Since the beginning of photographic practices in America in the 19th century – and Chile is no exception – the idea that the photographer as an observer looked at a reality as if he were looking through a window was a fundamental part of various visual constructions of subjects, landscapes. and events. Although these conceptions of looking move from certain Western pictorial practices, it is only under the visual devices and procedures typical of photography as a conventionalized system of visual representation and as a technical image, that this condition achieves special connotations. Beyond the dichotomy between the subject who observes and the setting, as well as what is observed, a dynamic is installed between those portrayed and the surrounding worlds mediated by the presence of the photographic camera as a technical device, in accordance with the particular views of the author and his modalities. visuals, ways of seeing, constructing and visually representing the world around you.
These conceptions had special significance in the areas of the so-called “frontier”, where various people, whether professional photographers, travelers or adventurers, opened the windows of their vision through their cameras, towards new and complex realities, when traveling or settling, and even being born in towns and cities established in the Mapuche territories occupied by the Chilean State starting in the second half of the 19th century [1]. In these contexts, the photographic corpus that compromises the Mapuche people as original inhabitants of these regions are especially significant, not only because of the variety of authors and their early production, but, above all, because of the different perspectives that compromise the registration and construction. visual of characters, customs and traditions of that other cultural reality.
An extraordinary example of these views along with the high social, political and cultural complexity of the “border” is the work of photographer Benedicto Rivas (1893 – 1974) who was born and died in the city of Cholchol (La Araucanía region). [2] Between around 1910 and 1940, in the heart of the border area and through his camera, Dr. R. Krügener opened wide a window onto his immediate realities, as he developed intense work of recording under the gaze of the what we could call a local author. He shares his work as a farmer with his photographic activities, but no less accomplished in the aesthetic and technical aspects of it. His limited and precise body of images brings together nearly five hundred negatives on 9 x 12 cm glass plates, where the settings and characters towards which Rivas focuses his camera are displayed, such as, for example, his daily and family life, certain territories being transformed by agriculture and colonization, and particularly the Araucana Anglican Mission of the South American Missionary Society in Cholchol. Firstly, his window opens inward, to the intimacy of his life and his family through the aesthetics and modality of the portrait, and secondly, it opens towards the worlds he inhabits, such as his hometown of Cholchol, the mission, the landscapes of the river and the countryside and, above all, the agricultural activities, captured with determined and direct aesthetics and modalities, with open and spacious frames. Finally, he directs his attention towards difference, making a significant number of images of the Mapuche world where he combines the two previous modalities with visual devices that include frames and planes that expand or close on those photographed. Thus, the Mapuche acquire a special visual prominence to reveal, on the one hand, certain nuances and conflicts, sometimes infiltrated by the modernity of progress that arrives and, on the other, the grandeur and magnificence of a culturally different but living and present world. , where the emphasis is placed on their ritual practices, their traditions and their material culture of textiles and artifacts as bearers of identity and resistance.
Author: Benedicto Rivas Núñez. Threshing in Los Carrizos. Hacienda of the photographer's family near Cholchol, La Araucanía Region, Chile. Negative on glass. Ca. 1930. Benedicto Rivas Archive, National Library, Santiago, Chile.
Through the production of Benedicto Rivas we can appreciate how his local and specific perspective gives an account of that world of the “border”, whose very name evokes spaces and scenarios that awaken and stimulate fantasies, fables and powerful representations, extensive and untamed territories and diverse characters such as adventurers and merchants. In the midst of this variety and intersection of identities as Creole and European settlers, the world of the Mapuche people has an undeniable existential density that this photographer manages to capture in his images through visual constructions, sometimes epic, sometimes dramatic.
As already said, the great variety of authors with their particular views and visual modalities, ways of seeing, constructing and visually representing the world of the “border” and particularly the Mapuche people, is very extensive and diverse. We can ask ourselves, then, which and where those other windows to which their gazes opened were located and what are the modalities, devices and visual procedures that they used to record this very different world.
