IV.3.2 DIGITAL ARCHIVE 838652
Here we include two excerpts from “¿Identidad o modernidad?”, an essay by the Mexican art critic Jorge Alberto Manrique (born 1936) that inspired the subtitle of this section. The first part—“De uno y otro lado del Atlántico”—probes what he refers to as the Janus-faced dilemma of Latin American intellectuals during the seminal decade from 1920 to 1930 when their pursuits were simultaneously introspective and open to European modernity. As a result of this inherently contradictory double approach, the visual arts, Manrique explains, oscillated between the two poles of the so-called Latin American identity: the Creole, Europe-focused nations and the mestizo nations. “El segundo gran viraje del siglo,” part four of his essay, explores the second great artistic turning point for the Americas of the 1940s, when artists and intellectuals shunned an interest in what is national in favor of more universal concerns. Decades later, the pursuit of art for art’s sake became the impetus for the work of those whose nationality was merely incidental to their art (Jésus Rafael Soto, Alejandro Otero, and Julio Le Parc, among others). Manrique first published the essay in América Latina en sus artes, an anthology edited by Damián Bayón as part of a series dedicated to Latin American culture published under the aegis of Siglo XXI (Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Mexico City) and UNESCO (Paris) [Jorge Alberto Manrique, “¿Identidad o modernidad?,” in Damián Bayón, ed., América Latina en sus artes, (Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores, 1974), 19–33] [SEE DOCUMENT IV.3.7 FOR ANOTHER ESSAY FROM THE ANTHOLOGY].
The great Latin American art movements of the 1920s—such as the Mexican movement (“Manifiesto del Sindicato de Artistas Revolucionarios” [Manifesto of the Revolutionary Artists Union], 1922), the group that arose from the Semana de Arte Moderna de São Paulo [The Week of Modern Art in Sao Paulo] (1922) and from [Gilberto] Freyre’s “Manifesto Regionalista” [Regionalist Manifesto] (1926), the Martín Fierro movement that was involved with the Martín Fierro magazine published in Buenos Aires (as from 1924), the Grupo Montparnasse [Montparnasse Group] in Santiago, Chile (founded in 1928), or the one led by Víctor Manuel in Cuba as from 1924—functioned as a giant hinge that both united the history of modern Latin American art and divided it into two separate parts. United and divided. On one side was the nineteenth century that consisted essentially of reflections from other places, of imported artistic ideas, of works and schools, a period which in fact dragged on through the first two decades of our century. On the other side of the hinge was the twentieth century, in which Latin America, finally, addressed “its own” statement to the world in terms of the visual arts.
In fact, as will be explained later, the change could already be seen on the horizon toward the end of the previous century in the work of intellectuals such as the Cuban [José] Martí, the Mexican [Ignacio Manuel] Altamirano, or the Uruguayan [José Enrique] Rodó, or in the works—some of excellent quality—produced by artists like the Brazilian [Eliseu] Visconti, the Uruguayan Juan Manuel Blanes or, closer to the dawn of the new era, the Mexican Saturnino Herrán. Prior to the second decade of this century, however, the new attitudes had not yet fully developed or been defined; it would be up to the contemporary movements of that period to do so.
The opinions expressed at that time by artists—whether organized on a more formal basis, as in the case of the Mexican union, or merely affiliated by manifestos that did not constitute an association in the strictest sense of the word—actually suggest a dual stance that is, essentially, a contradiction in terms. The conflict here is perhaps an expression of an ambiguous attitude rooted in what we might call the Iberian-American spirit. The movements that attracted artists to one group or another all had, in varying proportions, a single common denominator, which was an awakening to modernity. There was among them a common desire to open their eyes to contemporary revolutionary developments in Europe, and to reach out to the infinite variety of forms that were being explored there in the first two decades of the century. There was also a desire to use art to address an increasing awareness of Latin American social realities as a way of defining and identifying ourselves as being different from Europe.
I think that the movements that emerged in that ten-year period of Latin American cultural history, as well as their attitudes to art—though perhaps less remarkable than those in other countries, were no less revealing—can only be understood in terms of two-headed Janus, looking at both sides of the Atlantic, since at that time the United States was not yet a viable option. Each of them different, arising out of very different circumstances and supported by distinct and highly individual traditions with different levels of violence, all our movements in those days, one way or another, were looking within and without, all at the same time.
