Monumentos y Esculturas

INTRODUCTION
The comprehension of how we relate with nature is present in our daily
life: from the work of art, we contemplate in the public space until the
marvelous figures that emerge from the hands of our artisans.
El Salvador is alive, is a country that creates its own dynamics; in it are
as preserved treasures by the will to live, the splendor of its buildings,
its memories and its monuments.
The monumental sculpture constitute the beginnings of the national
identity, with a Greco-Roman classic image, between the centuries XIX
and beginnings of XX there is no own language nor identity features
defined of salvadoranity. Predominates at this time the epic over
the colonial religious; and makes reference to histories with mythic
representations of the Greco-Roman culture, such as the Victoria, the
Minerva, the Republica, Apolo, and its muses, among others that even
permeate in the creation of Pascasio González, sculptor in late XIX
century and early XX.
Parallel to the diffusion of monuments, in the illustrate cemeteries, the
mortuary niches and the mausoleums perpetuate an idea of deceased,
an imperishable memory, because marble and bronze survive the flesh.
Until the 1920´s, Valentín Estrada bounces into the history of sculpture
with his initially fictitious creation of the Indian Atlacatl and with a
later study of the nahua culture in 1950´s; which lead him to create his
own sculptor language and to work with own myths of the Nahuapipil
identity, that now we can see in public spaces in our country.
These sculptures fully comply with the most important element of the
artistic creation; the identity of the people. With these myths and their
appearance in urban and natural spaces the sculptures find the affinity,
interest, and even the love of citizens.
Starting from Estrada, recognized as the first Salvadorean sculpture,
it opens a stage of sculpture for the author where all it’s masterpiece,
intimate or public, will obey to the inquiries and investigations of the
artists. Among them stand José Mejía Vides, Salarrué, Violeta Bonilla,
Benjamín Saúl, Enrique Salaverría, Rubén Martínez, and Titi Escalante;
joined with the opening of techniques and new languages such as
the ones from Verónica Vides, Patricia Salaverría, Guillermo Perdomo,
among other artists from the late XX century.
The development of the sculpture in El Salvador, has been however,
slow. During the XX century it has been demonstrated that the search
for a national sculptural tradition depends of many edges: economics,
training, social, and cultural.
Despite the impetus of its artists, our sculpture is not characterized
by a large tradition. Differentiating from other arts, such as literature,
and paint, sculpture has had less favorable scenarios, and its beginning,
development, and current height has been marked with strength and
stoicism by our artists.
Definitively, eventhough adverse situations, we are allowed to admire
the work of our scutures.
The lack of academic training in arts and specialization in the disciplines
has been for years a dificulty. In 1811, when the first school of drawing
is funded in San Salvador, it does not include instruction in sculpturing.
Churches and houses were covered with Sacral imagery during the
Colony, were mostly from Guatemala. Hundred years afterwards, in
1911, the artist Carlos Alberto Imery founded the School of drawing
and painting, wich later become the Escuela Nacional de Artes Gráficas
in San Salvador; this allows the Salvadoreans to perform small and
perishable sculptural exercises. Until the 1960´s, finally, with the arrival
of the Spanish master Benjamín Saúl, the teaching of sculpturing is
professionalized with the founding of the Direction of Fine Arts and it
disappeared in the 1980´s.
This context has not diminish the impetus of our artists, who more
than a century, have fought against adversities in El Salvador, and with
resilience and vocational strength have succeeded and developed
riches and foundational works of art.
The sculpture is one of the vehicles to know and understand our
identity. Through it and during centuries, the citizens have known
their history and that of their towns. The work of art will remain
over us, since the material over which the sculpture is made, is in
general imperishable.
The trace in the history of sculpture of El Salvador will be finally,
a sculpture. Men will die, but not their statues. And the statues are
their memory.
Elena Salamanca
Writer – Historian
La Volcaneña,
Titi Escalante.
12 13