Teófilo Castillo

Teófilo Castillo Guas or Guash (Oct 2, 1857 - 1922) was a Peruvian Impressionist painter, art critic and photographer.

Teófilo Castillo was born in Carhuaz, in 1857. He was the son of Juan Amancio Castillo and Petronila Guas. From the age of four he was taken to Lima to be educated in the Conciliar seminary of Santo Domingo, having as teacher of drawing and painting Budat, painter of Cuban nationality. Upon returning to Peru, he held an exhibition of his works that were inspired by the Peruvian Traditions of Ricardo Palma.

In 1885 he travels to France and Italy where he studies freely in museums. He produced surprising copies of "The Virgin of Consolation" by the French painter Bougereau, winning a silver medal at one of the most celebrated pictorial exhibitions in Luxenburg.

In 1888 he traveled to Buenos Aires where he married Maria Gaubeka and worked as a photographer and painter. In 1906 he returned to Peru to open his own workshop.

In 1889 he decides to return to Peru, but on his way through Argentina he meets the Spanish Maria Gaubeca with whom he marries and lives in Buenos Aires. Two decades of his life he dedicates to the photography and painting with extraordinary success in the Argentine capital.

Two years later, he briefly revisited Spain, then worked as an art critic and portrait painter. He also became artistic director for the magazines Prisma, La Ilustración Peruana and Variedades, where he published color reproductions of his major works.

In 1905 he returned to Lima and inaugurated a painting workshop and an academy in the famous Quinta Heeren. He introduced in Lima for the first time the illuminated photograph causing great admiration in the environment.

In 1908 he traveled to Spain, and on returning to Peru worked as a painter and art critic. He was in charge of the artistic direction of the magazines Prisma, The Peruvian Enlightenment and Varieties, where he presented reproductions in three colors (trichromias) of his main works.

Attracted by the enchantments of his wife's land and by the luminous, spontaneous, fluid and fresh painting of the painter Mariano Fortuny, he traveled to Spain in 1908 to consolidate his artistic personality on reliable sources in the aesthetic and idiosyncratic, That Lima still lives in the style and colonial style.

On his return from Europe, the painter Teófilo Castillo settled definitively in Lima and since then in union with Ricardo Palma, pen and brush constitute the most representative duo, who narrate finely the traditions of the Lima that left.

Teófilo Castillo was also an excellent art critic and note writer. He collaborated in the magazines "Actualidades" and "Variedades".

His talent and his great human quality were not properly appreciated in the social environment of that time, which hurt his sensibilizas. He decided to retire from the country, and in 1920 he traveled to Tucuman (Argentina) and settled there.

The painting of Teófilo Castillo is characterized by being impressionist, that is, luminous, atmospheric, clean, fresh and transparent. Its color of very rich harmonies. His subjects of court cures are highlighted by the aristocratic and pompous modality with which he usually presents them.

He was an enthusiastic promoter for the establishment of the Escuela Nacional Superior Autónoma de Bellas Artes and recommended Daniel Hernández Morillo as the most qualified person to become the school's first Director. Hernández received the position, but Castillo was not even invited to join the staff. Disappointed and disillusioned, he left Peru for good in 1920.

He settled in Tucumán, where he became editor of the magazine Sol y Nieve. He also produced a huge canvas depicting General Manuel Belgrano presenting the Flag of Argentina to the Congress of Tucumán in 1816, which was purchased by the Argentine government for 20,000 Pesos. Shortly after, he was named an honorary Professor at the local art academy.

His son, Carlos Aitor Castillo, also became a well-known painter.

Works:
He was noted for his paintings of viceroyal evocation inspired by episodes of the Peruvian Traditions of Ricardo Palma, which he made with quick brush, great color, in which the characters and crowds in the processions, between brown and pink, green and blue. Among his canvases we highlight the following:

Murder of Francisco Pizarro (1904)
Conversion of the Magdalene (1905)
The litigation of the calesas (1912)
The Funeral of Santa Rosa (1918)
The Procession of Corpus Christi (1919)
The daughter of the viceroy (1920)
The soiree
http://hisour.com/artist/teofilo-castillo/