{"id":470,"date":"2022-12-13T16:11:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T16:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/?page_id=470"},"modified":"2022-12-13T16:11:14","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T16:11:14","slug":"cultura","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/?page_id=470","title":{"rendered":"Cultura"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A brief cultural history of Costa Rica<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Essay for “Pura Vida! Australian Perspectives on the Bicentenary of Costa Rica”, EUNED, 202<\/strong>1<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

If you ever go to Costa Rica, be sure to visit the Museum of Pre-Columbian Gold.  It displays an extraordinary collection of ancient jewels: bracelets, earrings, diadems, collars and countless human and animal figures. When Christopher Columbus first arrived on our shores, in 1502, he was dazzled by the abundance and beauty of the golden ornaments that the Indians proudly carried on their bodies.  In fact, this came as a major relief for him. He had persuaded the Spanish Crown to finance his ocean adventures based on the promise of finding a route to the fabulous wealth of Cipango, East Asia. In his three previous trips, not only had he failed to find such route, but all he could show their majesties for their money was a few exotic animals and plants, and some shy and frightened Indians.  Upon his return to Jamaica after exploring the Central American coast, he wrote a letter to the King and the Queen of Spain in which he enthusiastically described the precious objects he had seen in Veragua, which is the name he gave to those newly discovered territories. From then on, documents started mentioning \u201cthe rich coast of Veragua\u201d (\u201cla rica costa de Veragua), a reference to the wealth of gold that was supposed to exist in that land. Eventually, \u201crica costa\u201d became \u201ccosta rica\u201d, since nouns and adjectives can change positions in Spanish.  That is how our small nation got its name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Columbus was sorely mistaken about the abundance of gold.  There were no large gold mines in Veragua, but only small seams in the basins of a few rivers. In fact, most of the jewels that fill the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum are not from the Caribbean coast, where Columbus arrived, but from the opposite side of the country, in the Pacific shore. Their artful design has its roots in the Chibcha culture from present-day Colombia and Panama.  However, gold jewelry was highly appreciated and traded in this part of Central America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The territory that Columbus discovered in 1502 was largely unpopulated, as compared to other areas such as Mexico or Peru.  About two thirds of present-day Costa Rica were sparsely settled by groups of South American origin who lived in small tribal communities. The Northern part of the territory was inhabited by groups that were ethnically and culturally related to the indigenous nations of Western and Central Mexico. There was virtually no presence of the Maya that lived in Honduras, Guatemala and Southeast Mexico.  The Central Valley, where most Costa Ricans live today, was mostly a large virgin forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Archeological treasures<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building pyramids and other large monuments, such as those in other Latin American countries, demands a well-organized workforce that only complex and hierarchical societies can provide. No such thing existed in Costa Rica, but its gold, ceramic and jade craftsmen, as well as its stone sculptors, created truly remarkable pieces.  Despite the fact that the groups came from distant traditions, spoke different languages and were relatively isolated from each other, certain common traits in their art can be identified that reveal trade and mutual influences. From a strictly aesthetic point of view, however, the gold and the ceramics from Diqu\u00eds in the Southwest stand out, as well as the stone sculptures (ceremonial metates<\/em> or small altars) from the Atlantic Watershed, and profusely decorated ceramic vases and human figures from Guanacaste in the Northeast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One particular type of Costa Rican archeological remains attracts much attention: the numerous, generally large and almost perfectly rounded stone spheres. Although they can be seen in museums and public gardens in different parts of the country, all of them come from Diqu\u00eds in the Southwest, were a few can still be found in their original placements.  They exist probably in the thousands, with the biggest of them measuring close to two meters in diameter. They have been studied by distinguished archeologists, but no one knows exactly how they were made or what purpose they served. They are a fascinating mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Columbus died without obtaining even the smallest profit from the gold in Veragua, except for the small pieces that he managed to trade with the Indians he met in his trip.  However, word of his sightings of the precious metal spread among the conquistadores<\/em>, and several expeditions were organized to explore and conquer those hot, humid and densely forested territories. It was not an easy venture, and none of those who tried to penetrate inland from the Caribbean coast managed to get very far, before the jungle or the natives got rid of them.  