¡Maravillas del Perú, wonderful and magical land! : Ricardo Palma and Pancho Fierro -Traditions and watercolors

Ricardo Palma and Pancho Fierro - Portrait of a society and a time (Peru colonial and early republic)

Introduction

The wealth of a country is not only natural resources, landscape, cities, historic monuments, great works of projected to future; it is also found in people, in citizens who every day contribute to aggrandize his country, the leader who leads him to a greater destiny; their artists and writers, in all that employ their creative potential to make us see the ignored reality or to display it in a different way.

Ricardo Palma and Pancho Fierro, are two characters with very personal and distinctive legacy. Pancho Fierro portrayed in watercolors people of his time, showing details that today would not understand without seeing these works; Ricardo Palma, the artists of the words, we also showed in detail the virtues and vices of the people and their lives. Pancho Fierro was essentially localist, concentred in Lima, Ricardo Palma included stories and issues that transcended the capital: both provide us with a valuable set of images, graphs and verbal Peruvian society

Ricardo Palma

Ricardo Palma, entered on his baptism as Manuel Ricardo Palma Carrillo (Lima, February 7, 1833 - Miraflores, Lima, October 6, 1919) was a romantic writer, traditionalist, journalist and Peruvian politician, most famous for their historical fiction short stories collected in the book calle Peruvian Traditions. He cultivated almost all genres: poetry, novel, drama, satire, criticism, stories and essays of various kinds.

The texts that make up the Traditions, a new genus, intermediate between the narrative and chronic, are constructed from historical facts or anecdotes of light and popular burlesque constituting a particular literary genre.

Ruben Dario, a great Latin American poet, said that only Ricardo Palma can be considered an author of Traditions because "Tradition cultivated outside Lima and another pen than the palm, does not do well, has little fragrance, looks lack of color. " Blunt and justified appreciation; for testing and therefore understand the Traditions, we must read them. Not only it is possible to know historical facts never mentioned in the official books of the education system, but having fun with the ironic treatment given to the events, characters and circumstances.

Traditions have been analyzed from multiple viewpoints; some have seen in them the nostalgia of the colonial past, others consider thet the irony with which describes that past hides a social critique.

I presume that if Gustavo Dore had devoted to the illustration of the Peruvian Ricardo Palma Traditions would have achieved such amazing drawings like those he created to illustrate the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri.

This chart accompanying a sample of playfulness and style with Ricardo Palma expressed his ideas and wrote his Traditions is presented.

It should not be sane
For a man aspires to be a poet;
But in the end is simple prescription-.
form you n lines with equal measures
And then put rows together
Consonants at the ends
What have you in the middle? In the middle?
That's the story! You have to put talent.

Pancho Fierro

Francisco "Pancho" Fierro Palas (Lima, Peru, 1809 - Lima, July 28, 1879) was a leading Peruvian painter who showed the life and customs of the nineteenth century Peru through watercolors.

There is little biographical information about Pancho Fierro. It says he was born in 1809, but according to Ricardo Palma was born in 1803. He was a mulatto, son of Nicholas and Carmen Fierro Palas. Bohemian artist, intuitive talent, earned a living painting commercial signs and posters molded bulls or rude figures for births. He also practiced the mural on the walls, deleted today or demolished in many houses at Lima. His artistic talent it best recognized in numerous watercolors on cards, in which he portrayed characters and customs of the late colonial period and the first decades of the Republic of Peru, transmitting to the image of a colorful world, covering all classes . In that field had national and foreign competitors and imitators.

According to Ismael Portal, was "honest color, mulatto, of more than medium height, thick, full beard, penetrating look skilful and most acute."

He died in hospital Dos de Mayo, the day of Independence Day 1879, at age 70. The obituary published in the newspaper El Comercio, says that in addition to his watercolors, left numerous oil paintings and charcoal portraits "only inheritance of his bereaved family."

It is estimated that he painted about 1200 scenes from the life of the Peruvian capital, covering the daily activities, customs and the most distinctive characters of all classes. There were artists who imitated or plagiarized his works.

Life presents facts apparently scheduled. Ricardo Palma bought the "Album: Lima, types and customs" and his heirs gave it to the Municipality of Lima, so in the Municipal Gallery Ignacio Merino there are 254 watercolors among the donated by the writer and others later acquired.

Day at the Beach, watercolor by Rugendas Mauritius, European explorer and artist