Jose Gil de Castro (1785-1841)
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Jose Gil de Castro was the legitimate son of Don Jose Mariano Carvajal Castro and Maria Leocadia Morales. His artistic formation started in the state school of drawing and painting created by José of the Well and his teacher was the Spanish Julian Payo. In 1805 he is transferred to Santiago de Chile.
By his outstanding work as a painter of portraits, he receives the appointment of Greater Teacher of the union of painters by the Town hall of Santiago. And also taking advantage of his military experience and his knowledge of drawing, cartography and cosmography, he enters the Chilean army, like member of the Engineering Corps with the Lieutenant degree.
In those days he painted a number of religious works including the Our Lady of Mercy (1815) and portraits of prominent ladies of the high society. In the 1820s José Gil de Castro, known as “the Mulatto,” rendered the heroes of Peruvian independence in a precise but boldly flattened and brightly colored documentary style with little emotional expression. These works often reflect the colonial portrait formula of including a shield with documentary information in the lower corner of the painting. When he returned to Peru in 1822, he designed the army uniform and painted portraits of leaders of the Independence movement like O’Higgins, San Martin and Bolivar, among others.
While vestiges of colonial art can be seen in de Castro’s work, his subject-matter and his skilled treatment of perspective, color and composition singled him out as the most important painter of the early Republican era, and his work constitutes an invaluable historical record.
Still wondering about a Peruvian painting in your family collection? Contact us…it could be by José Gil de Castro.