Bolivian career diplomat and politician Germán Quiroga Galdo (1908–1991) wrote this article while on diplomatic assignment to the Bolivian embassy in Rio de Janeiro. He proposes Pablo Picasso’s cubist works as one of the many models of interest to modern Latin American painters. Quiroga Galdo discusses modern Latin American art in pre- and post-Picasso terms, acknowledging that the Spaniard looked to so-called primitive African art as rich source material for his own artistic creations. Quiroga Galdo proposes that Latin American artists will find similar potential in indigenous Indo- and Afro-American sources. This article is excerpted from the original text [Germán Quiroga Galdo, “Pablo Picasso, o primeiro unificador espiritual da América Latina,” Diário de S. Paulo (June 2, 1935)].
IT IS LOGICAL FOR THE MODERN MANIFESTATIONS of Latin American art to be an expression of [Pablo] Picasso’s influence because it extends throughout all civilized countries, imposing itself after having undermined the prestige of classicism, [that] anemia of plastic arts…
Modern Latin American painting can be considered the best and most comprehensive demonstration of [Picasso’s] impact. We could say that the Spanish sensibility encountered the American sensibility and the affinity that ought to make possible the production of true masterpieces. Until the appearance of Picasso, American painting was a servile imitation of the impotent academicism of European artists. Moreover, it was not the bona fide expression of the Indo-American sensibility, mainly because it did not translate its reality to the hilt. All intellectual and artistic life of the American elites was reduced to copying European ideas and forms, thus aping all its spiritual expressions.
. . . However, here is where an unexpected event occurs. Picasso’s influence in Indo-America no longer had to combat academicism, because the latter was already defunct in Latin America as it was in Europe. Yet, [our continent] encountered an unexpected enemy here: folklorism, which was, indeed, a veritable disease in art and literature. The Spaniard’s influence fought its second battle against [folklorism], defeated it, subjugated it, and soon transformed it, using the backwardness of folklorism as a precious material for the creation of classic works that were truly universal.
How did this decisive event come about leading American painters in completely different directions from those followed by artists up to that time?
First of all, let us examine what [the movement] commonly discussed or referred to erroneously as Cubism is. Picasso was not, as is generally believed, the inventor of Cubism. He was simply its discoverer, which is something very different. Cubism, as we say, is in painting a method for understanding the essential. It is a method, at the same time, of analysis and synthesis. . . .
Observe the works of Picasso, his series of de- and re-compositions of the elements of a bottle, of a guitar, of a harlequin; thanks to the Cubist method these very humble motifs begin to take on a life of their own, to radiate spirituality.
To start with, we must make it clear that the Cubist method was already known by the most illustrious painters of the past. The last ones who knew how to use it efficiently were the Renaissance artists, above all Leonardo da Vinci, whose works are nothing more than the result of the Cubist process. This process was lost with the passing of the centuries, buried beneath the chaff piled up by the routine of artists who, in this way, unconsciously slid down into academicism. . . .
So, during many years, this method was lost, until the much-needed appearance of Pablo Picasso and, above all, the formation of an aesthetic climate in which his revitalizing activities could develop. Therefore, we pay homage to the effort of the harbingers, [Edouard] Manet, [Claude] Monet, [Paul] Cézanne, [Vincent] Van Gogh, who reacted against pretentious academicism. Furthermore, to [Georges] Seurat’s effort, who was the first to abandon the predominance of light and color to the detriment of form, an excess that the above-cited masters, the Impressionists, fell into in their eagerness to fight against the minutiae of construction applied by the academicians. . . .
Therefore, the work of Picasso opens up an extremely broad horizon to Latin American artists. It reveals to them that folklorism—as an artistic goal— is a demonstration of inferiority before the other countries of Western culture. Picasso makes them understand that they must restrain themselves, disciplining their inspiration and employing the most rigorous reflection in the study of the chosen motif. [They must] avoid at all costs creative facileness, which produces only mediocre work; shun all complacency toward public taste; repel the understandable drive to copy Nature. [Why?] Because the role of the artist is to reveal the hidden virtues of things, verifying the intensity of the relationship between the material and the spiritual world. In a word, prevent the artist from usurping the rigid and defined functions of mechanical devices, be they photographic or cinematographic!
Thanks to Picasso, naïve folklorism is transformed into material for artistic creation. Thus the Indian, the Llama, the Condor, the Mountain, the Gaucho, and so forth—which until recently were the favorite motifs employed from Mexico to the Straits of Magellan—, are today considered merely raw materials of construction. Furthermore, the predominance of local details was excluded, as was the documentary intention that always existed in the artworks, along with any national or social ideology.
The precursors of this movement in Indo-America are the Mexicans, Diego Rivera and [José Clemente] Orozco, who set their creative gifts on the path charted by Picasso. In our opinion, neither attained the desired level of perfection, having been hindered by the political and social ideals of their country. This was a negative influence that stopped them halfway down the road which would lead to complete liberation. When we examine the entirety of their works, we see that they do not exhibit unity, which is the mark of the creative genius. Some of their images are truly admirable, but the majority evokes a feudal and exploited Mexico, or else they portray revolutionary scenes which have much of the naïveté of folklorism, which is quite different from spontaneity.
This double failure, however, was a lesson for the youngsters who followed in the footsteps of the Mexicans and learned to stop themselves in time to take their inspiration exclusively from the works of Picasso. The folkloric forms, once stripped of their local details, purified of the particularism that impoverished them, acquired an unsuspected internal force, increased their power of suggestion, and finally appeared, for the first time, endowed with the virtue of universality.
A large number of young artists emerged, mostly in Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru. They continue the struggle for liberation initiated by Rivera and Orozco and begin their production in a clearly original manner. From the Gulf of Mexico to the heart of the continent and on its Atlantic shores, we see the simultaneous and splendid appearance of Jayme Colsón in the Island of Santo Domingo, Velásquez Chávez and Máximo Pacheco in Mexico, Camilo Blas in Peru, Victor Pabón and Antonio Sotomayor in Bolivia. Brazil is also represented, with the captivating Santa Rosa and the remarkable [Candido] Portinari.
What is impressive about this simultaneous burst of creativity is that it is localized, preferentially, in the countries that are heirs of pre-Columbian civilizations; that is to say, Bolivia, Mexico, and Peru. If we examine this artistic phenomenon, we see that it was determined by the existence of extremely rich materials very well utilized by the artists of these countries. The civilizations of America constitute vast horizons for the development of modern art. This phenomenon seems to us perfectly logical. There is the revealing precedent of Picasso, contemplating one day a little African statue that was given to him by [Henri] Matisse and discovering that the anonymous African artist had expressed the essential in his sober creation. This was for the Spanish master the lesson that would be useful for the conception of the works that would, soon after, renew painting and exert an undeniable influence over all the artistic manifestations of our time, without exception, from architecture to music, which—despite being the most abstract of all arts—was wrested from Wagnerian Romanticism to reach its apogee with works such as Hyperprism [by Edgard Varèse (1923)]. Pure music, which I will venture to qualify as sonorous Picassoism.
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