Dictatorship and Art: The Indigenous as Artistic Modernity and Essence of the Chilean in the Government of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (1927-1931)

Abstract

The first government of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo in Chile, between 1927 and 1931, was a dictatorship that, in line with what was happening at the time in Latin America, set out to re-found different aspects of the economic and cultural life of the country under the idea of a “new Chile”. In this regard, the arts—and within them painting, music, applied arts and architecture—constitute a symbolic space where the State wanted to fix its ideological imprint, performing a tutelary prerogative. This new sensibility, which gave pride of place to indigenous (particularly Mapuche) and Americanist values, was understood by government both as a discourse of national identity and as a particular central aim of this work is to demonstrate how a system relating political,
aesthetic and nationalistic principles, was articulated. It analyzes the circumstances and the actors involved to show how the correlation was established, stressing the role of the School of Fine Arts, the role of Carlos Isamitt in that entity, and the Chilean presence in the Universal Exhibition of Seville, in 1929, among other factors.