Depictions of Heroism in Battle and Anguish from Tuberculosis.

the Valles de Tuy, a town that was war-torn throughout his early childhood. His grandfather, José Luis Rojas, taught the child how to draw, but when Cristóbal was 13, his father died, and he began work in a tobacco factory to help support his family. In 1878, an earthquake destroyed much of the Valles del Tuy region, and Rojas moved to Caracas, where he continued his artistic development under José Manuel Maucó at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. From 1880 through 1882, Rojas developed an interest in oil painting, and he captured memories of the impact of the 1878 earthquake in some of his early paintings. In Caracas, he also served as the assistant to the now comparably well-known artist Antonio Herrera Toro and worked with him on painting the interior of the Caracas Cathedral. In 1883, Cristóbal Rojas exhibited one of his signature works, La muerte de Girardot en Bárbula (The death of Girardot in Bárbula), featured as this month’s cover