Right now we will focus on the work of three greats of Chilean photography, not only because of the weight and significance of their work in the development of photographic activity in this country, but, mainly because, like Benedicto Rivas, they present a great production that covers shots of society in general of the nascent republic of Chile at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, and its landscapes and scenarios in constant change as a result of the expansion of the national State towards the southern territories. And here the question posed by Hans Belting about what you can learn about the world when you are close to a window takes on special importance, since when observing the images of these three pioneering authors and founders of photographic activity in the south of our continent, they undress and reveal through their looks, aesthetics and modalities in the visual construction of the Mapuche that provided references and meanings that have transcended until today.
“The Founders”, three views, three windows
This trilogy of photographers makes up what we have called the group of “The Founders”, for being the first authors to photographically explore the Mapuche world in the “border” territories, beginning a broad record of images of this people that continues to this day. Christian Enrique Valck, Gustavo Milet Ramírez and Odder Heffer Bissett as early photographers of the “frontier” constructed their shots following the various aesthetic codes, devices and visual procedures typical and distinctive of portraiture and landscape views, particularly from the 19th century, combining their craft of photographers of figures from society in general and the natural and urban landscape, with shots and portraits of the Mapuche people in the specific and limited space of their photographic studios in cities such as Traiguén or Temuco (La Araucanía region) and Valdivia or San José of Mariquina (Los Ríos region), as well as in its surroundings on the outskirts of warehouses and homes, in the communities that inhabited the urban space of these border cities.
The dedication and professionalism of these authors takes on special importance when it comes to focusing on images of the Mapuche world, for two fundamental reasons. Firstly, because their status as photographic image professionals, rather than travelers or scientists, implies that the perception of this strange and diverse world is based on the gaze of a creator, rather than that of an ethnologist or a researcher [3]. . Through their respective windows, a visuality is constructed in accordance with the technical devices and procedures that they handle in their capacity as photography professionals. Secondly, because the formal and aesthetic quality of these representations, added to the existential weight of every photographic image, has legitimized them so that, in later years, especially in the 20th century, they become a fundamental part of certain Mapuche identities, being above all -exhibited in multiple discursive and iconographic contexts, coming to form a powerful visual imaginary of this town.
Their presumed validity and historical fidelity and their antiquity as photographs have legitimized them to be reproduced in the most varied texts of anthropology and history, in exhibition catalogs of Mapuche culture and cultural dissemination posters; They have been reprinted as propaganda for ethnic claims and even as graphics for tourism and the exaltation of certain cultural identities.
Thus, the look and the ways in which The Founders “closed to their windows”, according to everyone, have come to constitute a particular record of the past, an updateable memory of past, distant and strange situations, which were stored in the form of portraits. photographs of historical subjects, necessarily referring to a reality that is supposed to have been “true”, a particular vision of the Mapuche of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Let's now see the looks and modalities of each of these three photographers, how each of them looks out of their window and what those windows are...
Christián Enrique Valck and Fernando Valck, pioneers of photography in Valdivia
Christián Enrique Valck (1826 – 1899) along with his descendants were pioneers of photography from its beginnings in cities such as Concepción, Valdivia and Osorno (Biobío, Los Ríos and Los Lagos regions respectively). A native of Hassel, Germany, he arrived on the sailboat Victoria to the Port of Corral (Los Ríos region), in 1852, creating a prestigious establishment in the heart of the city of Valdivia. His work as a photographer would have begun in 1858 and was continued, mainly by his son Fernando Maximiliano Valck Wiegand (1857 – 1910), who also added an activity as a publisher of postcards with his own images and from other colleagues. In 1890, shortly before the death of his father, he established a partnership with Juan de Dios Carvajal, a prestigious photographer in the city of Concepción. In 1901 his portraits and views were awarded an Honorable Mention at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York state in the United States.
Author: Christian Enrique Valck. Women from the German colony of Valdivia in the photographer's studio. Valdivia, Los Ríos Region, Chile. Ca. 1870. Mauricio van de Maele Historical and Anthropological Museum Archive. Valdivia, Chile.
