In this article, poet and art critic Jorge Gaitán Durán takes stock of the activities that took place on the Colombian art scene in 1946. He begins with a reflection on the overall state of the visual arts in the country. He asserts that 1946 witnessed a growing awareness of the need to create an art specific to Colombia, one not limited to strict imitation or fettered by traditional naturalism. Gaitán Durán goes on to mention muralism as a tendency that struggles to balance foreign influences and national expression. In the final section of the article, Gaitán Durán analyzes the artists who, in his opinion, stood out that year, among them Marco Ospina, Enrique Grau, and Alipio Jaramillo.

In the forties, Colombian art was looking for new horizons as an emerging generation of artists took shape. Work by artists like Enrique Grau (1920?2004), Édgar Negret (1920?2012), and Alejandro Obregón (1920?92) partook of the languages of Modern art. Institutions like the Salón Nacional de Artistas Colombianos, created in 1940, supported that tendency. In this article, Jorge Gaitán Durán (1924–62) discusses the complexity of the art scene in 1946, providing in-depth critical analysis and displaying striking conceptual precision. 

Gaitán Durán was just over twenty years old when he wrote this article. After moving to Bogotá from his native Cúcuta, he became one of the staunchest defenders of Modern art in the country. This is evident in this text, where he defends the values of Modernism and eschews naturalism and the narrative in art, both of which had been central to production from earlier decades. 

Thanks to his knowledge of the art scene, Gaitán Durán is able to back up his theoretical and conceptual reflections with references to specific works, exhibitions, and artists from Colombia. This text is, then, a lucid and precise account of the state of the visual arts in Colombia in the mid-forties. As such, it is of great value to researchers interested in the advent of “Modernism” on the Colombian art scene.