old National Congress, leading an almost anonymous existence, since it opened to the public only on Sundays after noon.
In 1887, due to the difficulty of reconciling the legislative activities of Congress with the exhibitions, the government acquired the building of the Union of Art, the Partenón de la Quinta Normal, to house the museum. The institution, renamed the National Museum of Fine Arts, was transferred to the new premises, but had to be administered by a new steering committee; This created the Official Salon, in the style of the famous Paris salons, open to national and foreign artists residing in Chile, which took place annually in the month of November. Until 1897, however, public access to the museum was limited to the periods in which said halls were organized, remaining closed during the rest of the year. This situation changed during the administration of the painter Enrique Lynch del Solar, when the museum began to open daily.
Lynch criticized the working conditions imposed on him, including inadequate facilities, under-resources and under-staffing. The lack of space forced the pieces to be moved to other buildings when the official salons were held, exposing them to risk, while the copies remained stored in the warehouses due to the lack of places to exhibit them.
New Headquarters
It wasn't just the museum that suffered from a lack of space. The School of Fine Arts, successor to the Academy of Painting, located in an inadequate building in a neighborhood far from the center, had the same problem. Thus, in April 1902, the Ministry of Education appointed a commission in order to prepare a tender to build a new building to house the two institutions. Initially, it selected a place near the Santa Lucía hill, but that choice was vetoed by the Municipality, which had the intention of building a square on that site (currently Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna square); It was then proposed to buy the Urmeneta palace, which was rejected by Congress. Finally, the mayor Enrique Cousiño, with the collaboration of Alberto Mackenna, managed to provide the commission with a vacant lot of 24,000 m², which arose as a result of the canalization of the Mapocho river, in 1904.
In May 1905, the commission chose the design created by the French-Chilean architect Emile Jecquier. In the French academic style, the façade and internal organization of the project resembled the Petit-Palais in Paris. The government's decision to build the building, called the Palace of Fine Arts, also arose from the need to commemorate the first centenary of independence with a permanent symbol. As construction progressed, the museum invited various countries to participate with works of art in a major international exhibition. The number of works sent exceeded expectations, so some measures were taken to expand the exhibition area, such as the possibility of using mobile panels and setting up the workshops in the annex building of the School of Fine Arts (today the headquarters of the Museum of Art Contemporary).
The Palace of Fine Arts was inaugurated on September 21, 1910 with the presence of Presidents Emiliano Figueroa Larraín (Chile) and José Figueroa Alcorta (Argentina). The exhibition, considered the most important event of the centennial celebrations, featured 1,741 international works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and watercolors by artists from Germany, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, France, England, Spain, and the United States., Holland, Italy and Portugal. The national section was made up of 252 works.
Deterioration of the building and institutional problems
With the museum already installed in the new headquarters, the director Enrique Lynch del Solar sought to distribute the works in a harmonious way. In the central hall , he installed the original marble and bronze sculptures, in addition to the collection of specimens of ancient sculptures. In the south wing on the ground floor, he collected the original paintings and reserved a room for the copies. Pieces acquired during the centennial exhibition were located on the second floor and complemented by the museum's collection of European paintings. In the rooms of the north wing were works of Chilean art, as well as pieces donated by Colonel Marcos Segundo Maturana and Eusebio Lillo.
The museum registered a significant volume of visits in the years that followed the inauguration of the Palace of Fine Arts. In 1913, for example, more than 28,000 visitors were registered. Problems, however, began to arise almost immediately, as the building was opened when it was not yet fully completed, and much work had been done hastily with in order to be able to inaugurate it for the centenary celebrations.
A surprise visit by the president of the republic in December 1915 allowed him to verify the precarious situation of the building. The president informed the director of his wishes to deliver the necessary funds for the repairs, but the money was transferred only in 1922, when the museum was already under the direction of Pedro Prado. An important administrative reform legally linked the institution with the Directorate of Libraries, Archives and Museums in 1920, which as of 2018 was renamed the National Service for Cultural Heritage.
Chronic lack of resources brought the museum to the brink of closure. The consolidation of a cultural policy became impossible in light of the constant changes in management: after the Lynch administration (1897-1918), it had six directors in a decade.