Getting to the heartland of the future Costa Rica took a totally different approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The colonizers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juan de Cavall\u00f3n was a young, ambitious Castilian lawyer from La Mancha. He married a daughter of Sancho de Barahona, one of the conquerors of Mexico and Guatemala.  Juan was given some minor royal appointments in Santo Domingo and Nicaragua, but his real aim was to conquer and colonize new territories where he could rule as governor. Together with his brothers-in-law and other distinguished young criollos<\/em> (descendants from Spaniards) from Guatemala, he organized a major expedition along the Pacific coast of Central America. The group included not only the soldiers and some of his wives and families, but also a number of servants and even cattle and domestic animals, which clearly indicates their intention to not only conquer but to stay as settlers in the land. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They arrived in Granada, Nicaragua, which was by then a well-established Spanish outpost, and in January, 1561, started their journey into Nicoya, an important pre-hispanic settlement that the Spaniards had conquered by decimating and dispersing the indigenous population.\u00a0 While the wives and families remained in Nicoya, Cavall\u00f3n and his fellow soldiers travelled South to explore further South.\u00a0 Their plan was to cross the isthmus from West to East, in order to arrive at the fabled Veragua and its golden treasures. Historians disagree as to the route they took into the Central Valley, but the fact is that in March, two months after departing from Nicoya, Juan de Cavall\u00f3n founded a city which he named Garcimu\u00f1oz, after the small Castilian town where he was born in 1524. Nothing remains of that city except for its founding documents. Its exact location is unknown, but there are good reasons to believe that it was on the mountain ridge that surrounds the Central Valley by the South, probably near the modern town of Desamparados[1]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The view from Garcimu\u00f1oz must have been impressive. A large, densely forested valley lay to the North, surrounded by majestic blue mountains. To the East, the massive Iraz\u00fa volcano blocked the way to the Atlantic lowlands and the coveted Veragua. Reaching the land of gold would prove extremely difficult. It was decided (and this was a critical moment in the inception of Costa Rica as a nation) that the soldiers would explore possible inroads towards the Caribbean, while their servants were to stay in Garcimu\u00f1oz, where they would grow food and raise cattle to provide for all the group. The soldiers went on to establish an intermediate base in the Eastern part of the Central Valley, where the city of Cartago sits now. The enormous difficulties of crossing the jungle to reach the Caribbean soon became evident. This disappointed Cavall\u00f3n, who took a new appointment in Guatemala and left in January, 1562. His colleagues eventually settled in Cartago, which Cavall\u00f3n\u2019s successor, Juan V\u00e1zquez de Coronado, formally founded as a city in 1564, and that went on to become the administrative and religious center of the new province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the servants that had remained in Garcimu\u00f1oz became farmers and cattle breeders, formed new families with indigenous women and started settling the surrounding land.  In this way, two different types of society began to emerge in the future Costa Rica: one based on the proud soldiers, and the bureaucrats and clergy that accompanied them, and one formed by the humble servants that gradually became prosperous business people. Throughout the 17th<\/sup> and 18th<\/sup> centuries, families from Cartago colonized the fertile lands bordering the Iraz\u00fa and Turrialba volcanos, and expanded North toward present-day Heredia, while those from the West ventured into the Central Valley and the Northwestern plains of Alajuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Birth of a nation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lack of mineral wealth, and of enough indigenous population to enslave, forced everybody to work in order to make a living. This gave birth to a relatively egalitarian society, where no one was too poor or too rich.  Class divisions existed, but they were nowhere nearly as dramatic as in other parts of the continent. However, certain cultural and ideological differences persisted. It is interesting to note that in 1823, when it came to deciding whether the newly independent Costa Rica would remain so, or would subject itself to the Mexican self-proclaimed emperor, Agust\u00edn de Iturbide, the cities of Cartago and Heredia favored the empire, while those of San Jos\u00e9 and Alajuela insisted on independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conflict was to be resolved through one of the very few civil wars in the country\u2019s history. Costa Rica did not have to fight for its freedom from Spain as other Latin American nations did. Independence was proclaimed in Guatemala for the whole of Central America, and then communicated to the local elites, which gladly accepted it.  However, independence being such a new idea, the lure of a regional empire ruled by criollos<\/em> was attractive to the more conservative and clerical spirits. The liberal minds, which had been exposed to the ideas of the American and French revolutions, and to those of Latin American leaders such as Bol\u00edvar and Morelos, wanted to know nothing about a new empire, criollo or not.  One of those liberals was a young sailor and merchant from Alajuela, Gregorio Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since no one really had any military experience, when the people in Alajuela and San Jos\u00e9 decided to take arms against Cartago and defend independence, Ram\u00edrez was chosen as their leader.  