Argentinean styled iconography art: Fileteado Porteno

Argentinean styled iconography art: Fileteado Porteño


During the early years of the twentieth century carriages were the most common means of transport all over the world together with trains. Though the advantage of horse pulled carts was that they could run without having to respect a pre established rout such as trains and trolleys did.

In Buenos Aires, these public transportation was mostly provided by the State. Their traditional gray surface run unnoticed throughout the city.

Just some years into 1900' some of these carriages began to be somewhat decorated at some workshops. Though its not possible to establish an exact date and doer, this was the beginning of a specific kind of popular art that began to be known as fileteado porteño. The early artists were not advocated painters but craftsmen who began to carry on this stylish craft within the municipal workshops. Very much in tune with the history of Tango, its not quite possible to point out who was the one who created this art style; it seems to appear that it was an integral artistic movement that originated simultaneously at three different carts' workshops within Buenos Aires and that the pioneers were three Italian immigrants: Cecilio Pascarella, Vicente Brunetti and Salvador Venturo.

This Porteñan artwork can be defined as one of Latin Americas' first expressions of pop and public art. On top of the grayish surface of the municipal carriages these innovative artists began to include color, painting the sides with brighter and fuller colors, dividing these two colors by means of a thin line of a more intense or contrasting hue, this technique has been christened "filete" which is the essence of the Fileteado Porteño. The artwork evolved from then on following those lines transforming them into other motives that blend together bringing to life a bigger picture composed by converging lines, shapes, with intense contrasting colors. Flowers, scrolls, acanthus' leaves, flag styled ribbons, little balls, straight and curve lines of different thickness beautifully combined with rural scenes and emblematic celebrities and characters such as Evita, Carlos Gardel as well as very traditional religious icons such as the Virgin Mary blend together with traditional sayings; at the time the total art piece contents within itself the sense of being of the people of Buenos Aires.

The brightness of the full colors used for each line contrast with some transparencies used for the background, result in a very uncommon construction of volume in those days.

This urban artworks where much like moving showrooms that styled the uprising metropolis of Buenos Aires, the synthetic enamel used for these art pieces was very suitable for its resistance to weather and aging.

From the early years of the beginning of an amazing century this art had grown and become a sign of Buenos Aires, even when those traditional carts were replaced by running gas buses. Its beauty had become such an essential ingredient to our everyday life, that this artworks were by no means perceived as Art, they were very much taken for granted.

During the early years of the seventies this ornamentation and iconography began to disappear. Some people say this slowly disappearance was the consequence of a deep economic crisis. But the truth is that this crisis was contemporary to a political project of disregard to art and culture as a mean to calm down a revolted society. The government even issued a national law that prohibited this ornamentation on buses. The objective was fulfilled. It seemed that one of Buenos Aires most innovative and out breaking art trends had been unnecessary sophocated. However, after the last dicatorship this craft began to slowly uprise, not on buses or any other public place but as an art and a craft. Some artists have advocated their productions for publicity; some others prefer canvases and metal surfaces to create their productions. The latest innovation regarding fileteado has been their introduction within the world of tattooing -such did the gothic calligraphy and many others-.

Such is the outcoming of this reborn craft that during the last few years there were several shows and exhibitions of renamed fileteado artists. Critics, at the beginning doubted, as they had done many years ago when defining this beautiful art as just a mere ornamentation craft. However its been recently revalued not only nationally but internationally.

Without any doubt the sense of Buenos Aires has been captured by two very Argentinean means of Art: Tango and Fileteado.