To ask oneself why all those movements engaged in such contradictory contemplation, and why they did so in varying degrees, leads one to wonder about the fundamental Latin American reality. The question in this context is not whether there is already a “Latin American self” but rather whether there is even a specifically Latin American way of being; whether we are in fact one single unit or a fictitious or imaginary diversity that is presented as one single entity.
Let us ignore for a moment the fact that our stubborn insistence on the unity of Latin America for over a century and a half—even when contradicted by objective facts concerning that reality—constitutes a substantial event in the cultural history of our countries that implies a state of unity in its own right. Let us also ignore the always problematical and never satisfactory attempts to find commonalities in language, race, and political or social history. There are, however, deeper attitudes that seem to indicate a common denominator in our Latin American consciousness, which arise in response to the fundamental question: Who are we? And since we do not consider ourselves to be European, but are also unable to see ourselves as being separate from Europe, the answers to that basic question always alternate between the two extremes of feeling both European and not European.1 This question has clearly been answered in a wide variety of ways by different people from different places at different times; the variety of responses has in fact helped to define the general outline of our evolution as a conglomerate of thinking men. It would seem that all Latin American countries have pondered the same fundamental question, attempting to define ourselves in terms of “the other” (basically vis-à-vis Europe, at least in the years prior to the Second World War). And the answers have been similar: we have alternated between defining ourselves as being the same—in a certain marginal sense acknowledging “deficiencies” rather than “differences”—and defining ourselves as being different from European culture.
But, though a fluctuation of contradictory answers has been the norm, the actual nature of the various responses, and their greater or lesser radical quality, has exposed an extremely varied range of options that have contributed to our separate, individual cultural histories. Within that range of responses, the most extreme at either end of the spectrum can be understood in terms of the different historical and social realities of our countries. The responses that expressed the strongest sense of identification with Europe, therefore, came from countries that we might describe as “Criollo,” such as Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. The strongest feelings of difference, on the other hand, were expressed by countries that take pride in seeing themselves as “Mestizos,” such as Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia.
Between the two extremes of, on the one hand, exulting in feeling different and being our own lord and master of something that is clearly defined and distinguishable from “mother countries” or “refined cultures” and, on the other, being horrified at feeling like second-class Europeans who need to catch up with and be equal to Europe, Latin America has forged the history of its culture. The visual arts have expressed that dual stance to a greater or lesser degree, and we could almost claim that there is a history of Latin American visual arts—rather than just a history of European art in the Americas—to the extent that the question Who am I? has been expressed in the works that our artists have painted, sculpted, modeled, or built, regardless of the fact that the responses reflected one or the other point of view, since both are Latin American responses (and, furthermore, since both responses together constitute our American reality.) Therefore, it is not the existence of a “mestizo” art that should be considered as our common, defining statement; it should rather be the question concerning the nature of that mestizo being and the responses to that question, both positive and negative.
The study of the specific forms that have been expressed in that history of Latin American art has made a substantial and frankly indispensable contribution in terms of detecting and defining the issue of Latin American identity. Where the mind finds insufficient concepts to express verbally, the visual arts have—at times—been able to communicate more fully our most intimate ontological concerns. If art is always a measure of a people’s attitudes to the world and to themselves, Latin American art—whether we now consider it to have been better or worse in this or that period or place—has provided the measure of our reactions to “otherness”; it has been the measure of our own self-definition as a people who face the world with determination.
This definition, in fact, and the responses to it that alternate on the arc of a pendulum, do not imply a “Latin American essence” but rather, at most, reveal the general direction of the gradual unfolding of a process. Latin America should not be understood as something ab initio imbued with permanently defined characteristics, but as something that has been creating itself (or “inventing itself,” in Edmundo O’Gorman’s apt expression) as it has advanced within that process.
When the great Latin American art movements of the 1920s were founded, by whatever means, the most profoundly introspective American question had long been the subject of conjecture among our people. These movements were, in fact, the first ones in our region with a clear conscience. That is, those who were involved in the movements would become the first Latin American artists to successfully base their work on a sufficiently defined poetics that was created as the starting point for each group’s common endeavor. At that point, as far as the groups were concerned, and as José Clemente Orozco put it, “the table was laid.”2
In fact, the core issue for Latin American visual arts—that involved the definition of a Latin American person—had been sufficiently explored at that stage to be clearly distinguishable. It seemed as though art was, for the very first time, in the unprecedented position of being able to cancel out the issue permanently. The responses that alternated successively between exultation and horror (and that differed according to changing conditions influenced by time and place), expressed a fundamental ambiguity. Contradictions often arose quickly one after another, in many cases originating from the same person almost immediately. Everything suggested that synthesis might be at hand.