The two small armies faced each other in the hills of Ochomogo. What followed next is a matter of legend.  According to some sources, the San Jos\u00e9 troops had brought an old Spanish canyon with them.  They only managed to make one shot, but that was enough to obtain the surrender of the \u201cimperialists\u201d, who were not prepared to confront artillery fire.  Whatever actually happened, the fact is that Costa Rica\u2019s liberal, pro-independence cities prevailed. (Iturbide\u2019s imperial project had fallen apart weeks before, but that was still unknown to the Costa Ricans). As was normal in those days, Gregorio Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez was offered the position of dictator to rule over the new nation. He only accepted it for less that two weeks, in order to consolidate peace, and then turned control over to a citizens\u2019 assembly.  This disdain for political power based on military force would become a defining trait of the Costa Rican national culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humble, but brave<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the more than two centuries passed between the arrival of the conquistadores<\/em> and the independence, the indigenous population was corralled and decimated, either by war, over-exploitation or disease, and gradually lost most of its crafts and traditional culture. Since there were few Indians and not much gold or silver, Costa Rica remained a sort of backwater, largely ignored by the Spanish crown and the colonial authorities.  At some point, one governor formally complained that he had to till the soil with his own hands in order to make a living.  Mules were exported to Panama, for the transfer of Peruvian gold and silver across the isthmus to the Caribbean. Tobacco became an export commodity in the 18th<\/sup> century, together with a few other products. None of that changed the fact that the land was poor and scarcely populated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That situation was hardly attractive for the Jesuits, the powerful order that built the fabulous churches for Mexico and South America, where indigenous workforce and mineral wealth were abundant.  The catholic missionaries that preached the Gospel in Costa Rica were mostly Franciscans, and the simple, small temples that survive from colonial times in Orosi, Quircot and Nicoya bear witness to their vows of poverty and humbleness.  A certain spirit of modesty became ingrained in Costa Rican culture since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things started to change in the 1830s, with the first exports of coffee to Chile and Europe. The Government and some families had a new source of income that allowed them to import fine objects and books, and to send their young to study in France or England.  When an army of mercenaries invaded Costa Rica in 1856, commanded by American lawyer and adventurer William Walker, on behalf of slave owners from Southern USA, they were rejected by a disciplined and well-supplied army of professional soldiers and volunteers, led by the Costa Rican president himself, Juan Rafael Mora, a cultured and wealthy coffee grower from San Jos\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Liberal Republic<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As opposed to what happened in other Latin American nations, political power was normally in civilian hands in 19th<\/sup> century Costa Rica.  One notable exception was general Tom\u00e1s Guardia, a veteran of the war against Walker, who directly or indirectly ruled the country between 1870 and 1882. A progressive liberal, in 1971 Guardia passed a modern Constitution which basically shaped the future republic, including the separation of powers, religious freedom and, remarkably, the abolition of the death penalty.  He also started building the country\u2019s railroad network, established the National Archive, created a bank that still exists and promoted public education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By politically restricting the old oligarchy, Guardia cleared the field for a new generation of politicians that by the end of the century had established Costa Rica as one of the most advanced nations of Latin America. Laws and institutions were functional and modern, and democracy, if still imperfect, was generally recognized as the best form of government. When a sitting president maneuvered to appoint an illegitimate successor, in 1889, peasants from all around San Jos\u00e9 marched into the city to prevent it. Costa Ricans refer to this period of their history as the Liberal Republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A visitor to Costa Rica in 1900 would have found a brand new, neo-classical style theater worthy of a European capital, several high schools for boys and girls in major cities, a national library and a national museum, as well as several bronze monuments brought in from Europe to commemorate Central America\u2019s victory over Walker and his mercenaries, and the highly symbolic hero of that war, a humble mestizo troop drummer from Alajuela called Juan Santamar\u00eda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National identity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first decades of the twentieth century were not the best of times for most Western nations.  World War I disrupted international trade, which particularly affected Costa Rica\u2019s coffee exports to Europe.  A strained economy led to political instability, including a brief dictatorial rule between 1917 and 1919.  