Due to their early beginnings in photographic activity in such distant and unexplored territories of the border areas, the iconographic legacy of these Valck photographers has become a fundamental reference for the history of photography in Chile. His extensive production stands out for its notable aesthetic and social content, being the modality of the portrait of the society of the time where it reaches its best achievement. Numerous members of the German colony of the time, especially in Valdivia, were trapped in albumen paper copies arranged on secondary supports in Cabinet and Carte de Visite format, made in a studio in accordance with the strict standards of portraiture. last decades of the 19th century.
Author: Christian Enrique Valck. Mapuche women in photographer's studio. Valdivia, Los Ríos Region, Chile. Ca. 1870. Mauricio van de Maele Historical and Anthropological Museum Archive. Valdivia, Chile.
These visual modalities move with incredible persistence to the majority of Mapuche images, to which is added a no small number of portraits distributed in photographic albums, forming part of sets where family photography is combined with urban views and landscapes. , but always located in the final pages. This conjunction of formats and corpus allows us to see how the Valcks' window opens towards cultural difference with the same visual devices and procedures with which they portray and record their own world. In both realities, the inevitable curtains of artifice are present, with their decoration and baroque architecture of stairs and ornate arches, articulating the same aesthetics where they seek to create an atmosphere that shows the portrayed characters following the social codes of the time. The views of the Valcks thus reveal a Mapuche subject that can only be recognized in the cultural difference of clothing and artifacts, with planes and frames that focus without gadgets directly on their objective, generating an aesthetic that results in a concise, clear image. of all paraphernalia and that forces us to direct our gaze directly to the portrayed character [4].
Gustavo Milet Ramírez, master of portraiture in Traiguén
Gustavo Milet Ramírez (1860 – 1917), son of French parents, was born in the port of Valparaíso (Valparaíso region) and settled in the border city of Traiguén (La Araucanía region) around the year 1890, where he opened his photographic studio to carry He carried out most of his activity taking shots of characters and families from local society. He also makes some landscape views especially on his trips and roaming to take images where he reaches the city of Osorno and the settler communities on Lake Llanquihue (Los Lagos region). As a “photographer artist”, according to his label, like many of his colleagues of the time, he displays his themes with a clearly portraitist intention, with some images he made of his family, his wife and his children, and even some self-portraits. His work, although not very numerous, stands out especially for a no small number of portraits of the Mapuche, whom he names as “Araucanos”, with which he achieves great notoriety. Made in albumen paper copy arranged on secondary supports, most of them are in Cabinet format, and by the difference in stamps it can be known today that he made several editions which have circulated widely in commercial and collector circles, as well as as photographic archives in Chile and abroad.
These images, the vast majority made in his studio in Traiguén, are much more than a sample of the guidelines and construction standards with which the production of a photographic portrait was conditioned. One of the main merits of this photographer is his extraordinary ability to develop an aesthetic option and his own poetic and evocative approach, which is articulated through the creation of an expressive atmosphere according to carefully prepared montages. This type of montage is produced from two fundamental areas: stage and actors. The stage is his studio, a space where the Mapuche is set posing in front of painted curtains that reproduce subtle European birches, complacent bushes and classic columns, arches and ornamental planters. The scenery is completed with annexed elements such as tree trunks placed in different situations. The wooden floor softens visually, seeking a stubble texture that brittle straw is supposed to provide. In the middle of this scenography, the photographed subjects appear as actors “representing” their own identity dressed in jewelry and clothing, basketry, ceramics and various domestic artifacts that become references of their cultural belonging.
Author: Gustavo Milet Ramírez. “Villatun of Indians in Petrolhue.” Traiguén, La Araucanía Region, Chile. Ca. 1890. Rijks Museum voor Folkenkunde, Leiden, Netherlands.
