Cuban critic and philosopher Jorge Mañach (1898–1961) wrote the essay “Vértice del gusto nuevo” two years after the opening of the landmark Primera exposición de Arte Nuevo in Havana. First published in revista de avance—which Mañach helped to establish and at one time edited—on September 17, 1929 [“1929.” revista de avance (Havana), year 3, vol. 4, no. 38, 130–38], the essay offers a somber reflection on the potential pitfalls of pursuing an excessively nationalistic or dogmatic art. Mañach’s essay signifies the first attempt to reconcile some of the inherent contradictions that exist in focusing on the local and the universal in art, a problem with which many of the Cuban artists of his generation grappled. He proposes seemingly paradoxical approaches by stressing an “American effort to become unique,” while expressing the irrepressible wish to become universal, an aspiration he describes in philological terms as “a Catholicization of sensibility.” Moreover, as with his other writings from this period, Mañach’s essay reflects his involvement with the 1920s Grupo Minorista, which opposed the dictatorial regimes of Alfredo Zayas and Gerardo Machado and championed the development of a vernacular art capable of reinvigorating modern art and of restoring its core values.
IF WE SCAN THE PANORAMA OF ART in our America today, the first thing we will notice is that it is undermined with tunnels, bristling with barricades. We are witnessing a time and a spectacle of unusual pugnacity throughout the cultural domain, particularly in its aesthetic sector. It is not just the instinctive antagonism between the energetic and the arthritic but also a stubborn, virulent internal clash among the very ranks of the young adults. Divided into marked factions, they are committed to the undeclared—not to mention the boisterous—polemic of guerrillas.
These days, of course we hear stories of these things going on all over the world. But the debate in the Americas has a naïve, passionate quality that makes it even more profoundly youthful and more dramatic as well. We lack those softening qualities of skepticism and irony that peoples with extensive experience can call upon to defend their havens and their intellectual (or emotional) centers. Standing on the threshold of maturity, we are driven by a violent eagerness to express ourselves and to be—to be expressing ourselves. And this fevered rush to become an entity through the revelation of what is specifically ours is the reason we are so tormented by the multiplicity of roads that may be taken. Moreover, we are beset by the young person’s typical longing to be of service. The Americas still wish to make a substantial contribution to the task of the worlds. Not to be adjectival and dispensable; not to live a borrowed life. This dual desire raises the problem, in cautionary terms, of the authenticity of culture, of how to legitimately create and value our own culture . . . .
But it is evident that such a question does not come up with respect to all cultural works. Science, for example, does not allow characterization or predicates limited to a region or country. If at some point someone refers to “German science,” that attribution is nothing more than a violent, militaristic trope. The subject matter which science investigates may be regional, as in philology, but it is obvious that the scientific task consists precisely of discovering what universal laws govern the constitution of that subject. Since science is a universal vision of the particular, the regionalism of science can only be a preposterous theme. We are thus cornered to the sense of “what is intrinsic” to that other great aspect of culture, which is art. In what sense may art be our own? Like a science, because its practitioners and motifs are ours, or also through some essential particularity of its nature and function? If we allow the possibility of an art with a nature of that kind, to what extent is that possibility unique and therefore imperative?
What is important about these doubtful questions—and what makes them so entertaining for the academic old guard, united under its own banner— is that they are not based on the nuances or forms of a general understanding. Instead, they address the very root of the art to be advocated. We are living through a struggle of antinomies: humanized or “dehumanized” art; pure art versus descriptive or anecdotal art; social art versus individualistic art. And, in short, an art of the Americas versus universal art. . . .
This is no idle chat, this discussion that starts off by showing that strictly speaking, all these problems come down to a single essential dilemma. Either art is a thing that refers to the milieu in which it is produced, deriving substance from it and giving back to it an intention (interpretative or dogmatic), or rather, it is an absolute, self-contained thing created by the artist and provided with an objective, final, monetary value. It is either an art of allusions or an art that is exclusively visual, an art based on forms. Of course the references may be to humanity or to the group. But from the time when the artist refers to the external, there is a tendency to express [the subject] in terms of its situation, and to specify— by the very law of artistic economy—anything characteristic and/or singular in the artist’s surroundings. It is almost inevitable that art with [external] references becomes regional. However, when the artist’s purpose is exhausted in the artwork, this work is not susceptible to any other particularity than that of personal style, and almost always unrelated to any geography. In short, the opposition is between a “nationalist” art and a universal art, [filtered] through the individuality [of the artist]. These are the extremes of the two attitudes.
