Hugo Plazas

The Image of Racialized Groups in Nineteenth-Century Colombian Costumbrista Painting

Adviser: M. Elizabeth Boone

This dissertation examines national narratives embedded in sets of Colombian paintings created between 1810 and 1886 with an eye on racial categorization. Costumbrismo, a pictorial genre focused on depicting local customs of the lower classes, was informed by narratives of nation formation since the early days of the nation. My research delves into the recognition of those narratives, emphasizing the visualization of the nation’s racial division. Centering on the aesthetic production of 15 artists, my analysis will establish to which extent these pictorial representations would have been used as an instrument to envision and transform the Colombian racial ordering.