The theatrical atmosphere characteristic of these photographs is also present in the few exterior shots known from the Mapuche world. Rituals and special events such as a nguillatun [5] or a palín meeting [6] - let's look at the image above, titled “villatun” despite the fact that a good part of the men present their cane or weño, used in the game, upward. de palín -, are captured with a broad and grandiloquent approach that seeks to display the entire scene without anything being hidden from the viewer. Actors and settings acquire deep dramatic connotations under open skies and a horizon only defined by the diffuse and distant hills of the coastal mountain range, a characteristic landscape of this region. Thus Milet's window opens to install a view where visual procedures are transformed into constitutive elements of a Mapuche visuality that makes them perfectly identifiable in their authorship. [7]
Obder Heffer tireless itinerant
Odber Heffer Bissett (1860 – 1945) was born in the port of St. John, New Brunswick, in Canada, and arrived in Chile in 1886 hired by Félix Leblanc, with whom he worked for some years. In later times he opened his studio in the heart of the city of Santiago, on Huérfanos Street, under the name “Heffer Photography”, where in addition to developing his work as a photographer, he sells photographic supplies and cameras. This author's work is extraordinarily prolific and diverse, including numerous urban views of Santiago at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as distant and rugged landscapes of the Andes mountain range and south-central Chile, many of which were included in the notable albums that were published on the occasion of the commemoration of the Centennial of the Independence of this country, celebrated in 1910 with great gala and splendor. His extensive career as a photographer makes him one of the most important figures in this activity in Chile.
Unlike Valck and Milet, Heffer does not live in the southern area, but rather travels at different times, especially touring part of the La Araucanía region, but like the other members of this trilogy, he makes a significant contribution to our photographic heritage. the numerous shots of the Mapuche world that he took during his wanderings through southern Chile, most of them captured outside warehouses and homes, but very marked by the aesthetics typical of late 19th century photos. He highlights as a whole a series of three photographs taken inside a ruka, which due to its architectural characteristics does not have windows, which evidently must have been a significant difficulty when making the record.
The Mapuche portraits that Heffer made show the aforementioned decorated backdrops in front of which, most of the time full-length, different characters pose, dressed briefly, wearing some ornaments and jewelry, looking directly at the lens in an apparently rigid attitude severe and sometimes questioning or challenging. These portraits contrast with other shots taken outdoors, where in addition to the characters the author seems to be looking for a careful record of customs and behaviors typical of Mapuche people who sometimes seem to be carrying out their daily activities.
Author: Odber Heffer Bissett. Mapuche women, men and children in some area near Traiguén or Temuco. La Araucanía Region, Chile. Ca. 1890. Positive Paper. Rodolfo Lenz Fund, Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences (UMCE). Santiago, Chile.
Some men and children and mostly women are distributed in the photographic space accompanied by artifacts and utensils as part of an ethnic choreography, where the suspended gesture of some woman spinning or weaving seems to have stopped in the time of distant and exotic cultural practices. Other characters are sitting or standing and seem to ignore the presence of the camera. If you look closely, this indifference turns out to be totally fake, because each and every one of them poses carefully for the photograph.
Of the three authors mentioned, Heffer is the one who brings together the largest number of photographs – about 120 – of the Mapuche world. Made on positive paper, many of them in large format, they have circulated individually and also in various photographic albums. However, Heffer's window opens onto a very limited world and his gaze focuses on very precise settings and communities, although until now we do not know exactly the places he visited. This can be seen when verifying that most of the shots are taken in the same setting, with the same characters repeated in several images, who only move and change their gestures between one shot and another. Thus, the visual construction of this Mapuche world presents slightly more spontaneous aesthetics and modalities that move away from the rigid visual codes of the photographic portrait of the late 19th century. All of this is enhanced by exterior staging, where the wooden walls of the typical southern warehouses serve as a backdrop. [8]
Reality and dream through the windows of “The Founders”
These three photographers, in addition to agreeing, relatively, in their permanence in the world of the “frontier”, that is, the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, share above all the intentions of looking out of their windows with their own views that provide us with a particular vision of the Mapuche world of that time: Valck stands out for his adherence to the rigid aesthetics of photographic portraiture, Milet for his elaborate montages that lead to true ethnic scenes, and Heffer for his exteriors with characters and gestures almost in motion.