In 1930, the museum celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a major exhibition of Chilean art, based on the collection of Luis Álvarez Urquieta (later acquired by the museum) and donations from individuals such as Santiago Ossa and Carlos Cousiño. But the precarious functioning of the institution showed a clear cooling of the initial impulse that had given rise to its creation. An article published in the Revista de Arte, of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Chile, pointed out in 1938 that the museum "remains longer with its doors closed than open to the public and which is perhaps the only museum in the world that closes at noon". In 1940, the painter Julio Ortiz de Zárate, then director of the museum, complained about the total lack of resources to acquire pieces and produce catalogues; He also pointed out that the absence of a restoration workshop generated a risk of deterioration of the artistic heritage.
In 1946, Luis Vargas Rosas assumed the leadership, a position in which he remained until 1970. His long administration faced problems similar to the previous ones, achieving, however, some important improvements. In 1953, for the first time, the museum exceeded one hundred thousand visitors, to which the retrospective of the painter Juan Francisco González contributed, which commemorated the centenary of his birth. But the deterioration of the physical space and the lack of financial resources led to its gradual isolation from the cultural circuit and its function was replaced by other institutions. An example of this was the exhibition From Cézanne to Miró, organized in the late 1960s with the support of the Museum of Modern Art in New York at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and with the visit of more than 200,000 people.
Restructuring, military dictatorship and 1985 earthquake
In 1969, Nemesio Antúnez became director of the museum, immediately beginning to restructure it. One of the most important initiatives was the construction of the Matta room in the basement of the Palacio de Bellas Artes, with a surface area of 600 m², suitable for temporary exhibitions. He was also concerned with establishing an agenda of cultural events and in 1971, for example, he managed to hold 38 exhibitions. That year, for the second time in its history, the museum exceeded 100,000 visitors, registering an influx of 166,000 people.
With the aim of disseminating the artistic heritage of the museum, Antúnez started the program Ojo con el arte which, broadcast by Channel 13 of the Catholic University, sought to improve the school guidance service created in 1965, inviting established artists to guide visitors, including sculptor Laura Rodig. Other activities were also incorporated and space was provided for music, dance, film and theater performances, trying to reformulate the museum as a cultural center integrating various arts. Antúnez left his position as director as a result of the coup d'état of September 11, 1973. On the day that the presidency of the socialist Salvador Allende ended, the Palace of Fine Arts suffered an attack and two paintings were damaged by bullet impacts fired by soldiers: La guasa, by Clara Filleul and Portrait of my sister by Francisco Mandiola; This incident could have been much more serious if the works by José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros in the exhibition that was going to open in the museum had been hanging; Shortly after, the Mexican embassy took the 164 pieces that remained packed to the diplomatic headquarters and organized the shipment to their homeland (in 2014 Manuel Tello filmed a documentary with the witnesses of the events, with the painter and photographer Sergio Berthoud, who he took black and white snapshots of the impacts the next day, after Antúnez called him, and with comments from Ramón Castillo, former curator of the institution; the sample of the Mexicans could finally be carried out in November 2015).
Between 1974 and 1978, the museum was run by sculptor Lily Garafulic. Its administration was characterized by the drop in the pace of the museum's activity and the refusal of several artists to exhibit, due to the existing military dictatorship in the country. This context led to a sharp decline in the number of visitors: a little over 30,000 people in 1975. Some of the alternatives for institutional recovery were proposed by the private sector. The National Securities Underwriter, for example, began to sponsor annual painting, sculpture, and graphic arts contests in 1976. Also with private support, the museum reformed the José Miguel Blanco Auditorium and the Chile Room. Exhibitions such as Bauhaus (1977) and Peru's Gold (1978) helped increase the number of visitors. During his tenure, a Laboratory for the Restoration and Conservation of Works of Art, which later led to the National Center for Conservation and Restoration. In December 1976, the museum was named a historical monument, through Supreme Decree No. 1290 of the Ministry of Education.
In 1978, Nena Ossa took over the management, seeking to continue the renovation of the physical space. In 1979, with a grant from the Municipality, the Greek Amphitheater was remodeled. The following year, the exhibition rooms on the second floor were arranged, and in 1981 with private funds, the museum opened an audiovisual room. However, the institution continued to be criticized by various sectors of the artistic field, for reflecting an institutional agenda linked to the military dictatorship. The censorship suffered by some works of art and the decision to change the name of the Sala Matta (due to the political thinking of Roberto Matta, a critic of the dictatorship) were factors that increased the distance between the museum and the artistic community.
