III.4.8 DIGITAL ARCHIVE 833729
I SHOULD PREFER CALLING THIS DISCUSSION “National Developments in Contemporary Latin American Art,” for in two countries at least, and potentially in several others, there is actually now enough activity to have produced regional schools with distinct personalities and character within individual national development. Yet the original title usefully suggests a certain unity. It is very true that there are common influences, parallel developments in many countries, so that it is possible to group the countries together for convenience. One must always keep in mind, however (just as is necessary always wherever the term “Latin America” is used) that hidden behind surface unities and similarities there are great diversity and important fundamental differences between the various countries. For example, one may conveniently group the countries that have an important heritage from pre-Columbian times, and at the opposite pole one may group those countries that have derived their contemporary artistic development directly, and in some cases by fairly recent import, from the contemporary international movements of Europe. Within these two general categories and lying between the two extremes there are, however, all sorts of variations.
At the outset, if we accept the fact that, generally speaking, Latin American painting is provincial in character, we can, I think, resist the impulse to over-enthusiasm, and at the same time the equally dangerous snobbishness of a patronizing attitude. From our point of view, enjoying the advantage of constant contact with contemporary international art movements, and proud of our own vigorous and varied art, it may often seem that the movements in Latin America are minor. We must never forget, however, that if some movements seem to be minor, if recognizably derivative from foreign styles and if relatively weak in their development, they have nonetheless a very great importance for the individual country. Through the evolution represented in a succession of such movements, the country is forming a national art which will fit somewhere within the great international pattern of art movements and make its own contribution of high originality or minor variation to contemporary art as a whole.
It may well be that some movements hold little interest outside the country. On the other hand, there is no reason why a great genius may not rise from one of these smaller schools. The chances are against it, because activity and opportunity are lacking. The status of the artist in many countries is frankly that of an amateur, as is true for most of the learned and skilled professions. Usually the Latin American practicing an art has an independent income, or carries on some other type of work to make a living. In either case his art is a sideline. At the same time he lacks a critical public, has usually very restricted opportunities for exhibition and very few patrons, if any. Nevertheless, despite difficulties, movements flourish everywhere in Latin American countries with great vigor, and often produce individual personalities of considerable interest.
It is necessary in carrying on studies in Latin American contemporary art to know something of the background of individual countries. I assure you, though all but two of the countries speak Spanish, the diversity in Spanish heritage—as in general cultural heritage—is very great, and the other influences vary widely. To cite examples: the countries with a pre-Columbian heritage are best and most brilliantly exemplified by Mexico. In the development of the Mexican contemporary school the stimulation, partly in a scholarly way, partly in a sentimental, romantic, emotional way, of the Indian heritage, past and present, has been great. In many of the other countries, especially the Andean countries, something similar has taken place, but quite divorced from the drive generally recognized as given to the Mexican school by identification with a revolutionary movement. The feeling of the artist in Mexico that he spoke for the people, that he had a message to convey, has been largely lacking elsewhere. When it has been present, it has been to some extent an artificial thing. Superficially, contemporary art in Peru seems close—perhaps too close—to Mexican development. [José] Sabogal [SEE DOCUMENT II.3.6] and his group have been active in exploring the background of Peruvian culture. They have collected pre-Columbian Indian art, have appreciated it—often in an unscholarly way—but they undoubtedly learned from it. They collected folk arts, old and contemporary, with enthusiasm. They have been fully aware of their rich colonial heritage in all its diverse manifestations. At the same time they have been alive to the stimulating leadership of Mexico. In a sense they wished to transplant what had happened in Mexico to their own country, and to interpret it by grafting present on past as Mexico had so brilliantly done. But the Peruvian social and political climate was not conducive to the same development. The work of this group, avoiding social and political subjects, reflects in a general way contemporary international movements, not by direct imitation, not by working deliberately within any contemporary style, but by a certain natural development of the material at hand and by a sensitive response to the general feeling of our time. In the case of several of the most gifted artists there results at its best a highly personal, emotional, and somewhat abstract expressionism. The ultimate product thus does not at all resemble Mexican art, despite the related point of departure.
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At the opposite pole from these movements that grow out of the country itself, profoundly influenced by past and present native life, stand such countries as Argentina, where the importation of contemporary international movements has been direct and self-conscious. In such countries the artists are inclined to think of themselves as a regional group within the general framework of the French or international contemporary schools. The adaptation of the international styles to local conditions has been comparatively recent: it is very diversified, and of varying success and interest. Argentina, influenced by many international movements, is so active in art that there are regional schools. The Argentines have begun collecting their nineteenth-century art. There is a considerable local patronage of contemporary art; one museum is devoted primarily to the collection and exhibition of Argentine art, especially contemporary art. Argentine art and artists receive worthy publication and serious respect.
Another example under the international heading is Cuba, where advanced French influences have been strongly felt and yet have been adapted intimately to the country, and have been well assimilated, taking on strong national character. Such local adaptation has in no way weakened Cuban expression. On the contrary, it gives to the international abstract forms a vigor and vitality that the simple importation of an abstract style, detached from its international center, usually lacks.
