The brochure for the “Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes” [National Exhibition of Fine Arts], written by Carlos Miguel Pizarro on October 15, 1899 criticizes the procedures that were followed for awarding prizes at that year’s National Exhibition. The brochure begins with the heading: “The decision of an enemy Jury; that is, a sworn enemy of some of the exhibiting artists.” Pizarro sarcastically critiques the Jury’s choice of winning genres (composition, portraits, students at the Escuela de Bellas Artes [School of Fine Arts], landscapes, flowers, ladies and girls, sculpture, architecture, and ornamentation), and regrets the absence of a more technical rating (figures, genre paintings, landscapes, marine vies, and still life paintings.) He is also disappointed that no prizes were awarded for woodcuts, lithography, or photography. He is not impressed by the artistic quality of the religious portraits in the exhibition or the portrait of the “venerable old man who governs us”—referring to the portrait of Manuel Antonio Sanclemente, the president of Colombia (1898-1900)—painted by Ricardo Acevedo Bernal. He is, however, impressed by Epifanio Garay and Carlos Valenzuela, and admires the paintings La planchadora [The Ironing Lady] by Dionisio Cortés and La oración del huerto [The Prayer in the Vegetable Garden] by Silvano Cuéllar. Pizarro challenges the jury’s verdict (“a shocking painting”) concerning La mujer del levita [The Levite’s Woman] by Garay that “had been banned from the public.” In the last few pages of the brochure he voices his disagreement with the jury’s opinion that art has a “moral” and “civilizing mission.”

This document is a valuable, relatively unknown source as well as a novel perspective on art criticism at one of the most controversial events in the history of Colombian art: the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes [National Exhibition of Fine Arts] of 1899. It was the last Salon of the nineteenth century and took place a few months before the outbreak of the Thousand Day War (October 17, 1899 – November 21, 1902,) one of Colombia’s most violent civil wars. Given those circumstances, several writers have claimed that politics influenced the awarding of prizes. More recently, however, and informed by other sources, some writers have agreed that the process was ruled by purely aesthetic criteria. 

There is an extensive bibliography that deals with the 1899 Salon: the art historian Álvaro Medina (b. 1942) refers to it in his book Procesos del arte en Colombia [Art Processes in Colombia] (1978) [see “Procesos del arte en Colombia,” doc. # 1082796]. And the critic and art historian William López makes it the basis of his (unpublished) thesis for his master’s degree in art theory and history “La crítica de arte en el Salón de 1899: una aproximación a los procesos de configuración del campo artístico en Colombia” [Art Criticism at the 1899 Salon: An Explanation of Configuration Processes in the Field of Art in Colombia] (defended in 2005) [see, under the same title, doc. # 1134808]. Perhaps as a result of the depth and wealth of detail to be found in such studies of the event, this Salon has become the most widely-used prism through which to scrutinize the artistic activities of the late nineteenth century.

In addition to the library and documentary sources (generally associated with official documents), four publications are known to exist: (I) Catálogo de las diferentes secciones [Catalogue of the Different Sections] (Bogotá, 1899); (II) Catálogo de la Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes y Música en el año de 1899 [Catalogue of the 1899 National Exhibition of Fine Arts and Music] (by Pedro [Alcántara] Quijano. Bogotá, 1899); (III) Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes de 1899. Los artistas y sus críticos [National Exhibition of Fine Arts, 1899: The Artists and their Critics]. ([Albarracín, Jacinto], alias Albar. Bogotá: Imprenta de Medardo Rivas, 1899); and (IV) Exposición Nacional de 1899. Reglamento [National Exhibition of 1899: Rules]. (Several authors. Bogotá: Imprenta de "La Crónica," 1899).

The brochure by Carlos Miguel Pizarro, the source of this commentary, was acquired in 2009 by the Banco de la República’s Luis Ángel Arango Library in Bogotá for their Rare Books and Manuscripts Room. This document has apparently never been published, as it has not been examined by the relevant historians in any of the publications mentioned above. Nor has it been included in the more recent research projects devoted to this subject.