In the 19th century, European and North American travelers illustrated narratives of their explorations in the New World that were published in Europe. Europeans imagined the tropics as a site for cultural imperialism and fantasies of self-realization. Traveler artists often authenticated this perception by presenting the landscape as an enchanted land. Later in the century, native artists began to pick up the European landscape tradition and reflect on their own culture through a different lens. Traveler Artists contributes new scholarship to this burgeoning field and offers original research on 52 artworks by such key figures as Frans Post, Frederick Edwin Church, José María Velasco and Auguste Morisot, many of which are reproduced here for the first time.

Text by: Pablo Diener, Luis Oramas, Rafael Romero