Like many of the most famous artists of the time, Domingo Moreno Otero (1882–1948) was influenced by Spanish art above all else. In speaking with Colombian journalist and poet Eduardo Castillo (1889–1938), he mentions the quality of Spanish art compared to art produced in other European contexts, and asserted that Madrid was a privileged environment for art. Moreno Otero’s artistic preferences and specific training (he was a professor specialized in the depiction of clothing and in color) reinforced his interest in landscape and, mostly, in the portrait genre, which he envisioned as an effort “to reveal the soul” of the subject by means of color and line.
Moreno Otero asserted that one of the virtues of Spanish artists’ relationship to nature was their ability “to sensitize it,” that is, “to stylize it,” using nature as a point of reference to create beautiful works. The value placed on what he calls Spanish “liberal classicism” meant that there was little room for avant-garde innovation except for—at most—some aspects of Impressionism useful to the interpretation of nature.
In 1921, Colombian painter and portrait artist Moreno Otero traveled to Spain thanks to a grant from the Círculo de Bellas Artes; he studied painting at the Escuela de San Fernando in Madrid, where his professors included Spanish artists Manuel Benedito (1875–1963) and Julio Romero de Torres (1874–1930). While there, he was awarded the Matrícula de Honor prize on several occasions, and he participated in a number of editions of the Salones Oficiales in Madrid.
