Museo Benito Quinquela Martín

This has been a weekend of museums for me in Argentina.  Today a friend of mine and I went to one of the more famous neighborhoods in Argentina called La Boca.  We got off the subway at Catedral and walked through San Telmo on a cloudy and cool early Sunday morning.  After passing through Parque Lezama we got lost and did not know which way San Telmo was.  We finally stopped someone to ask them where is La Boca.

The Argentinians are very nice people.  This nice young man Javier who is studying at the University of Buenos Aires in Systems engineering decided to take us around Boca and be our tour guide.  He told us that he had some free time and it was a nice opportunity for him to practice his English.  He was pretty much fluent in English and so we had our own personal tour guide.

La Boca is well known for its colorful buildings.  In fact, if you have ever been to Guayaquil, Ecuador, you would see similar architecture and colors.  The neighborhood or barrio is at the mouth of the Riachuelo.  It also home to one of Argentina´s most famous soccer clubs.  Javier was proud to take us to the stadium to show us where La Boca plays their games.

One of Argentina´s most famous painters was born in La Boca.  Benito Quinquela Martín paints the common person in port scenes that mainly take place in La Boca.  I would consider him similar to Diego Rivera in the fact that Diego also painted the common people in murals.  Since he lived in La Boca, we went to his museum and also his home for many years.  The house and museum over look the port of Buenos Aires and the city in the background.  Inside the museum there are some other painters as well.  Some nice paintings from other artists in Argentina that painted around the same time as Benito.  We walked to the fourth floor of the museum and then outside on to the terrace.  There is a lovely terrace over looking the whole city of Buenos Aires in all directions.  It was a cool cloudy day, unlike yesterday which was sunny and warm and last Sunday in Parque Lezama when the spring sun in Buenos Aires was in full force.

This painting by Benito is housed in a very prominent place in the museum.  There is a small cord in front of the painting denoting its importance and also there are are chairs where one can sit down and admire this lovely work of art depicting life in Buenos Aires at the turn of the century when the port city was very popular.  It was soon afterwards that the Panama Canal would open and many ships at that time no longer had to sail around the horn.  This, as emphasized in earlier posts was the turning point for Argentina.  At the time, it was one of the most prosperous countries in the world and the city of Buenos Aires was as rich and advanced as New York City.  That is why so many immigrants moved to Argentina at the same time they were moving to the United States.  Both countries at the time were the places to be, clearly at the hands of the people depicted in the paintings of Benito.

One of my favorite paintings at the museum was a painting by another artist called.

Amanecer en Cordoba
by Guillermo Fray Butler

Amanecer is a very lovely word and one that I rather like.  It means daybreak or dawn, which is one of my favorite times of day.  I love rising early and catching the first light of day.  Especially in the summer time when the mornings are cool and the light is just beginning to come up over the mountains.

Here is a nice description of the painting.

Solitario en el cual

no se observa la presencia humana

en primer plano se observa

una casa humilde con techo de paja

junto a un árbol sin follaje,

en segundo plano

otra casa similar y en

tercer plano montañas.

Paleta alta y cálida trabajado

en tonos ocres, rojizos; cielo amarillo

Alone in which there is no human presence 
the observed foreground 
a humble house with thatched roof
next to a leafless tree,
 
In the background 
another similar house 

At the third level there are mountains.
High and warm palette worked
in shades of ocher, red, with a yellow sky.