Rafael Salas (Ecuadorean 1821 - 1906)- Pomerope and Parinacota

16 x 27 inches

framed: 22.5 x 36.5 inches

oil on canvas

Ecuadorean painter and teacher. He was the eldest son of the artist Antonio Salas (1780-1860), in whose workshop he was trained together with his 16 brothers and sisters who, like him, dedicated themselves to art and formed the so-called "Salas dynasty". He is notable as the first major Ecuadorean landscape painter and inspired such artists as Rafael Troya. He is best known for creating the painting that presided over the official consecration of Ecuador in 1874, El Corazon de Jesus (c.1874), the iconography of which was widely propagated. Despite Ecuadorean's transition from colonialism to modernity, Salas continued to treat religious themes, such as Mary Magdalene (1892; Quito, Mus. Jijin y Caamaio), and portraits (e.g. Simon Bolivar; Quito, Mus. A. Mod.), yet he also tried to depict scenes from nature with his romantic Andean landscapes, such as Cotopaxi (1889; Quito, Banco Cent. del Ecuador). Salas also taught landscape painting at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Quito from 1904 until his death.

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