I was looking for some details on the history of art in El Salvador, and I came across this really interesting article about from 2014 about the MARTE (El Museo de Arte de El Salvador), the country’s national gallery. Art journalist Laura C. Mallonee takes a tour of MARTE and covers the progression of Salvadoran art from the 19th century to the present day as shown in the gallery.

The article, Creating a National Art in El Salvador, gives a clear-eyed overview of Salvadoran art and how it has responded and evolved to the (often unstable) national situation. The two biggest tensions that seem to run though Salvadoran art are balancing the influence of large countries on art styles, and how to process, understand, and heal from the violence that has affected the country for most of the last century.

I wanted to see some of these art pieces myself, and thankfully, MARTE has a useful website (only in Spanish, though) that lets you look though their catalogues and go on 3D panoramas of the gallery. I’d suggest looking through the 50 Artistas – 50 Obras (50 Artists, 50 Works) catalogue, and checking out the powerful flayed, reaching man in the Pasillo 1 panorama.