ABSTRACT
Art in twentieth-century Latin America tends to be an extension of society. International modernism, and art that is totally abstract, subjective, and intuitive, are foreign to the Latin American experience. From pre-Columbian to Spanish colonial times, and through the nineteenth century to the present, Latin American art has manifested a variety of styles, but it has traditionally been a narrative, representational art. The Academy of San Carlos, the official school for artists in Mexico City, did not produce an identifiably Mexican art in the nineteenth century. The art of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador has been greatly influenced by the indigenous heritage of the large Indian populations in those countries. Although abstract art is not unimportant in Colombia the two most influential artists in Colombia are neofigurative painters. There was no national movement of painting in Haiti until the Center of Art opened in Port-au-Prince in 1944.
