Culture of Argentina

Part of a series on the
Culture of Argentina
Society
Argentines Ethnicity History Humor Language Immigration Holidays Religion Women
Topics
Art Architecture Cinema Cuisine Literature Comics Media Radio Television Newspapers Monuments Music Painting Sport
Symbols
Flag Coat of arms Cockade Motto Anthem Sun of May World Heritage Sites
Argentina portal
v t e

The culture of Argentina is as varied as the country geography and is composed of a mix of ethnic groups. Modern Argentine culture has been influenced largely by the Spanish colonial period and the 19th/20th century European immigration (mainly Italian and Spanish), and also by Amerindian culture, particularly in the fields of music and art. Buenos Aires, its cultural capital, is largely characterized by both the prevalence of people of Southern European descent, and of European styles in architecture.^[1] Museums, cinemas, and galleries are abundant in all of the large urban centers, as well as traditional establishments such as literary bars, or bars offering live music of a variety of music genres.

An Argentine writer reflected on the nature of the culture of Argentina as follows:

With the primitive Hispanic American reality fractured in La Plata Basin due to immigration, its inhabitants have come to be somewhat dual with all the dangers but also with all the advantages of that condition: because of our European roots, we deeply link the nation with the enduring values of the Old World; because of our condition of Americans we link ourselves to the rest of the continent, through the folklore of the interior and the old Castilian that unifies us, feeling somehow the vocation of the Patria Grande San Martín and Bolívar once imagined.

— Ernesto Sabato, La cultura en la encrucijada nacional (1976)^[2]