However, the cultural and educational investments of the recent past started to bear fruit in a new generation of writers, artists and intellectuals whose creations gave Costa Ricans a new sense of national identity. The short stories by Manuel Gonz\u00e1lez Zeled\u00f3n (1864-1936) and the poems of Aquileo Echeverr\u00eda (1866-1911), the two most revered authors of that period, presented a humorous but dignified image of the peasants in their everyday life. Journalist P\u00edo V\u00edquez (1850-1899), philologist Carlos Gagini (1865-1925), and historian Ricardo Fern\u00e1ndez Guardia (1867-1950) also wrote poetry, fiction and drama in a more cosmopolitan style, but with Costa Rican subjects and realities in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his novels and essays, Joaqu\u00edn Garc\u00eda Monge (1881-1958) went deeper into social and moral issues, but his most important contribution to Costa Rican and Latin American culture was the magazine that he single-handedly published for almost forty years: Repertorio Americano<\/em>. From his tiny office in San Jos\u00e9, Garc\u00eda Monge kept contact with the most brilliant authors in the Spanish language, whose texts he often illustrated with woodcuts by young Costa Rican artists. A champion of democracy, anti-imperialism and human rights, Garc\u00eda Monge exercised a strong intellectual leadership on the emerging generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carmen Lyra (born Mar\u00eda Isabel Carvajal, 1887-1949) was a schoolteacher and writer of children stories that are widely read to this day.  Above all, however, she was a committed social activist and communist militant. Like Garc\u00eda Monge, she was an inspiration to writers such as Carlos Luis Fallas (1909-1966), Joaqu\u00edn Guti\u00e9rrez (1918-2000), and Fabi\u00e1n Dobles (1918-1997), who not only wrote works of intense social drama, but became communist intellectual leaders themselves. Not all the writers of that generation were socialist, of course. Yolanda Oreamuno (1916-1956) was close to some members of the leftist group, but wrote intimate, personal stories. Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00edn Ca\u00f1as (1904-1980) was politically conservative, but he was also a talented novelist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poetry took its own course, rather distant from the social interests of the fiction writers.  It was highly lyrical since its inception in the works of Rafael \u00c1ngel Troyo (1870-1910), Roberto Brenes Mes\u00e9n (1874-1947) and Lis\u00edmaco Chavarr\u00eda (1878-1913). The best-known lyrical poet of the twentieth century was Juli\u00e1n Marchena (1897-1995), whose Vuelo Supremo<\/em> is probably the most memorized and celebrated poem ever written by a Costa Rican.  Other significant mid-century poets were Isaac Felipe Azofeifa (1909-1997) and Eunice Odio (1919-1974).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visual arts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visual arts of the first half of the twentieth century show aspects of Costa Rica that are not present in the works of the writers. The first professional painter in Costa Rica was Enrique Echandi (1866-1959), who studied art and music in Leipzig and Munich from 1886 to 1891.  A skillful academic painter in the rather austere German tradition, his talent was not wholly appreciated by the Costa Rican elite, which preferred the more colorful and sentimental paintings of the Italian artists that decorated the National Theater. When the government started a Fine Arts School in 1897, it appointed Spanish painter Tom\u00e1s Povedano as its first director, ignoring Echandi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Povedano, the school trained mostly young ladies interested in creating fine pictures to decorate their homes. The talented artists that defined the character of Costa Rican art in the first half of the century came from elsewhere.  Their leader was a young architect, Teodorico Quir\u00f3s (1897-1977). While studying in Boston, Quir\u00f3s came into contact both with European avant-garde painting and with the American regional school that reacted against it.  He felt more inclined to the latter, with its interest in landscape and everyday subjects, rather than to the sophisticated intellectual pursuits of the Paris school.  The large murals that Joaqu\u00edn Sorolla painted for the Hispanic Society in New York, representing the various regions of Spain, confirmed his determination to create life-affirming, solidly grounded art to celebrate the natural beauty of Costa Rica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A charismatic leader, upon his return to Costa Rica he became the center of a group of young artists. Together they visited small towns in the countryside, where they painted the landscape and, probably due to Quir\u00f3s\u2019 training as an architect, the quaint adobe houses of the peasants. When they started exhibiting their work, in the late twenties, they presented the newly urbanized society of San Jos\u00e9 with a somewhat idealized image of life in the country, using the bold strokes and strong colors of post-impressionism, which contrasted with the more subdued, academic tradition of both Echandi and Povedano. These artists are known as the Generaci\u00f3n Nacionalista<\/em>.  In the following decades they developed long, fruitful and divergent careers. Quir\u00f3s and Fausto Pacheco (1899-1966), as well as Carlos Salazar Herrera (1906-1980), remained faithful to landscape and rural homes. Luisa Gonz\u00e1lez de S\u00e1enz (1899-1982) imagined fantastic territories and mysterious, surrealist characters.  Francisco Amighetti (1907-1998) became an internationally acclaimed woodcut artist, with the human figure as his main interest. Manuel de la Cruz Gonz\u00e1lez (1909-1986) joined the ranks of geometric abstraction while living in Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were also notable sculptors in that generation.  