Cecilio Guzmán de Rojas

Cecilio Guzmán de Rojas (born October 24, 1899 in Potosí , † February 14, 1950 in La Paz ) was a Bolivian painter whose motifs were primarily concerned with Indian culture.

Cecilio Guzmán de Rojas, whose first exhibition was shown in his hometown Potosí as early as 1920, dealt in his artistic work with the specific identity of the Aymara culture of his time. He saw this identity as independent and resilient and not endangered by European Christianization, because the Inca culture took up the elements of European culture but was not appropriated by it. He was convinced that Indian culture as a cultural movement would survive through its music, dances, art, language and costumes.

This belief in the culture of the Andean peoples is expressed, for example, in one of the painter's most famous paintings, Cristo Aymara , where Jesus Christ, one of the strongest symbols of Christian-European culture, wears the clothing and facial features of the highland Indians.

However, Guzmán did not use his art as a political instrument, as did his compatriot Solón Romero , for example . Carlos Salazar Mostajo therefore referred to Guzmán's painting not as an “indigenista”, but as an “indianista”: It was not the political-ideological struggle of the Indians for their rights that moved Guzmán, but the aesthetics of the people he lived with, whose languages ​​he spoke, theirs Culture he was trying to understand.

After a visit to Europe in La Paz he founded the National Art Academy , which he was director until 1942. In 1934, de Rojas' son Iván was born.

From 1934 to 1935 Cecilio Guzmán was drafted into the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay . In these two years of war he recorded the endless suffering of the Indians in numerous drawings that were sent to this war to fight, kill and die without knowing what for.

The house in La Paz, where Cecilio Guzmán de Rojas lived until his death, was opened to the public in 1999 for the painter's 100th birthday. A portrait of de Rojas is depicted today on the ten boliviano note of his home country.

source

• “Cecilio Guzmán de Rojas - the first indigenous painter in Bolivia” by Annette Steinich