Selection of 23 paintings from BBVA Chile’s collection

By Johann Moritz Rugendas, depicts a typical moment at the end of the 19th Century, early 20th Century, with two men horse-back riding wearing the country’s characteristic clothing: a poncho, blue pants, a cone-shaped hat, black chaps and large silver spurs.

By the first Chilean landscape painter and prime example of the country’s art, Antonio Smith. His painting illustrates the snow-capped mountain chain, the Andes, with a valley descending from the mountains and a deep blue sky at the top.

By Giovanni Mochi, third Director of Chile’s School of Fine Arts, shows a peasant scene with two men wearing straw hats and simple clothing next to a yoke of oxen. The sides of the painting portray trees and buildings with adobe walls and straw roofs.

By the Chilean painter Pedro Lira, captures a natural landscape of trees with long trunks and a small woman standing at the end of a lagoon. She’s wearing a colorful dress and holding a basket on her head. This painting shows the artist’s sensual and subtle side.

By Chilean artist Onofre Jarpa, reflects a countryside scene with a blue sky, soft white clouds, and a peaceful, wide river descending from low hills with steep slopes, flowing along the edge of a thick forest.

By Exequiel Plaza, the artist that best represents the “13 Generation” which sought to narrate the country’s pictorial history, influenced by Spanish realism. The painting depicts an adobe wall with a high portico bordering a property. Behind the wall lies a lush garden.

By the artist Nicanor González who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and was a student of Pedro Lira. The painting shows a profile of woman, facing the right, with a pale pink complexion and delicate features.

By Pedro Jofré, another Lira protégé, illustrates two pieces of watermelon placed diagonally, one in the foreground and the other behind it. It shows the red center, the white rind and green exterior. Light illuminates the scene.

By Chilean painter Julio Fossa, a student of the School of Fine Arts, presents a realistic scene with a group of birds on rocks in the water. A cormorant and pelican sit at the center of the painting, with some pelicans behind them. Large white mountains lie at the back of the painting.

Waterfall bears witness to the British painter, Thomas Somerscale’s influence on Chile’s art, introducing aspects of Anglo Saxon painting. The realistic landscape depicts a small waterfall flowing down steep rocks surrounded by green trees.

By Thomas Somerscales shows a pale blue sky and a bucolic landscape with a wide river that descends from snow-capped mountains in the distance. The river winds around the valley bordered by two hills and a green riverbed of fragile trees.

Also by the British painter Thomas Somerscales, illustrates a landscape comprised of a foreground and background. The left side of the painting shows a path surrounded by stones and large trees with foliage. The right side shows a valley beyond the hill.

A composition by Juan Francisco González, considered one of the greatest masters of Chilean painting. This combination of colorful wild flowers with yellow, orange and red tones, large leaves and green stems accentuate the vertical elements in the painting.

Is another painting by Juan Francisco González, who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and influenced the 13 Generation. This portrait shows an older man wearing a white shirt with a high neck, a dark blue tie and gray jacket.

By Chilean painter Alberto Helsby, the light focuses on a pre-historic scene of the Chilean landscape, with a combination of trees and pink flowers, rural homes demarked by a dirt path, a poplar and the Andes Mountains in the background.

By Manuel Quevedo depicts a sky, green hills, several buildings with straw roofs and pens that sit in front of a green forest that reaches the base of a volcano.

Is a painting by Arthur Gordon, one of the artists who best represents the 13 Generation, Chile’s first artistic group. This portrait of a woman with a red hat and colorful bouquet of flowers is so powerful due to the different tones, contrasts and light.

By Arthur Gordon, artist known as the “Chilean Goya”. This portrait depicts a man with gray hair and a long white beard, a gray mustache and thick eyebrows. The painting has expressionist features which are brought out by the effect of the light and shadows on the figure.

Is another painting by Arthur Gordon: two women wearing long, colorful tunics cross under a gateway with a round arch. The light enters this painting from the top right corner, backlighting the figures.

By Pedro Subercaseaux, uses a native technique with a genre scene of a wagon pulled by a yolk of oxen and three huasos riding horses. This scene is surrounded by a colorful rural landscape that alludes to life in the Chilean countryside.

By the painter Fernando Morales Jordán, one of the best examples of the 40 Generation. This urban landscape shows a rural street and simple buildings that are reminiscent of Juan Francisco González’s style. The painting could be associated with a peripheral area of Chile.

Also by “Lukas”, depicts a neoclassic building with symmetric features in a cartoonish and anecdotal manner. It is the former stock exchange building in Valparaiso, built in 1857 in the current Sotomayor Square and demolished in 1884.

By Ernesto Barreda, who was influenced by international artists. This modernist painting shows a series of vertical lines intercepted by horizontal lines, which combine with nails and screws to form an intertwining of wood similar to a fence, with a lock to close a door.