Music
Modern Colombian music is a mixture of African, native Indigenous and European (Spanish) influences, as well as more modern American and Caribbean musical forms, such as Trinidadian, Cuban, and Jamaican. The national music of Colombia is said to be vallenato and cumbia.
Cumbia is a mixture of Spanish and African music, the latter brought by slaves. The style of dance is designed to recall the shackles worn around the ankles of the slaves. In the 19th century, slavery was abolished and Africans, Indians and other ethnic groups mixed more fully. Styles like bambuco, vallenato and porro were especially influential.
When the waltz became popular in the 19th century, a Colombian version called pasillo was invented. International Latin, a type of pop ballad, and salsa music are best-represented by Charlie Zaa and Joe Arroyo, respectively.
Music and dancing are very popular in Colombia, with dozens of popular vibrant styles. The most popular local musical styles are Vallenato, salsa, Merengue, Cumbia and Bambuco. The latter is a very complicated dance with many differently named steps.
Colombian rock developed after an influence of Rock en Español generating fusion of Rock Music with traditional Colombian music and other musical styles.
The musical genre of Colombian pop music has been growing recently with artists like Fonseca, San Alejo, Lucas Arnau or Mauricio y Palo de Agua. Pop with strong traces of traditional Colombian music is also currently rising. Los De Adentro and Maía represent this trend. Many Colombian artists are recognized internationally including among others, Shakira, who is the most recognized Colombian artist in the world actually.
Dancing to reggaeton became also very popular in Colombia during the first decade of the 21st century.
Literature
Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, is from Aracataca, Colombia. His novel Cien Años de Soledad is recognized as a landmark of the literary movement known as “magical realism (realismo mágico)”.
Other important writers are Jorge Isaacs, who wrote “María”, Gonzalo Arango, founder of the “Nadaismo” movement, Álvaro Mutis, winner of the Cervantes Prize, Fernando Vallejo, winner of the Rómulo Gallegos prize, José Asunción Silva, precursor of Latin American romanticism, Raúl Gómez Jattin, Efraím Medina, Andrés Caicedo, the poets Piedad Bonnet and María Mercedes Carranza, Aurelio Arturo, the novelist Germán Espinosa and Rafael Chaparro Madiedo.
The most important literary magazines are El Malpensante, Arcadia, Número, La Movida Literaria, Universidad de Antioquia and Puesto de Combate.
Art
Colombians have been producing art for thousands of years. Ornate golden figures and jewelry from millennia ago have been discovered by both ruthless conquistadors and careful archaeological digs.
In the colonial time, the painting was characterized by the works of the three Figueroa, pioneers of this art: Baltasar de Figueroa, the old; Gaspar the Figueroa, his son and Baltazar de Figueroa, the young. Gaspar was the teacher of important artists, lie Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos. José María Espinoza Prieto, painter and engraver, also is important for his portraits, landscapes and caricatures. Epifanio Garay is highlighted, specially by his portraits.
After the war of independence, in 1819, the Colombian art still is dependent of the figurative. Some persons explain that delay in the evolution of the Colombian artistic styles doing reference to the geography of the country, that make difficult a contact and dialogue between the different creative tendencies In the decades between 1920 and 1940, Marco Tobón Mejía, José Horacio Betancur, Pedro Nel Gómez, Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo, Santiago Martínez Delgado and Alipio Jaramillo created some dynamics in the elaboration of murals. They were influenced by the Mexican art, although with neoclassic and Art Nouveau characterists.
At the beginning of the 1940 decade, are created works that was new in Colombia, inspired in the post-impressionism and the academic french style. Many historians of art believe that the Colombian art only began to has a distinctive character in the half of 20th century, with a new point of view, integrating the cultural and artistic traditional elements with the concepts of the art in 20th century.
Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo, for example, combines the new techniques with cultural elements, in his Portrait to the Greiff Brothers. Pedro Nel Gómez, highlighted in the drawing, the water color, the fresco, the oilpainting and the sculpture in wood, stone and bronze, shows, for example in “Autorretrato con sombrero” (1941), his familiarity with the works of Gauguin and Van Gogh. In other works, he reveals the influence of Cézanne.
Alejandro Obregon, considered by many as the father of the Colombian art (most by his originality), has been acclaimed by critics and the public because of his painting of national landscapes characterized by violent strokes and the symbolic and expressionist use of animals (specially birds, like the condor). His work is influenced by Picasso and Grahan Sutherland.
In more recent years, some Colombian artists, such as Fernando Botero, Enrique Grau, David Manzur, Luis Caballero, Santiago Martinez Delgado, Ignacio Gomez Jaramillo, Débora Arango, and have received international fame, awards and wide public acclaim.
Architecture
Despite Colombia’s multiple cultural heritage (European, Indian and African), its architecture is mostly the result of adapting European models to local conditions. The country’s colonial buildings reflect their Spanish (and particularly Andalusian) origin, as seen in the traditional single-story houses laid around a central patio, to be found both in colonial towns such as Santafé (Bogotá), Tunja or Cartagena, or in rural haciendas throughout the country.
After gaining its independence, Colombia severed its links with Spain and looked elsewhere for new models, first England, then France, marking the beginning of what became known as Republican Architecture (Arquitectura republicana), an era that lasted well into the twentieth century, when the changes in architectural thinking in Europe brought Modern Architecture to the country during the last years before World War II.
Film & Television
The interest for the film production came late to Colombia. Vicente and Francisco Di Doménico, of Italian origin, were the pioneers in the films production. In 1912 the first movie theater was inaugurated in Colombia: the Salón Olympia, with a capacity of three thousand people.
The most outstanding directors in film production are Sergio Cabrera, Felipe Aljure, Luís Ospina, Víctor Gaviria and Carlos Mayolo. Between the most recent proposals we find Andy Baíz and Juan Felipe Orozco, director of “Al final del espectro”. The work of Dago García and Rodrigo Triana is in a commercial line.
Regional Cuisine
In Bogotá and the Andean region, ajiaco is a traditional dish. It is a soup made of chicken, corn, many different types of potatoes, avocado, and guascas, a local herb. Traditionally, cream and capers are added at the table before eating. Ajiaco is served with white rice, salad with a hint of lemon, avocado, or sweet or salty tostadas. For breakfast, people in Bogotá often eat changua, a milk, scallion and egg soup.
Along the Caribbean coast, pork and whale liver are used in mild spicy food. Coconut rice is a common dish along the coastal cities. Suero, which is a cross between yogurt and sour cream, is widely consumed, and was introduced by Arab immigrants in Barranquilla and other coastal cities. The arepa has many forms in the Caribbean region, which include arepa limpia, arepa de huevo (arepa with egg), and arepa de queso (arepa with cheese).
In the Llanos of the east, barbecued meat is common, due to the cowboy-like culture. Dishes such as the ternera llanera are cooked on a vertical spit over an open fire. Freshwater fish such as the amarillo are also eaten. In the Amazon, Brazilian and Peruvian influences can be seen in the local food. Local resources such as beef and other livestock, as well as freshwater fish, are typical ingredients in Amazonian cuisine.
The tamales Tolimenses are considered a delicacy in the Tolima region. These tamales are made of corn dough, and are filled with a mixture of peas, carrots, potatoes, rice, chicken, pork, and various spices. They are wrapped in plantain leaves and boiled for three to four hours. Lechona is a whole roast pig stuffed with rice, vegetables, and pork, and is typically eaten on Sundays. This dish is now enjoyed throughout the country.