II.1.2 DIGITAL ARCHIVE 794607
Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974) published this seminal manifesto in 1921 in the first and only issue of Vida-Americana, revista norte, centro y sudamericana de vanguardia, a Barcelona-based monthly that he also edited [“Tres llamamientos de orientación actual a los pintores y escultores de la nueva generación americana,” Vida-Americana (Barcelona) 1, (May 1921), 2–3]. Siqueiros asserts principles fundamental to avant-garde art and issues a three-part appeal urging fellow artists to pursue: an interest in modernity and its dynamism; an assimilation of the synthetic energy and constructivist vigor of pre-Columbian cultures; and a disavowal of nationalism in favor of a universal art. A key word in his manifesto, “UNIVERSALICÉMONOS” (Let us become universal), intentionally spelled out entirely with capital letters, introduces an idea that would be influential to the avant-garde Mexican movement Estridentismo. This important manifesto has been widely published. The version included here is based on the facsimile edition [(Valencia, Spain: IVAM/L’EIXAM, los papeles del siglo pasado, 2000), 1–3]. The English translation is by Laura Pérez from Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America [(2004), 458–59; doc. 5].
Our work is predominately extemporaneous and develops erratically, producing nothing of lasting value to respond to the vitality of our great race. Isolated as we are from decisive new trends, whose solid guidance we receive with bias and hostility, we adopt only DECADENT INFLUENCES from Europe, such as the anemia of Aubrey Beardsley, the preciousness of Amán-Jean, the ill-fated archaism of Ignacio Zuloaga, [Hermengildo] Anglada Camarassa’s pyrotechnics, Bistofi’s sculpted confections, Queralt, [Mariano] Benlliure, etc., all of that MARKETABLE ART NOUVEAU which is dangerously camouflaged as art and sells so splendidly among us (particularly if it is imported from Spain). All of this poisons our youth by obscuring FUNDAMENTAL VALUES.
From the early nineteenth century on, Spanish art has been noticeably decadent. Recent group shows in Madrid make our hearts sink. These exhibitions represent the very latest in contemporary Spanish art: traditional literary art; theatrical art in the style of folklorist zarzuela, a disease that we have caught through racial affinity. And yet many years ago, three Spaniards of genius and of their time—[Joaquín] Sunyer, [Pablo] Picasso, and Juan Gris—avidly embraced [Paul] Cézanne and obeyed the husky voice of [Pierre-Auguste] Renoir.
Fortunately, a new group of painters and sculptors is emerging in Spain. These artists are attuned to the restlessness of our days; they experiment and liberate themselves from the enormous weight of the great traditions, becoming universal. Most of the members of this group are Catalan.
We extend a rational welcome to the anxiety about spiritual RENEWAL born in times of Cézanne: the substantial vitality of Impressionism; the purifying reductionism of Cubism in its diverse ramifications; the new emotive forces of Futurism (except those that naively attempt to crush the inexorable process of tradition); the absolutely new REAPPRAISAL of “classical voices” (Dada is still developing); tributary truths that all flow into the MAINSTREAM whose multiple psychological aspects we easily find within ourselves; preparatory theories endowed with fundamental elements that have restored painting and sculpture’s true aim which is plasticity, enriching them with new praiseworthy values.
In order to strengthen our art, it is essential that we RESTORE THE LOST VALUES of painting and sculpture, even as we endow them with NEW VALUES! Like the classical masters, let us make our work conform to the inviolable laws of aesthetic balance; like them, let us be skilled workmen. Let us return to the constructive foundations and great sincerity of antiquity, but let us not use archaic “motifs” which for us would be exotic. LET US LIVE OUR MARVELOUS DYNAMIC AGE! Let us love the modern machine by approaching the plastic emotions it unexpectedly provokes; the contemporary aspects of our daily lives; the life of our cities under construction; the sober, practical engineering of our modern buildings, which, being immense towers of iron and cement stuck in the ground, are devoid of architectural complications; and comfortable furniture and utensils, which are plastic materials of the first order. LET US DRESS OUR HUMAN INVULNERABILITY IN MODERN CLOTHING: “NEW SUBJECTS,” “NEW ASPECTS.” Above all, we must be firmly convinced that, despite periods of natural transitory decadence, the ART OF THE FUTURE must be forever Superior!
We draw silhouettes in pretty colors. When we sculpt, we concentrate on superficial arabesques and forget the concept of huge PRIMARY SHAPES—CUBES, CONES, SPHERES, CYLINDERS, PYRAMIDS—which should be the skeleton of all architectural plasticity. Let us painters impose the CONSTRUCTIVE SPIRIT on the merely decorative. Color and line are expressive elements of a secondary order. The MAIN PURPOSE, the basis of the work of art, is the magnificent, geometric STRUCTURE OF FORM, with its conception, connections, and architectural materialization of form and perspective. This structure CREATES VOLUMES IN SPACE by imposing “limits,” and by creating “atmospheric” depth. Whether our objectivity is dynamic or static, let us above all construct. Let us mold and build on our personal emotional reactions to nature, all the while maintaining it as scrupulous mirror truth.
Let us be specific and unambiguous about the organic “quality” of the “plastic elements” with which we work: CREATING matter that is solid or fragile, rough or soft, opaque or transparent, etc., and its specific weight.
We should use caricature, if necessary, to humanize its consistent framework. The theories of “painting light” (“Luminism,” “Pointillism,” “Divisionism”), which simply copy or analyze luminosity, lack any strong creative ideal, art’s only real objectivity. Let us discard puerile theories which we have recently welcomed with frenzy in the Americas, sickly branches of the tree of “Impressionism” pruned by Paul Cézanne, the restorer of the essential: “We must turn Impressionism into something that endures like museum art.”
Understanding the wonderful human depth in “l’art nègre,” or “primitive art” in general, has given the visual arts a clarity and depth lost four centuries ago along the hazy path of error. For our part, let us return to the work of the ancient inhabitants of our valleys, the native painters and sculptors (MAYAS, AZTECS, INCAS and so forth). Our atmospheric proximity to them will help us assimilate the constructive vitality of their work, which shows a genuine knowledge of nature that can serve as our point of departure. Let us absorb their synthetic energy, but let us avoid lamentable archaeological reconstructions (“INDIANISM,” “PRIMITIVISM,” “AMERICANISM”), which are so in vogue here, but which are only passing FADS.
Let us reject theories anchored in the relativity of “NATIONAL ART.” LET US BECOME UNIVERSAL! Our own RACIAL and LOCAL physiognomy will inevitably come to light through our work.
Our free schools are OPEN-AIR ACADEMIES (as dangerous as the official academies in which at least we learn about classical masters), communities with commercially oriented teachers and a type of feeble argument that stifles emerging personalities.
Let us not listen to the unfavorable opinions of our poets. They produce beautiful pieces of literature totally divorced from the real value of our work.