Where does Fileteado (sign painting) come from?
Fileteado comes from Buenos Aires. This art of swirling scrolls, flowers and fancy lettering began in the late 1800s on the horse-drawn carts that carried food around the city, and today it is part of the city's visual identity.
Painted delivery carts
At the end of the 19th century, the grey horse-drawn carts that delivered milk, bread, fruit and groceries in Buenos Aires began to get painted decorations in the cart workshops. At first these were simple: a square frame with dots in the corners on each panel, and the trader's initials. The painters were called fileteadores, after the long, thin brushes they used to draw filetes, fine ornamental lines; the word goes back to Latin filum, 'thread'.
From carts to buses
Over time the style grew richer, with acanthus leaves, flowers, birds, dragons, flags and popular sayings, often humorous. In the 1920s and 1930s fileteadores moved on to trucks and buses, and Carlos Carboni and León Untroib became the craft's most respected painters. Galleries first showed fileteado in 1970. In 1975 a transport regulation banned decorations on the city's buses, and many painters turned to signs and exhibition pieces. In 2015 UNESCO added the art to its list of intangible heritage.
Why people think of Italy
The guess has real roots. Buenos Aires grew with mass European immigration, and those immersed in the craft name three Italian immigrants as its pioneers: Vicente Brunetti, Salvador Venturo and Cecilio Pascarella. Venturo's son Miguel is credited with adding birds, flowers and dragons. But the early history was hardly written down, and the city government says there is no agreement on its origins. The style took shape in Buenos Aires, where European elements mixed with local criollo traditions.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org ↗ · eyemagazine.com ↗ · buenosaires.gob.ar › origenes del filete ↗ · buenosaires.gob.ar › de la prohibicion la representacion mun… ↗
