Located on Plaza Murillo - the main square of La Paz and home to the cathedral and main government buildings - the 18th century palace in which the museum is currently housed was originally built in 1775, and is considered one of the best examples of civil architecture in the Americas. Built in the Andean Baroque style, the museum consists of three levels, each with arched walkways of carved stone, allowing views down into the central courtyard.
After meeting on the stairs of the cathedral, we proceeded into the museum to meet our tour guide, Daniela. We started our tour on the first floor of the museum, which consisted of examples of Pre-Hispanic and colonial art. The first section showed us examples of indigenous Andean art such as textile works and a collection of items made from feathers, which in Pre-Hispanic times signified courage, respect, and wisdom. It then continued to show how Bolivian art evolved due to Spanish and Italian influences to include Renaissance styles and human figures, as well as a huge surge in religious themes due to the Spanish imposition of Catholicism on the country. The rest of this floor continued with sections showing different portrayals of various religious themes, such as angels, the holy trinity and the Virgin Mary (as well as paintings combining imagery of the Virgin with symbols representative of Pachamama). The final room on this level contained paintings by two of the 'Great Masters' of this stage in Bolivia's history - Leonardo Flores from La Paz, and Perez Holguin (whose portrait can be seen on Bolivian 50B notes) from Potosi. This gave our group the opportunity to learn about the difference in styles between the art from the schools of these two cities. Artwork from the school of Potosi can be identified by the liberal use of colour and the eyes of figures within the paintings tend to be bigger. Paintings from the La Paz school on the other hand generally contain more muted shades and tend to feature people with longer, more pointed noses, and smaller mouths.
After a short break in which we went downstairs to admire the courtyard and learn more about the history of the building, we moved to the upper floor where the first room we entered contained a huge gold alterpiece featuring a figure of the Virgin Mary carrying her child, as well as several statues of the crucifiction of Christ.
After this room, the rest of the museum took on a more modern twist - moving away from the colonial era onto a room with portraits of the first leaders of the republic and other influential figures of the time. It then continued with a room containing works by the artist Arturo Borda - an important early 20th century artist, actor, trade union leader and political activist from La Paz. In this room we saw examples of some of his preliminary sketches of ideas and initial attempts at various works, followed by the actual final finished pieces. This was then followed by a room of sculptures by the paceña artist Maria Nuñez del Prado, whose work reflects indigenous themes and utilizes ancient traditional stone carving techniques. The final gallery of the museum contained a series of much less traditional art, with sections of abstract art, collage, and political art.
The next day when we met again we had presentations about the museum visit and what we had learnt during our trip, and this was followed by a session in which we made and decorated cardboard angels - inspired by the different representations we had seen in the museum. We ended the evening with two more presentations - one by the ICS volunteers about Manchester, and one by the CEINDES staff about Cochabamba - another department in Bolivia.
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