Juan E. Jörgensen and the application of his art to the exploration of nature

Abstract

This article examines the works that the Danish artist Juan E. Jörgensen (1883-1920) created for the Museo de La Plata (MLP) between 1909 and 1910. After a brief overview of his artistic and teaching career, we characterize and interpret his paintings. Jörgensen painted two large murals displayed in the rotunda on the upper floor of the museum, which depict landscapes of Argentine territory: La cascada de Escaba (Tucumán) and Alrededores del Volcán Tronador (Río Negro). These paintings occupied two spaces that had been left vacant due to the extreme deterioration of the preexistent murals painted by the artist Graciano Mendilaharzu, during the founding period of MLP, between 1886 and 1887. The themes of many of the works that Jörgensen produced throughout his artistic career are related to his work as a scientific illustrator on expeditions to the continental ice fields of Argentine and Chilean Patagonia; although in the case of the murals in MLP, definite connections with those trips have not been established. Nevertheless, the naturalistic and detailed workmanship of these murals, together with others distributed in the central node, incorporate such scenarios of the national territory and its geographical diversity within the Museum.