Béla Bartók, the Hungarian composer, writes: “In conclusion, I will add that, in music, internationalism is not imaginable and may even be harmful, the same as in any other art. In general, music and art must always reflect the true nature of a region. This is what creates genuine variety in art and in life.” And regarding that position, [the art critic] Eugeni d’Ors feels so righteous and justified in the opposite opinion, that he has no problem asserting it in one of his recent notes: “In this regard, the situation of Spanish-speaking [Latin] Americans seems to me to be somewhat backward compared to that of English-speaking Americans. The latter, finally emancipated from their localism, are just now achieving a universal, ecumenical spirit. Meanwhile, in many republics, the former are busy adopting a continentalism more or less à la Monroe, or if not, and even more humiliating, a certain outdated nationalism. . . . Nevertheless, we can only hope that these childish manifestations won’t last too long. And hope that all of the Americas will be convinced—in the not-too-distant future, that for them just as for Ancient Greece—the artist’s true vocation is not in the traditional, but in the human”. . . .
Both positions seem to me to be inspired by a cultural, teleological concern, a political zeal with a different range, based on the purposes of culture. Bartók is an angry nationalist; his sensibility is vigilant, but connected to his neighbors . . . . Perhaps d’Ors advice is not so generous, but he is also looking at certain extra-aesthetic ideological achievements. As an intellectual citizen of the world and constant preacher of the common, universal case of intelligence, Xenius1 maintains the opposite, Esperantist prejudice. But fundamentally, his reasons are no less political; they are just as distant from the immediate interests of art. . . .
Bartók’s position leads us to a different conclusion. It is the position assumed by a majority of Latin American young adults, especially in countries such as Mexico and Peru, countries that are repositories of Native traditions and problems. Naturally these countries, proud of what is their own, tend to advocate an art of characterization for which archaeology and Native culture offer them artistic and natural elements that are unique in themselves. In contrast, lacking this vernacular heritage and more exposed to cosmopolitan influences, the countries in the Americas still feel the matter of their own culture as a problem— represented by every effort to extract distinguishing traits from life’s murkiness and amorphousness.
In Mexico, and to a certain extent in Peru, added to these circumstances have been others that are more strictly ideological. Faced with the need to strengthen and incorporate a large Native population, both peoples have developed a social and political ideology with a marked collectivist stance. The resulting antipathy to any individualistic heritage has been extended to aesthetic matters, thus fueling the advocacy of a social art that is at the same time a “traditional art.”
As we know, there is an assumption—fairly risky for certain purposes— that there is such a thing as the Americas’ homogeneity. Given the idea that what is good or possible in Mexico is the same [as what is good and possible] in Cuba or in Argentina, the ideology of social traditional art has been turned into an imperative for all American art. And such ideas are frankly welcomed by young adults. We have witnessed an enthusiastic effort to resuscitate the symbol of the tame Indians discovered by Columbus and extinguished by the Spaniards. The [Soviet] Russian vogue, a few seeds of proletarian ideology, prepared the ground, and above all, the current revival of the nationalist spirit . . . .
With all these experiences pressed into the service of “nationalism,” it is natural that art also requires a citizen identification card. In Mexico, we have a Diego Rivera who arrives on the scene and postulates that all art that is not proletarian is bourgeois (and therefore false and reprehensible). Likewise, there is no lack of voices that would extend the same anathema to all pure art in Cuba. In my opinion, these theories entail an intrusion of social, political, or historical desires into the field of aesthetics. That is, they represent an intrusion to the extent that such theories seek to make these interests inherent in the aesthetic function so that any art that lacks them can no longer be deemed art.
It seems that it is the fate of aesthetics to suffer such interventions. This is because art has—not in theory, but in its basic sense—so much that is superfluous, marginal, or marked by cultural luxury that it has always required social sanctioning. This may be by invoking its immediate usefulness (applied art) or attributing to it the purposes and consequences of group construction . . . . Thus, aesthetics has been chronically diminished, been interfered with; in an earlier time, [the diminishment or interference was perpetuated by] theology or morality, now [that role is taken up] by sociology or by politics. Artistic nationalism represents an analogous intrusion, because it tends to turn art into the instrument of a social desideratum, the record of the collective personality. This is why it gets along so well with proletarian art.