The over-enthusiastic recognition of familiar patterns of art is the foreigner’s chief temptation. We tend to recognize and evaluate more quickly in a new complex of art—whether it be music, literature, or the visual arts—those styles and expressions that are closest to the art we already know and understand or admire. For this reason, I think, we have somewhat overemphasized the personalities and the styles and movements in the Latin American countries that most closely resemble those we know well in international art. It is a very natural tendency, and hardly to be avoided. One must be alert to it, however. It has occasionally prevented our recognizing other movements or tendencies that have strong local roots and local importance, but which—because of our lack of knowledge of the country itself, the people, the background—have eluded us in their true character and significance. Knowledge of the country, its people, its literature, and its life aids greatly here; we must be ready to receive a new style or philosophy of art if it is offered.
On the other hand, picturesque and striking novelty has also been overrated. We have generally underestimated the value of local variants of international styles. Perhaps we have placed too great stress on so-called “modern primitives” in Latin American art. There are some excellent ones. Some have value apart from their national frame. However, is including a modern primitive as sole example of the national school of a country being quite fair to the country and to its general development in art?
These are examples of conflicting points of view, especially troublesome when planning exhibitions. Should the standards of evaluation be absolute or must they be relative? In choosing an exhibition to illustrate Latin American art, should one judge it from the international point of view, leaving aside, therefore, many local developments because they do not seem to fit into the international pattern? Or would it be more to the point to try to see their art through the eyes of the people in the country, with whatever additional critical acuteness an objective point of view may add?
It has been very thoughtful of the Museum of Modern Art to bring here before you typical works that illustrate the point admirably. They are all strong expressions of Latin American art—quite clearly works that would have value apart from any local national framework, and yet two, Ethnography by David Alfaro Siqueiros and Morro by Candido Portinari, are very much richer, more profoundly understood and felt, more valuable, if the background out of which they were created is known thoroughly. The Siqueiros, until we had become interested in exotic art—in African masks and Polynesian and pre-Columbian material—would probably have been dismissed by international art critics as a strange, ugly work, difficult to fit into the international critical framework. But today we respond to such a painting, for we find in it more than the parallels to exotic art we appreciate, and the formal values that are quite obviously there: beyond that we read into it a great deal of Mexican symbolism, for Mexican art, life and thought have become somewhat familiar. Candido Portinari’s painting, recognizably powerful, is much richer if you know Brazil. Most of his work makes use of a personal symbolism that has complex associations for those knowing Brazilian life. In both cases, the qualities of international art are combined with rich local meanings.
Local art criticism and publications, if they exist, are valuable, but the published material must be weighed in the light of direct, intimate knowledge. South of our borders there is a great amiability of temper and a certain regard for rhetoric hard for those not thoroughly familiar with the Latin literary point of view to estimate justly. Very often the essays on an artist are largely rhetorical, appreciative rather than critical; zealous and exclusive, rather than objective and inclusive.
For studies in Latin American contemporary art there is great need of more source material and published material of every kind. A greater need is for more people to work on the subject, to collect quantities of information from varied points of view, and to provide the exchange of opinion and critical discussion without which a field of investigation cannot develop healthily. The main obstacle to growth of interest from our point of view is that many developments seem minor or provincial compared with what is offered by contemporary art in Europe or even in our own country. Yet the whole field of study of contemporary art is not complete without adequate investigation of Latin American art.
My own interest in Latin American art is founded on the scope it offers for comparative study, and on the light it throws on the development of contemporary art in general. The common problem of all New World countries—the adaptation and assimilation of imported styles and influences to a new environment and to the peoples of young republics—appears under sufficiently varied conditions there to provide a sort of ideal laboratory.
A second point of value is the usefulness of art in enriching other fields of study and as a teaching aid. Nothing illustrates better than art the diversity underlying the glib suggestion of unity implied by the convenient label “Latin American”. There is no more direct and more powerful way to illustrate to the layman or to the student in other Latin American fields the difference in cultural heritage and contemporary development in the various countries, nor any more telling way to give in résumé the essential quality of thought, feeling and expression characteristic of each. Art, for those who know how to read it, is a rapid and direct way to the very core of a culture.
This proposed use of art to enrich other studies further emphasizes the need here for more, and better published material. Too often the least creative Latin American art has been reproduced for the sake of its quality of illustration. For art studies in their own right, what is presented as Mexican or Chilean art must have quality, and must be characteristic of the given country. Otherwise it does a serious disservice to the cause of art and to the country it libels. Much excellent material published in Latin American countries is of limited usefulness because of its Spanish text, and because it is found in this country only in large or special libraries. Many artists and groups have not been recorded adequately, many not at all, even in their own countries. Few general studies of contemporary art in individual countries exist, even in Spanish. No comparative studies of Latin American art in general or of the contemporary development in a group of countries have yet appeared in satisfactory form either in this country or elsewhere. What has been published in this country is as yet scattered and incomplete. General background studies, scholarly monographs, illustrated brochures, and albums, profusely illustrated and popularly presented, but with an equal regard for quality, are all needed as instruments to better and more intimate understanding through art of our southern neighbors of this hemisphere.