Except for the talented Juan Ram\u00f3n Bonilla (1882-1944), who studied in Italy but was largely unable to develop a career in his native land, the emerging sculptors were trained in the workshops of \u201csanteros\u201d, the craftsmen that created religious images for churches and private devotion.  This form of art is strongly rooted in the Catholic tradition, and it has demanding standards for representing the human figure and expression. Manuel Z\u00fa\u00f1iga Rodr\u00edguez (1890-1979) ran one of the best workshops in Costa Rica, and all the members of the first generation of sculptors were at some point his apprentices or assistants, including Juan Rafael Chac\u00f3n (1894-1982), Juan Manuel S\u00e1nchez (1907-1990) and the master\u2019s own son, Francisco Z\u00fa\u00f1iga (1912-1998).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of working on marble or bronze, as in the classical tradition, these sculptors carved the many precious woods from the tropical forest, as well as volcanic and other rough and hard stones that also abound in Costa Rica.  When asked to make a monument to doctor Ricardo Moreno Ca\u00f1as, Juan Rafael Chac\u00f3n spent years looking for a suitable stone that would be big enough for a monumental statue, and then even more years carving the noble figure of the famous physician. Juan Manuel S\u00e1nchez, a proud descendant of indigenous ancestors, revived the tradition of making animal figures, which he subtly and elegantly represented in wood and stone.  He also made religious images and numerous portraits of his beautiful wife, Berta, always using the most basic materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1935, Francisco Z\u00fa\u00f1iga won a Central American sculpture contest with a stylized Mother and son<\/em> carved on stone.  He intended to use the prize money to go to Spain, but because of the civil war in that country he stayed in Mexico, where he developed an outstanding career for the next sixty years. He kept his Costa Rican nationality, however, until very late in life. The natural elegance and dignity of Mexican indigenous women was his main subject.  His work has pride of place in some of the best sculpture collections in the world, including the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second republic<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything seems to have changed in Costa Rica between 1940 and 1950. As a result of a perplexing political alliance between an oligarchic President, the Catholic Church and the Communist Party, ambitious social reforms were introduced in the Constitution and the labor laws.  Unfortunately, these healthy trends were followed by rampant corruption and an attempt to ignore a legitimate election. Jos\u00e9 Figueres, a farmer and businessman of Catalonian ascent, led an armed rebellion in 1948 to reestablish democracy. After victory, he permanently dissolved the national army and called an assembly to reform the Constitution. During his brief rule as leader of a Junta he established the institutional basis of modern Costa Rica. Banks were nationalized, the National Energy Institute was created and the state took a central role in economic development, but private enterprise and personal freedom were strictly protected. It was the start of the Segunda Rep\u00fablica<\/em>, the Second Republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figueres surrounded himself with a group of young, progressive, mostly middle-class professionals that eventually formed a social-democratic political party, Liberaci\u00f3n Nacional. For most of the second half of the 20th<\/sup> century, they alternated government control with the more conservative social-christian party.  The Costa Rican economy grew and diversified, public services improved and the country became one of the most advanced in Latin America, according to the Human Development Index of the United Nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural policies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figueres was elected president two more times, the last one in 1970. In the first year of his third administration he created the Ministry of Culture, which has had a critical role in preserving the Costa Rican cultural heritage, promoting new artistic creations and bringing them to larger audiences. The performing arts, in particular, had traditionally been limited because of lack of resources and institutional support. The Ministry founded the National Dance, Theater and Opera companies, imported talent from abroad when necessary, and organized performing seasons at low prices, which brought the public into contact not only with the work of classic universal authors, but also of Costa Rican playwrights like Alberto Ca\u00f1as (1920-2014), who was also the first Minister of Culture, Daniel Gallegos (1930-2018) and Samuel Rovinsky (1932-2013).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With considerable involvement from president Figueres himself, and under the leadership of the vice-minister of Culture, Guido S\u00e1enz (1929), the National Symphony was totally re-organized as part of an ambitious experiment: skilled instrument players were recruited in Europe and the USA to perform with the Symphony and to train a new generation of musicians.  Thousands of children were tested for their musical talent, which resulted in the creation of a Youth Symphony of international stature. Those kids eventually displaced their teachers and formed a National Symphony that has successfully performed in Europe, the Americas and Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the opening of the Museum of Costa Rican Art, in 1977, the public was finally able to see the works of the masters of the Generaci\u00f3n Nacionalista<\/em> under one roof, together with those of newer painters such as Dinorah Bolandi (1923-2004), Jorge Gallardo (1924-2002), Lola Fern\u00e1ndez (1926) and Felo Garc\u00eda (1928), as well as sculptors like N\u00e9stor Zeled\u00f3n Guzm\u00e1n (1933) and \u00d3lger Villegas (1934).  