The author of this article, Mercedes Gallagher, wrote reviews about Peruvian art and music, which she contributed to publications such as Mundial, Variedades, Social, Mercurio Peruano, and La Prensa. She also published important essays in which she analyzed different aspects of art, such as "Shadows on the Road" (1935); "La realidad y el arte. Estudio de estética moderna" (1937); "La escultura popular y costumbrista en piedra de Huamanga" (1942); and "La mentira Azul" (a compilation of her essays from 1948). Her critical opposition to indigenism is clear in several of her articles, this one in particular: “Sobre el problema indigenista en nuestra cultura” (Mercurio Peruano, Lima, October 1939). Gallagher acknowledged the need for and legitimacy of the movement to recognize the indigenous population, but criticized its use of the idea as the basis for a group ideology and a way to promote racial division in the country. She posited that Peru consists of three components, which must all complement each other: Aryan-Western civilization, Spanish cultural tradition, and the indigenous spiritual awareness. In Gallagher’s opinion, José Sabogal was one of the most authentic Indigenists, although she nonetheless objects to certain ideological aspects of his work. She was very interested in Andean art, which she approached by analyzing the essential and aesthetic values of individual works, instead of looking at them from the more usual ethnographic perspective. Two representative texts that take this approach are: “La escultura popular y costumbrista en piedra de Huamanga” (1942), and this article about Amazonian pottery. They both address the conflicted artistic relationship between “cultured art” and “popular or traditional art,” therefore foreshadowing the debate that flared up decades later over the decision to award the Premio Nacional de Cultura (for the 1973–74 period) to the altarpiece artist from the Andean region Joaquín López Antay (1897–1981).