The 1985 Santiago earthquake caused severe damage to the museum. The evaluation of the engineers who examined the building concluded that it was necessary to structurally strengthen the palace and close it to the public while the renovation work was carried out. The work of strengthening the structure and waterproofing the walls lasted three years. The museum was reopened in September 1988. To help finance the reconstruction work, the Fine Arts Foundation was created, in order to raise funds together with the private initiative. Subsequently, the purpose of the foundation was to finance temporary exhibitions.
Later Years
In the early 1990s, after the return to democracy, cultural institutions in Chile began to promote initiatives that sought to recover civic values and the form of organization of society. At the same time, the art community yearned to play a more active role in the historical period that had begun. In this context, the return of the painter Nemesio Antúnez to the direction of the museum in 1990 was very significant. In order to carry out an activity that symbolized the "reunion" of the State with the artistic community, without censorship, conditions or restrictions of any kind, Antúnez organized the exhibition Open Museum. The event attracted 140 painters, 60 sculptors, 100 engravers, 30 photographers, 15 designers, 6 textile artists, 6 installers, 25 videographers and 15 filmmakers, as well as 14 art critics and invited professors to prepare the catalogue.
Antúnez also tried to recover the work of the museum along the lines of cultural centers. He reserved the Greek Amphitheater for the presentation of plays and music recitals. The central hall was converted into a space for dance performances and the José Miguel Blanco Auditorium began to house video festivals, presentations, seminars and conferences. Meetings of artists and intellectuals were also organized, highlighting the International Forum, organized by the Salvador Allende Foundation in September 1990. The television program Ojo con el arte was revived. The increase in the quality and quantity of activities helped to reincorporate the museum in the international artistic circuit. The number of international exhibitions organized was of great importance in obtaining a "corporate image" solid, with the consequent recovery of the interests of the artistic and academic community and great public repercussion. These exhibitions include Jewels of the British Crown (1990), From Manet to Chagall (1992, with works from the MASP collection), Museum of Solidarity "Salvador Allende" (1992), Antoni Clavé (1992) and Fernando de Szyszlo (1992).
The cultural donations law (1991) facilitated the collaboration of the private sector, through the Fine Arts Foundation and the Friends of the Museum Corporation. It also sought to adapt the rooms to international conservation and safety standards. Regarding the dissemination of art, an important donation of professional television equipment made by Japan stands out. The museum also expanded its editorial capacity, in order to inform about temporary exhibitions, disseminate its artistic heritage and educate the public.
Antúnez was succeeded in 1993 by professor and art critic Milan Ivelic Kusanovic, who held the post for 18 years. In 2011, Ivelic resigned to dedicate himself to teaching. The lack of state budget was also another factor in deciding to leave. The museum receives 800 million pesos a year from the State, while the Palacio de La Moneda Cultural Center receives 1,300 million. or the last one, from 2011, by the impressionist Edgar Degas, as well as that of national artists, with José Balmes, Gracia Barrios and their daughter, Concepción, and the sculptors Francisco Gazitúa and Juan Egenau.
The earthquake of February 27, 2010 caused some damage to the building, which was limited to detachment of coverings and ornaments, without structurally affecting the Palacio de Bellas Artes. This was mainly due to the remodeling work carried out after the 1985 earthquake. The works housed inside were not damaged. The museum doors were reopened on March 9 of the same year. In September of that year, the shows From the past to the present. Migrations, in order to celebrate the centenary of the building that houses the museum and the Bicentennial of Chile. The exhibition consisted of works acquired at the inauguration of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in 1910, as well as contemporary works by 34 foreign artists.
At the end of 2011, the visual artist and professor Roberto Farriol was chosen by competition as the new director of the museum, a position he assumed in January 2012. Among the museum's challenges was the lack of space, which is why it has been raised the need to expand its facilities to the building that the Museum of Contemporary Art of Santiago (MAC) occupies, and move it completely to Quinta Normal. However, this formula did not prosper, but an alliance was formed with the MAC and an a corridor that connects both, with which, at least, he grew "spiritually", in the words of Farriol.
