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Published: August 1st 2006
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A Farewell to Arms
This painting dates to 1948, the year Costa Rica abolished its army. Our lawyer is located in San Jose only a few blocks away from the Costa Rican National Museum of Art. Since Mike and I don’t have a truck yet and aren’t on any real schedule, we figured we’d make the most of our time in San Jose and check out some of the museums in the area. We still plan on visiting the Serpenterium (figured it was good to know which guys to look out for) and the Gold Museum, but for this trip, we decided to check out the art museum.
For $5, you can see 2 floors of Costa Rican artwork. It’s not a huge museum. Actually, we learned that the museum was in fact, the country’s previous international airport. The tower you see in the picture was the control tower and the grounds behind the museum as well as some of La Sabana Park, served as runways.
The artwork is very expressive, and the museum is structured with a definitive theme of national identity. The exhibit is called Inside/Outside That Apparent Nothing. It refers to the duality between the two worlds that have coexisted in Costa Rica ~ that of the indigenous, which has long been
downplayed and the Spanish. The exhibit shows two realities that exist which either come together or pull each other apart.
Costa Rican scholar Alexander Jimenez Matarrita sums it up bests when he states, “Colonialism still assumes that before the provincial arrival of the Spaniards, nothing existed here”. For this reason, this exhibit chose to include many Pre-Columbian works as well which Mike and I both found to be incredibly enriching.
The second floor of the museum also contained an amazing room completely carved out of bronze which depicts the history of Costa Rica. One of the curators explained the history to us as expressed through the carvings. He stated that the room is not a political statement, but merely an expression of the history of Costa Rica. The room took the artist 6 years to carve and is now used for lectures on Costa Rican history.
Being technically homeless and unemployed, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my $5 was well spent as I learned more about Costa Rica in the 2 hours spent here in the museum than I have on any previous trips to the country. I would recommend visiting the museum if you
go to San Jose and have a desire to learn more about the country and its people.
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Katy8722
Katy Weathersby
Barbie?
Is that Barbie I recognize as the "Our Lady of Modernism"? I really enjoyed "our" visit to the museum. I still haven't found the face on that one. haha