Science and Art...
11:40 a.m.06/21/24 - Art history defines vedutism as the pictorial expression of the 18th century developed mainly in Venice. Artists produced views or landscapes with extreme precision, almost photographic, and were considered documents of the spaces portrayed. A little closer in time, in the 19th century, many artists from Europe toured the South American territories to reflect in their paintings what these lands were like. These true vedutistas, who portrayed every last detail, were a fundamental resource when photography did not yet exist. One of them was the Swiss artist Adolf Methfessel (1836 -1909). There are numerous oil paintings, watercolors and engravings of this traveling artist that the Enrique Larreta Museum of Spanish Art brought together in an exhibition that is currently on display and where we are allowed to learn about the exuberance of the geography, fauna and flora of areas that had not been yer inhabited by European colonizers.
Panorama de los Alpes de Berna, by Adolf Methfessel (ca 1902)Technique: watercolor on carton
Garzas blancas en el Alto Paraná, by Adolf Methfessel (1892)
Technique: oil
Why are we interested in his work? Because we reconnect with images that had been hidden in our memory. Because he was an observer who documented the country in a totally realistic, almost scientific way. Because the pieces of landscapes the chose for each painting are of excellent aesthetic quality.
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