The lack of space to display the museum's collection has continued to be one of the main problems. Of the more than five thousand works that it owns, according to data from the beginning of 2016, it exhibited only 1%. This situation has been tried to alleviate maximizing the rotation of the pieces on display, for which the traditional method of showing the evolution of Chilean art chronologically has been abandoned and in its place thematic exhibitions have been organized in which works from different eras are mixed.. This trend began under Ivelic with Collection Exercises and Farriol continued it, but in a more radical way, with Art in Chile: 3 miradas (directed by Alberto Madrid, Juan Manuel Martínez and Patricio M. Zárate, was inaugurated in September 2014), which became the permanent exhibition, although it was not, as it was part of the project called by the latter director Permanent (in) Collection (review); After a year and a half, it was replaced by (En) masculine key, curated by Gloria Cortés, and in 2017 by El bien común, this time curated by Paula Honorato, in which pieces from the MNBA collection are exhibited together with those by invited contemporary Chilean artists. This third proposal is the last under Farriol, who was asked to resign in July 2018 due to internal problems related to an alleged mistreatment at work denounced by the aforementioned curator Cortés. The conflict divided the museum staff and 22 officials signed a letter in which they asked to "clarify the facts so that discredit is not imposed based on slander".
Building
Designed by the French-Chilean architect Emile Jecquier, in collaboration with Mauricio Aubert and Enrique Grossin, the Palace of Fine Arts has been the museum's headquarters since its inauguration in 1910. It follows a French academic style with metallic structures, influenced by the architecture widespread during the XIX century. The façade and the internal organization of the building are inspired by the architectural style of the Petit-Palais in Paris.
The building has a central axis marked by the entrance door and the central hall staircase, which leads to the upper floor. The hall is the most important space in the building, distributing and ordering the free movement of visitors. Conceived as a "greenhouse" In order to allow the entry of natural light, it is crowned by a large glass dome, with a metal structure imported from Belgium, whose weight is 115 tons. On the second floor balcony, there is a high relief depicting two angels holding a shield. Two caryatids carved by Antonio Coll y Pi also decorate the balcony.
On the main façade, the high relief of the pediment was in charge of the sculptor Guillermo Córdova, following the theme proposed by Jecquier, that is, an allegory to the Fine Arts. The frieze is decorated by ceramic mosaic medallions, representing various architects, painters and sculptors of great relevance to universal art. In the space between the embedded columns, the architrave and the decorative chamfer, on both sides, there is a child holding palms and laurel branches. On the front of the building is a replica of the sculpture United in the Glory and Death, by Rebeca Matte, which was donated by her husband in 1930 after the sculptor's death. The work portrays two characters from Greek mythology, Icarus and Daedalus.
Collection
The collection of the Museum of Fine Arts is made up of more than 5,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings and engravings. Its origins date back to the middle of the century XIX, when he began his training at the Academy of Painting, which gradually grew rich thanks to donations and acquisitions. It mainly covers the history of Chilean art, from the colonial period to today, with a large number of masterpieces by the main national and foreign authors residing in the country. The museum also preserves an international art section, where works from the Latin school of Western Europe predominate, especially France, Spain and Italy. Outside the Western context, there is a set of kakemonos and Japanese prints, as well as a small group of African sculptures.
Andean and Chilean art
In the section corresponding to colonial art, the religious theme stands out, subordinated to the attempts to evangelize and spread Christianity in the New World. The production of the period is characterized by the syncretism between pre-Hispanic traditions and European culture, which culminated in the XVIII century, with the so-called mestizo art, with characteristics common to the entire Andean region. This movement is represented in the museum by the works of Melchor Pérez de Holguín and Gaspar Miguel de Berrio, from the school of Potosí, Bolivia, and by the wooden reliefs attributed to the Master of San Roque. Among the artists of the XIX century, responsible for introducing neoclassicism and romanticism to local artistic production, the Peruvian José Gil stands out de Castro, the Englishman Charles Wood Taylor, the Frenchman Raymond Monvoisin and the German Johann Moritz Rugendas.
