Painting Hispanic Identity

Drawing a culture’s art history is always a fraught exercise. Even when focusing on a single country—Italy, say, or Japan—questions of identity come up. Is an Italian artist working in America truly Italian? What about a Swiss painter who calls Italy home? When tackling the issue of Hispanic identity, this task becomes Herculean. The term Hispanic broadly refers to Spain and Spanish-speaking countries, especially in Latin America. Brazil, which is Latin America but speaks Portuguese, is called Latino; Portugal, which is on the Iberian Peninsula with Spain, is neither Latino nor Hispanic. Some even consider Asian countries like the Philippines Hispanic, as it was colonized by Spain and retains its cultural traditions.

It should come as no surprise then that, historically, artists concerned with Hispanic identity have not converged around a single point. The Hispanic identity is diasporic—always expanding, mixing, generating new possibilities. (This isn’t to mention Hispanic identity as subjected by non-Hispanic artists. Long after colonization, Hispanic costumbrist themes appeared in many well known works, for example John Singer Sargent’s El Jaleo.)

Read more about painting Hispanic identity at my.meural.com/editorial/44.