Chilean beauties of the 19th C. / Bellezas chilenas del s. XIX

Painting by John Singer Sargent of Eugenia Huici Arguedas de Errázuriz (15 September 1860 – 1951). Doña Eugenia was a Chilean patron of modernism and a style leader of Paris from 1880 into the 20th century, who paved the way for the modernist minimalist aesthetic that would be taken up in fashion by Coco Chanel. Her circle of friends and protégés included Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Jean Cocteau, and the poet Blaise Cendrars. She was of Basque descent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenia_Err%C3%A1zuriz


The young Eugenia Huici Arguedas de Errázuriz.  The Errázuriz family is still very prestigious politically, economically in Chile.


Amalia Errázuriz Subercaseaux.  Another John Singer Sargent portrait of an aristocratic chilena.

By painter Giovanni Boldini
 "Josefina Alvear de Errázuriz" . Josefina Alvear (1859-1935) married Chilean diplomat Matías Errázuriz (1859-1953) in 1897.


So you can imagine the masses of agricultural peons, of mining laborers that created the immense wealth of these families, and the armies of servants that ran their palatial homes.  






Always, in this dual dimension we live in, on the other side of great beauty, there is great ugliness.

There is no moral censure implicit in my words.  These ladies believed in making a contribution to their society, their husbands were often men with moral conscience (not revolutionaries, but they felt it was their duty to promote education, health, social welfare, good government).  This has been almost completely lost today. Up to the first half of the 20th century, the Chilean middle class had become robust and yielded politicians with social conscience, notably President Pedro Aguirre Cerda who did much for public education being a teacher himself, up until President Salvador Allende who was a doctor and became known to the populace because of his work to improve the health conditions of the poor, especially in Valparaiso, the product of that early Liberal political and economic thought, coupled with traditional Christian values, uninterrupted by foreign invasion.  Until 1973.

All that is about to be completely lost to Neoliberalism and the Deep State which even now is buying up even more Chilean territory and dismantling what remains of republicanism, thanks to the corruption of the elite.  You see, the problem with aristocrats is that they intermarry too much and then they need money so they let in the pragmatic new rich (executive class, i.e. multinational puppets), and then it's sell your nation up shit creek because we have all those secret bank accounts and real estate in Miami and France and Switzerland etc. etc.  What we worry?

Yes, but as soon as the Deep State gets all it wants (and it's never satisfied, it'll start on the next planet after Earth implodes)...these puppets will be guillotined.

So much for their fairy tales that have lasted 150 years.

Just a few thoughts on this sunny autumn day.  Cheers!