In this essay, Walter Engel (1908–2005) voices for the first time his thesis that Latin America will become a new center of artistic creation in the post-World War II era. Indeed, this argument will form the basis for his interest in and defense of, first, Colombian art from 1945 to 1965 and, later, of indigenous art from Canada. Engel would further develop the idea that Latin America will make contributions to European avant-gardes in a chapter of his book Problemas sociales en las artes plásticas (see doc. no. 1094220) published two years after this essay.
The optimistic tone of this article—written a few months before the end of World War II—is related to the consequences of the war in Colombia and the rest of the world. As Colombian historian Javier Ocampo López has pointed out, the atmosphere in Latin America during those years was jubilant; the region was characterized by “peace, disarmament, national sovereignty, a welfare system, and the right to self-determination, coupled with commitment to strengthening nationalism.” In the Colombian case, that nationalism was bound to economic prosperity during the “bonanza cafeteria,” a period when the price of coffee was rising on the world market.
Insofar as he mentions only those Colombian artists influenced by Mexican painting, Engel disregards artists working in the academic tradition who were still enjoying a favorable position in Colombian art circles. Nonetheless, Engel, who was known for his conciliatory temperament and willingness to accept a wide range of artistic proposals, supported the allocation of first prize at the fifth edition of the Salón Nacional de Artistas, held the year this article was published, to Estudio en gris [Study in Gray]. That painting, a nude by Miguel Díaz Vargas (1886−1956), was clearly academic in nature. Engels stated that Díaz Vargas’s success was due to “the realist, intelligible, and pleasant nature of paintings accessible to one and all.”