Enrique Lihn imagines a dialogue between Pedro Luna’s work and what both Victor Carvacho and Antonio Romera have written about it. According to Lihn, Luna’s painting is inspired by a natural, instinctive feeling that is focused on form and color. He describes him as a “sensory, sentimental painter” who is representative of the Chilean visual arts and discusses his works La guardia Suiza and Jardín romano. Referring to the painter’s most recent phase, Lihn claims that Luna was copying himself while, in his more genuine moments, he managed to pass for a Fauvist, albeit still using natural colors and a clear palette; that is, not free of his descriptive tendencies. Based on the review by Carvacho and Romera, Lihn discusses Luna’s relationship with Impressionism and Expressionism; he also associates his painting with music, referring to his landscapes as “fantastic” works that rely on a pictorial depiction of matter awash in his temperament. Lihn reviews the painter’s work within the context of the Generación del ’13, a group to which Luna belonged, paying particular attention to his Baile de las enanas.      

The poet and art critic Enrique Lihn (1929–1988) wrote about the work of Pedro Luna (1896–1956) for a book that was published by the IEAP (Instituto de Extensión de Artes Plásticas de la Universidad de Chile), which produced a number of books about artists and their works. Founded in 1945 by the painter and printmaker Marco Bontà (1899–1974), the IEAP was active until the mid-1970s, although it changed over time as other university entities, such as the Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos, came into existence, and adapted to the evolving political situation in Chile. Under Bontà’s direction, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo was founded in 1947, and organized traveling exhibitions that visited the Universidad de Chile’s regional facilities. The museum also worked with other institutions. [For more information on this matter see the following in the ICAA Digital Archive: “La historia y sus carencias. Introducción” (doc. no. 756093) by Guillermo Machuca and “América, no invoco tu nombre en vano” (doc. no. 775191) by Carlos Maldonado.]

Born in southern Chile, Pedro Luna was originally from Los Angeles; he later moved to Santiago. When he was sixteen, he enrolled at the Escuela de Bellas Artes where he studied with Juan Francisco González (1853–1933), Alberto Valenzuela Llanos (1867–1925), Pedro Lira (1845–1912), and Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor (1875–1960), the director of the Escuela and a driving force in the Generación del ’13, a group to which Luna belonged. Other members of the group were José Prida (1889–1984), the Spanish painter; Ulises Vásquez (1892–1949); Agustín Abarca (1882–1953); Abelardo “Paschín” Bustamante (1888–1934), the painter, printmaker, and sculptor; Enrique Bertrix (1895–1915); Elmina Moisan (1897–1938); Arturo Gordon (1883–1944), and Julio Ortíz de Zárate (1885–1946), who would later join the Grupo Montparnasse. The group’s production varied from artist to artist, though they had something in common in their choice of themes; they worked on portraits, landscapes, and costumbrista scenes of local customs. At a formal level they tended to flood their works with light and color within the formal boundaries of realism. The poet Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) referred to them as a “Heroic band of painters,” a bohemian, melancholy group with a social conscience. [For more information about this group, see: “Apuntes para un estudio de la Generación del '13” (doc. no. 773707) by Ricardo Bindis and “Palabras para la inauguración de una pequeña muestra retrospectiva de pintura chilena” (doc. no. 750644) by Enrique Lihn.]