A significant latecomer was Jos\u00e9 Sancho (1935), who started sculpting in his 40s, by re-connecting with the time-honored Costa Rican tradition of animal figures, and went on to develop a brilliant international career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artists, writers and performers born in the fourth and fifth decades of the 20th<\/sup> century found the public galleries, publishers and stages that they needed to display their talents. Poets like Jorge Debravo (1938), Julieta Dobles Izaguirre (1943) and Alfonso Chase (1944) had their books printed and widely read.  Dancer and choreographer Mireya Barboza (1935), painter Rafa Fern\u00e1ndez (1935), draughtsman Carlos Poveda (1940), sculptor Marisel Jim\u00e9nez (1947) and other talented artists in different fields were able to access wider audiences and inspire new generations of creators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New developments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 1989, the Ministry of Culture organizes an international arts festival every two years, with performances by theater and dance companies, music groups and other artists from all over the world. In the intervening years, a national festival with local talent takes place in different communities throughout the country. San Jos\u00e9, the capital, has its own street arts festival.  A classical music festival is held every year since 1991, sponsored by Credomatic, a credit card company. Such events draw the attention of the press and, in the case of the international arts festival, of large crowds of public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music, perhaps because of its strong base in the discipline of classical training, has continued to flourish in many different ways. The SINEM (Spanish initials for National System of Music Education) has created youth orchestras in a number of small towns throughout the country. Several young pianists trained by Russian maestro Aleksandr Skliutovsky have won prestigious international awards and scholarships. Popular music has reached extraordinary quality standards in bands like Editus<\/em> and Malpa\u00eds<\/em>.  A private philharmonic orchestra, created and conducted by Marvin Araya, attracts large crowds to its pop concerts, often featuring foreign stars. Classic composer and conductor Eddy Mora has won several Grammy Awards, as have the members of Editus<\/em> through their recordings with Panamenian singer and composer Ruben Blades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two potentially convergent forms of art have emerged in recent years: fiction writing (which had little to show after the generation of the communist novelists) and cinema.  Fiction book publishing is largely a private initiative that has successfully struggled to create a local market.  Filmmaking is also mostly private, with some support from the government. A small Costa Rica International Film Festival, started in 2013, provides an important stage for local and regional filmmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tourism, which has been one of the driving forces of the Costa Rican economy in recent decades, has fostered the revival of some ancient craft traditions, such as pre-Columbian style ceramics in Guanacaste, and wooden, colorful ritual masks in Boruca. Since forests and wildlife are the main tourist attractions of Costa Rica, the industry has also stimulated the art of nature photography, both in visitors and in a number of talented local photographers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, once the forceful official promotion of the arts in the seventies and eighties lost its momentum, some artistic expressions appear to have lost it too. Theater, dance and painting, while still providing the occasional surprise, have ceased to excite the public interest like they did in previous decades.  This may have to do with the fact that, in all those years, the ministries of Culture and Education failed to coordinate a strategy to promote art appreciation and create new audiences. They have almost always acted in isolation, which is quite strange, considering the fact that the Ministry of Culture manages significant infrastructure and a considerable pool of talent, while the Ministry of Education covers the entire national territory and spends, per capita, one of the most generous educational budgets in the developing world. If and when this absurd situation changes, Costa Rica will no doubt reap more benefits from its long-standing devotion to culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/a> See Molina Montes de Oca, Carlos.  Garcimu\u00f1oz. La ciudad que nunca muri\u00f3<\/em>. Editorial UNED, San Jos\u00e9, 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A brief cultural history of Costa Rica Essay for “Pura Vida! Australian Perspectives on the Bicentenary of Costa Rica”, EUNED, 2021 If you ever go to Costa Rica, be sure to visit the Museum of Pre-Columbian Gold.  It displays an extraordinary collection of ancient jewels: bracelets, earrings, diadems, collars and countless human and animal figures. … Continue reading “Cultura”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":446,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-470","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471,"href":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/470\/revisions\/471"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carlosfranciscoecheverria.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}