In this article, Marta Traba maintains that the German artists Guillermo Wiedemann and Leopoldo Richter achieved an understanding of, and transmitted the essence and spirit of “the black race and the Indian race, and the ambience characteristic of the indigenous landscape.” She explains that they accomplished this for strictly aesthetic reasons linked to their research. Wiedemann was a painter who created forms based on his observation of African-Latin American communities, while Richter was a scientist who did research on indigenous community forms. The writer suggests that as opposed to Latin Americanist artists driven by nationalist purposes, both foreigners steered clear of “bad folkloric painting.” By defining their own styles, their sincere curiosity about the themes treated and their exploration of purely formal resources, both Wiedemann and Richter achieved universal art values. According to Traba, both their approaches “in their own way, represent aesthetic colonization.” Therefore, she argues that because they worked the way they did, “we recognize ourselves and see ourselves in a true mirror.”

In the 1950s, in connection with the formalist and cosmopolitan line of her critical work, the Argentine art historian, Marta Traba (1923–83), based in Colombia as of 1954, evaluated the work of some German artists. Two of them were living in Colombia: Guillermo Wiedemann (1905–69), from 1939, and Leopoldo Richter (1896–1984), from 1935. These two artists carried out research within the aesthetic sphere that surpassed the achievements of the Latin American trend of the prior decades in their technical quality and concepts. Traba’s arguments are based on her assessment of the assumptions of modern criticism (regarding style, form, and originality). They also provide clues for learning about her specific critical stance on the work of foreign artists who look at and interpret the local environment. In this article, the writer takes a position in support of the scope of European aesthetics, which have been used here to express local environments, therefore bringing a universal dimension to them. The examples Traba offers include Paul Gauguin, in Tahiti, as well as Wiedemann and Richter, observing African-Latin American and indigenous Colombian communities, respectively.

In the light of opposing contemporary positions, this is an interesting article in terms of its references to the innumerable instances of postcolonial domination.