TEOFILO CASTILLO GUAS (1857-1922)
Huandoy / Tullparaju (6,390 m - 20, 870 ft)
Peru
In Huandoy seen from la laguna de Llanganuco, watercolour, Banca nacional del Peru
The mountain
Huandoy / Tullparaju (6,390 m - 20, 870 ft) is a mountain located inside Huascarán National Park in Ancash, Peru. It is the second-tallest peak of the Cordillera Blanca section of the Andes, after Huascarán. The fisrt name Huandoy is probably from Quechua Wantuy meaning to transfer, to transpose, to carry, to carry a heavy load). The second name Tullparaju is possibly from Quechua Tullpa which means rustic cooking-fire, stove and Rahu which means snow, ice, mountain with snow... Huandoy / Tullparaju and Huascarán are rather nearby, separated only by the Llanganuco glacial valley (which contains the Llanganuco Lakes represented in the painting above)) at 3,846 m asl.Huandoy / Tullparaju is a snow-capped mountain with four peaks arranged in the form of a fireplace, the tallest of which is 6,395 m. The four peaks are each over 6,000 m, and are :
- Huandoy (6, 395 m - 20, 981ft)
- Huandoy-West (6,356 m - 20, 853 ft)
- Huandoy-South (6,160 m - 20,209 ft)
- Huandoy-East (6,000 m- 19, 685 ft)
It was first climbed in 1932 by a German team.
The painter
Teófilo Castillo Guas was a Peruvian painter, art critic and photographer. Representative of the Peruvian pictorial academicism, he was influenced by the impressionism.
He studied at the Seminary of Santo Toribio in Lima and later in Europe: Spain, Belgium and France, countries where he contacted masterly art production. Returning to Peru, he stood out by exhibiting his paintings, inspired by the traditions of Ricardo Palma.
In 1888 he traveled to Buenos Aires where he married María Gaubeka and worked as a photographer and painter. In 1906 he returned to Peru to open his own workshop.
In the bieginning ot 20th century, he worked as a painter and art critic in charge of the artistic direction of the magazines Prisma, La Ilustración Peruana and Variedades , where he presented reproductions in three colors (trichromes) of his main works.
He enthusiastically promoted the founding of the National School of Fine Arts in Lima.
From 1920 to his death, he settled in Tucumán, where he directed the magazine Sol y Nieve (Sun and Snox . In addition, he painted a large canvas depicting General Manuel Belgrano presenting the Argentine flag to the Congress of Tucumán in 1816, a work that the Argentine government acquired for 20,000 pesos.
He was also noted for his canvases of colonial evocation inspired by episodes of the Peruvian Traditions of Ricardo Palma, which he made with a quick, colorful brush, in which the characters and the crowds in the processions vibrate, among browns and pinks, greens and blues.