. . . What seems objectionable to me is that it seeks to make the authenticity and value of the artwork lie in its ulterior or collateral potential. This creates confusion and tends to shrink creative freedom. There is danger in postulating any specific kind of art and making it imperative and forcing a violent obedience to that admonition resulting in imbuing the artist with the idea that this is the only respectable art. There is nothing that establishes a greater imposition than these dogmatic concepts of what is respectable . . . . The intrusion of such exigencies on aesthetics has led to a reaction: that a considerable portion of modern art—much of it fine work—is moving farther afield every day from general understanding. The rejoinder to an insistence on human art, on art that is too human, is perhaps no less than excessive insistence on “dehumanized” art. Maybe the truth lies in between.
. . .
But I believe that there is a difference that we fail to take into account as much as we should—when all is said and done, [we fail to consider] the old, somewhat simplistic distinction between form and content. It may be obvious, but it is of utmost importance to all true understanding of art. Especially modern art; since the way to characterize this art, in my opinion, is that it increasingly aspires to be confined within a beauty that is purely formal to revive the innocent wonder of early man. If it is music, it seeks to be pure sound; if poetry, pure internal rhythm, and no more external data than that is necessary for maintaining the caprice of the images; if painting, exclusively form, line, color. The famous “dehumanization” of art [1925], about which we were so clearly warned by [José] Ortega y Gasset, reduces art to a point where it eliminates anything anecdotal. Today’s artists with this orientation believe that references to life must be left to literature, which is integrated art par excellence. And the advantage used as justification for that rejection is that if the artist focuses exclusively on the specific subject matter of the art practiced, it will be possible to achieve more intensity. At the same time, the artist will enjoy greater creative independence, since there is no need to follow any external guideline.
. . .
However, there is as much error and dogmatism in claiming the exclusive validity of that sensory art as in claiming it for art of the opposite nature, steeped in human “inspiration.” Let us happily acknowledge the exquisite belligerence enjoyed by sensory art. Therefore, if both are equally “valid,” if neither of them can justifiably claim to be preeminent, is it suitable for our culture to express its preference for one of them? The problem is suitability, utility, and therefore extra-aestheticity. Our response has to be based on a prior weighting of advantages in the cultural order.
. . . Instinctively—in the Americas, and perhaps also in instances of Native art itself—what is sought is the greatest freedom of stylization. Along with maintaining a certain fidelity to natural data, [this freedom] will give the artist a creative means capable of the most concentrated eloquence. This is the position of nationalist art today. . . . In short, the story is expressed by stylizing what is natural, thus producing pictorial art at the same time as adding traditional eloquence and unquestionable visual beauty. Viewing these canvases, the pure painter will enjoy the rendering of the forms exclusively; the literary painter, [will enjoy] the expressive force; and the man of radical ideas will enjoy the canvas inasmuch as it has a message [and] serves as a political poster.
The range of its eloquence is not all such [Native] art has to offer. Through its exaltation of folkloric motifs, through its use of certain traditional stylistic forms, or simply, through deriving its rhythms and its emphasis from nature in its vernacular form, it creates a powerful record of the identity of the nation, of the territory. As a result, it entices a certain jingoistic indulgence and fuels those cohesive feelings that tend to contribute to a collective narcissism. . . .
I have no doubt that this is an advantage—for the Americas. However, in the current state of a broader world outlook, it may not be desirable . . . . The explanation is that ecumenical mysticism is repelled by this zeal to particularity in the Americas, which—in spite of everything—dominates our aesthetic disagreements, albeit becoming an instinctive statement. And perhaps the world has not yet reached the point at which it would be feasible to overcome instincts. Perhaps today, the ecumenical yearning has elements of the utopian and the artificial as well as the noble. . . .
Aesthetically, we must acknowledge the equal validity of abstract art, conceived in a universal language of forms, and that of an art of human concerns, stated in the language of a regional style. For the good of the world, it is reasonable to aspire to a universality of sensibility. Finally, if every distinguishing trait is to a certain extent a mystery, then so is the inspiration to discover it an incentive to [achieve] the innermost knowledge. . . . The practical attitude that these considerations seem to support is that of an eclecticism that understands art as a function, not an instrument. Thus it grants art its full freedom, instead of tying it down with dogmatic restraints.
1
Xenius is the artistic pseudonym assumed by the critic Eugenio d’Ors; a composite of “genius” and “Eugenio.” —Ed.