This essay, by the art historian Eugenio Barney Cabrera, discusses the work of the painter Andrés de Santa María in five distinct categories, as follows: (I) his social background; (II) his long absence from Colombia; (III) his connection to Europe; (IV) the aesthetic realm of his painting; and (V) the quality of his art. The historian mentions the role that the Argentine art critic Marta Traba played, beginning in 1961, in the reevaluation of the Colombian artist’s work. Barney Cabrera includes a final section, “Notes on <Andrés de Santamaría and his Period>” in which, following his visit to the painter’s exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno [Museum of Modern Art] in Bogota in 1971 he retracted some of what he had said about the artist in the earlier chapters of his essay. In this final section, Barney Cabrera: (i) discusses the painter’s insularity; (ii) dismisses the widely-held view concerning Santa María’s Impressionist leanings; (iii) refers to the painter’s production after the 1920s; (iv) divides his work into six periods; and (v) discusses his meager production and the inferior quality of his work. Like another art historian (Germán Rubiano), Barney Cabrera describes Santa María as an “amateur painter.”    

This essay by the Colombian art historian Eugenio Barney Cabrera (1917–80) was initially published as “Andrés de Santamaría y su época” [Andrés de Santamaría and his Period] in the National University of Colombia’s Revista de la Dirección de Divulgación Cultural [Cultural Information Administration Magazine] (# 1, October – December 1968.) Later on the chapter “Notes on <Andrés de Santamaría and his Period>” was added and the essay was republished in the book Temas para la historia del arte en Colombia [Subjects for Colombian Art History] in 1971. In this final chapter, the author revised many of his earlier opinions on the painter Andrés de Santa María (1860–1945), as expressed in the original version of his essay. Barney Cabrera changed his mind about Santa María after seeing his works at his exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno [Museum of Modern Art] in Bogota in 1971. 

Like Barney Cabrera, several writers wrote about Andrés de Santa María after seeing his works at this exhibition, most notably Marta Traba (1923–83); Germán Rubiano Caballero (b. 1938), and Eduardo Serrano (b. 1939). Sometime later the historian and art critic Álvaro Medina (b. 1942) devoted a long section to Santa María in his book Procesos del arte en Colombia [Art Processes in Colombia] [see “Introducción”, doc. # 1082796]. As a result of that exhibition, several critics and historians began reevaluating Santa María’s work from the perspective of modern theories of art, positioning him as a “precursor” to modern painting in Colombia. 

When he was two years old the Colombian painter Andrés de Santa María was taken to live in England, Belgium, and France. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Paris and only lived in Colombia for two brief periods, during which he was a professor and director of the School of Fine Arts in Bogota (now the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia [National University of Colombia’s School of Visual Arts]). In 1904, his work was discussed in terms of the first debate in Colombia on Impressionism (see “El Impresionismo en Bogota I” [Impressionism in Bogota I], doc. # 1080092 and “El Impresionismo en Bogotá II” [Impressionism in Bogota II], doc. # 1079572.) In 1911, Santa María settled in Brussels, Belgium, where he died on April 29, 1945. In all those years he never returned to Colombia (see “Andrés de Santa María (Galería de Arte)” [Andrés de Santa María (Art Gallery)], doc. # 1094300.)