Classical Tradition​​​​

It is not difficult to associate the broad concept of “classical tradition” with Latin America in the 19th century: at this time, influenced by nationalistic ideologies that were shaping Europe, visual and rhetorical values dating back to ancient Greece and Rome – as well as to their own revivals – decisively contributed to the formation of “classical” images and discourses in Latin American ground. In some countries, the classical tradition found its way into State institutions; in the particular case of Brazil, the creation of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, as early as 1826, contributed to the definition of an imperial iconography with clearly discernible classical roots.
 

How should one approach and research the reception of the classical tradition in Latin America during the 19th century? We have become accustomed to a notion by which the phenomenon that we understand as “classical art” is defined according to characteristics and peculiarities connected to the Greek and Italian peninsulas, and we have learned also to accept that the consolidation of this phenomenon in other regions, in and outside Europe, can be measured in terms of the greater or lesser extent to which they absorbed these characteristics and peculiarities. If the concepts of centre and periphery are, to a certain degree, applicable to Iberian colonial art, these concepts lose strength when it comes to post-colonial Latin America, when the circulation of books and prints, migration of artists, artistic missions, patronage, epistolography, among many other factors, render a much more complex scenario in which both European and non-European trends merge in order to create images that cannot be easily labelled.
 

How did the classical tradition serve to configure the idea of nation in Latin America? Nationalisms are often defined in terms of common origin, ethnicity, language and culture. In the Latin American case, however, how could such unity be constructed? To what extent did the universalizing power of the classical tradition manage to merge and “translate” different artistic expressions co-existing within the frontiers of newly formed Latin American nations? How did the classical tradition assimilate visual legacies coming from Asia, Africa and Europe – not to mention native America (the indigenous)? How were they transformed? How did the classical tradition reinvent itself in Latin America during the 19th century?