A careful analysis of the corpus of his productions reveals how these Mapuche photographs are only partly referents of an ethnic reality, constituting rather a construction that obeys the European views and aesthetic paradigms of the formation of photography of the time. Our attentive observation and an exercise in discerning looking discover in these photographers a construction that goes back to a memory intervened by the visual modalities of each one. Thus, the small stories contained in each image are supported by the gazes of Valck, Milet and Heffer, and the ways of “getting close” to their windows. Their records make us move in an ambivalence between reality and dream, displaying a poetic and mysterious atmosphere, which envelops us, seduces and captivates us, making us believe that these blurry photographic images are the perfect representation of the Mapuche as transcendental visual references for construction. and assembly of our imaginaries. No one can remain indifferent to the disturbing illusionism of these portraits because they reveal, in an undeniable and irrefutable way, the “existence” of the Mapuche at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. An existence trapped in these photographs that inevitably returns to us, despite the inevitable visual oscillation between reality and dream, and that seems to tell us: I am how you are looking at me, look what I am, look what I was!
This is the magic and validity that we want to rescue from these photographic views, beyond the truth and its complacency with our history and our imaginaries.
Notes:
1. In current Chile, the Biobío region, La Araucanía, Los Ríos and part of the Los Lagos region. Today, joined to the territories south of Buenos Aires and Patagonia in Argentina, these border spaces are named and recognized as the wallmapu, Mapuche ancestral territories.
2. For more information about this recently “discovered” author, consult Benedicto Rivas. From the record to the Cholchol photographic album 1910 – 1940. Ignacio Helmke and María Soledad Abarca, Editors. Veranada Ediciones, Santiago, 2024.
3. This is a relevant aspect since there is a great difference with the views present in the corpus of photographs of the indigenous people of the Andean world, as well as the southern areas of the American continent, where it can be clearly observed that the majority of the authors from the late 19th century and early 20th century, they are travelers, scientists and anthropologists, with knowledge of photographic techniques, but they are not professionals in this activity.
4. The dispersion of the Valck images in archives in Santiago and the south, as well as the use of stamps with the sole mention of the Valck surname, has led to certain authorships being confused, making it difficult to quantify their work. For more information you can consult Mapuche. 19th and 20th century photography. Construction and assembly of an imaginary. Margarita Alvarado, Pedro Mege and Christian Báez, Pehuén Editores, Santiago 2000; The Valck lineage. A century of photography in southern Chile. Margarita Alvarado - Mariana Mattwes. Pehuén Editores, Santiago, 2005.
5. The nguillatun or camaricun is a complex ceremony that brings together the Mapuche community in ritual acts and gestures of a propitiatory nature, praying for good rains, good pastures and good births.
6. The palín or chueca game was played since prehistoric times in the Mapuche people, until the colonial authorities banned it.
7. As in the case of the Valcks, the dispersion of their images makes it difficult to quantify them. For more information on its production, consult Mapuche. 19th and 20th century photography. Construction and assembly of an imaginary. Margarita Alvarado, Pedro Mege and Christian Báez, Pehuén Editores, Santiago 2000; Pro-indigenist photography: Gustavo Milet's speech about the Mapuches. Alonso Azócar Avendaño, Ediciones Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco, 2005.
8. Heffer is one of the photographers whose work is quite identified, despite his great production. For more information you can consult Mapuche. 19th and 20th century photography. Construction and assembly of an imaginary. Margarita Alvarado, Pedro Mege and Christian Báez, Pehuén Editores, Santiago 2000; Heffer. 1886 – 1920. Solène Bergot and Samuel Salgado, Diego Portales University, 2015.
* Special for Hilario. Arts Letters Trades. Santiago, June 10, 2024.