Art and architecture in Latin America

In the 1920s a group of Brazilian intellectuals produced an 'Anthropophagite Manifesto', arguing that they should devour the arts of Europe in order to nourish themselves and to produce a new Brazilian culture, vital and powerful. This image is a helpful way of articulating much of Latin American culture in the twentieth century, as artists and intellectuals have actively soughtways of affirming their strength and autonomy while still acknowledging Europe as an important source of ideas. The cannibal metaphor is also a useful way of approaching the art of earlier centuries: much of the best of colonial art and architecture is not a weak and belated echo of European innovations, as conventional notions of centre and periphery would have it, but a translation or transformation of imported ideas to suit a different context. This chapter will argue that the art and architecture of Latin America are interesting for their selective appropriations and manipulations, for their originality rather than for their dependence.