Chilean academicism, strongly influenced by foreign artists (Alejandro Ciccarelli, Ernesto Kirchbach, Juan Mochi) developed during the second half of the century XIX towards the consolidation of a more "native" (Cosme San Martin). The pictorial portrait (Francisco Mandiola, Manuel Thomson, Pedro Lira) and female nudes (Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma, Julio Fossa Calderón, Ezequiel Plaza, Virginio Arias) are widely represented in the collection. Imbued at first with historical significance and naturalistic expression (Thomas Somerscales, Onofre Jarpa), landscape art sought, during the first decades of the century XX, a plastic autonomy, in order to capture the poetic, luminous and symbolic dimension of the places portrayed (Alfredo Helsby, Alberto Valenzuela Llanos, Agustín Abarca).
The avant-garde movements of the XX century had as their starting point, in the collection, the oil paintings by Henriette Petit, marked by a cubist aesthetic. The consolidation of modernism is represented by the works of Luis Vargas Rosas, Pablo Burchard, Camilo Mori and Nemesio Antúnez, highlighting the figure of Roberto Matta. Among the contemporaries include Sergio González-Tornero, Matilde Pérez, Ramón Vergara Grez and Rodolfo Opazo, among others.
International Art
The Spanish art collection is made up mostly of paintings created between the 17th century and the first decades of the 20th century. The Tables of the Annunciation, from Juan Rexach's workshop, are the oldest pieces, dating from the 15th century . Notable among the authors are Francisco de Zurbarán and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, belonging to the so-called Golden Age, Francisco Bayeu of seventeenth century painting, and Jenaro Pérez Villaamil, Mariano Fortuny, Francisco Pradilla, Joaquín Sorolla and Ignacio Zuloaga, corresponding to the XIX.
There are also a good number of Flemish and Dutch Baroque paintings, highlighting authors such as Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, Cornelis de Vos, Aelbert Cuyp, Jan Wildens, Meindert Hobbema and Adriaen van Ostade. Of the French school, the landscapes of Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny and Camille Pissarro stand out, and the sculptures of Auguste Rodin and Antoine Bourdelle. In the collection of Western modern art, Yves Tanguy, André Breton, Otto Dix, Hans Arp, Wilfredo Lam, Rufino Tamayo and Antoni Tàpies stand out.
The Italian art assemblage is made up of some 60 paintings, most made between the mid-19th century and the early 19th century. 20th century (Pietro Gabrini, Giovanni Boldini). From previous periods, The loss of Jesus and his discovery in the temple by Matteo Pérez d'Aleccio, the Portrait of the Belluomini family by Stefano Tofanelli and works by Gerolamo Bassano, Mattia Preti, Annibale Carracci, etc. The museum also preserves the Bonola Codex, a collection of 131 drawings by artists from Italy and northern Europe, made in the XVII by the painter Giorgio di Corconio Bonola.
The museum has a small collection of 15 statuettes from sub-Saharan Africa, corresponding to artistic manifestations of ethnic groups such as the Senufo and Yohure. It also keeps a collection of 46 kakemonos (scrolls painted with ink or watercolor) donated by the Chinese embassy in 1968, and 27 Japanese prints.
Directors
- Juan Mochi (1880-1887)
- Board of Directors of the Museum (1887-1897)
- Enrique Lynch del Solar (1897-1918)
- Joaquín Díaz Garcés (1919-1921)
- Pedro Prado Calvo (1921-1923)
- Luis Cousiño Talavera (1923-1926)
- Carlos Isamitt Alarcón (1927-1928)
- Camilo Mori Serrano (1928-1929)
- Lautaro García Vergara (1929-1930)
- Pablo Vidor Doctor (1930-1933)
- Alberto Mackenna Subercaseaux (1933-1939)
- Julio Ortiz de Zárate Pinto (1939-1946)
- Luis Vargas Rosas (1946-1970)
- Nemesio Antúnez Zañartu (1970-1973)
- Lily Garafulic (1974-1977)
- Nana Ossa Puelma (1978-1990)
- Nemesio Antúnez Zañartu (1990-1993)
- Milan Ivelic Kusanovic (1993-2012)
- Roberto Farriol Gispert (2012-2018)
- Fernando Pérez Oyarzún (2019-)
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