Scandalized by the works by the Colombian painter Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo (1910–1970) at the National Capitol, many political columnists and a few professional politicians expressed their opinions on the matter. Gómez Jaramillo’s work was deemed “inappropriate” for a neoclassical building designed in the mid-nineteenth century, a prejudiced view that Luis Vidales refuted in his critique, as shown in this article. Mexican muralism was becoming known in Colombia as a result of the policies disseminated through what was referred to as the Revolución en Marcha [Revolution on the March] (from 1934 to 1938) by the incumbent liberal president Alfonso López Pumarejo (1886–1959).
The avant-garde poet Luis Vidales (1900–1990), one of Colombia’s most lucid twentieth-century art critics, introduced this document into the debate that was sparked in 1939 over the two Gómez Jaramillo murals at the Capitol. Vidales summarized and refuted the opinions of those who did not approve of Gómez Jaramillo’s works, pointing out that they were created in a Renaissance style, as distinct from what was currently enjoying widespread approval.
Gómez Jaramillo studied in Europe where he absorbed the best qualities of Post-Impressionism, and was particularly influenced by the innovative ideas of the French artist Paul Cézanne. Some of his landscapes were judged the most modern paintings produced so far this century in Colombia. With official support, he lived in Mexico City from 1936 to 1938, where he learned the fresco technique and came in touch with the work of the local artists known as Los Tres Grandes [The Big Three]: Diego Rivera (1886–1957), José Clemente Orozco (1883–1949), and David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974).