Hence the idea that we can only understand Latin American artistic attitudes of the 1920s by imitating Janus, who looked in both directions at the same time in an attempt to solve the old problem. On one hand, more explicitly or more tacitly—sometimes expressing it verbally, sometimes only through the forms they chose to use—those artists acknowledged their European selves and were determined to keep abreast of the latest work being produced by artists in the Old World. Painters and sculptors at that time understood that if they were to identify with European trends they must be in the realm of the avant-garde. For perhaps the first time, instead of following what had already been absorbed and digested, they went in search of the most revolutionary attitudes, as in the case of Diego Rivera, [Joaquín] Torres-García, and [Emilio] Pettoruti, who were early devotees of the European avant-garde.
But on the other hand, by doing that, the artists were prepared to distance themselves to some extent and to expose their differences. The Uruguayan [Pedro] Figari was moved by the power and symbolism of color and the meaning of the human figure that he saw in post-Impressionism and Expressionism and then used those qualities to portray the Latin American reality of carnivals, candombes [Afro-Uruguayan dances], and festivities in typical scenes of our people and customs. Diego Rivera explored Cubism’s approach to simultaneous rendition, its emphasis on the two dimensional picture, and the purity of geometrical form, but then painted landscapes brimming with color and a sense of tropical nature, or portraits of such depth that they defied any comparison with contemporary works by [Pablo] Picasso, [Georges] Braque, or [Juan] Gris.
In fact, the synthesis, the solution that was expected to solve the issue of Latin American identity in artistic terms, was actually based on using European “instruments”—which of course implied our identification with European culture since those instruments were considered valid for us—but they were used to show and express our Latin American reality, which in turn identified that reality as something substantially different, something that was unique to Latin America and that could only be expressed by Latin Americans. Rubén Navarra expressed it clearly when referring to Brazil and Mexico, and his opinion could certainly apply to other Latin American countries as well: “. . . Brazilian and Mexican painters grasped the unparalleled creativity of French painting—that is, its spirit of freedom—and allowed it to inspire them in their struggle against the conventional pictorial vision, seeking instead a more authentic portrayal of native realities.”3
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By the middle of the nineteenth century, Latin Americans were increasingly concerned by the lack of any kind of national art or Latin American art. Thoughtful people called for an art that reflected our reality and our history and demanded an “essentially Latin American” school. The Mexican Ignacio Manuel Altamirano asked whether art should “embody new forms, if I may put it that way, and assume a national persona that belongs to us, or at least that belongs to Latin America?” Manuel de Olaguíbel encouraged painters to pursue that goal: “For historical paintings you have sublime heroes; for indoor painting you have interesting types; and for landscapes you have virgin nature.” The Cuban José Martí put it even more clearly: “Everything moves and is transformed, and the time for paintings of virgins has passed. A new society needs a new form of painting… .”4 That desire, however, was not easily satisfied, especially since the highly sought-after national or Latin American art was supposed to be expressed in universal terms; in other words, the old problem of contradiction once again reared its head. To be sure, one satisfactory solution was found in the landscape genre, which followed the European schools that were in vogue in the latter half of the nineteenth century, though some artists—such as [Antonio] Salas in Quito or [Prilidiano] Pueyrredón in Argentina—were also discovering our own landscape. But landscape painting—perhaps because of its inanimate nature, no matter how hard the Mexican José María Velasco tried to inject a moral or historical subtext—was unable to satisfy everyone at the time. The movements that emerged between 1920 and 1930, however, finally managed to create art that expressed our national concerns in a universal language, particularly in Mexico and Brazil and, to one extent or another, in other countries as well. In their struggle against “the conventional pictorial vision,” they sought “a more authentic portrayal of native realities,”—which in fact was an expression of our own reality in a universally comprehensible language using the instruments provided by the French avant-garde.
But, all that notwithstanding, those art movements were not just a doorway to the future; they were also the fulfillment of a long-postponed Latin American dream. Those activities and accomplishments can be understood as the achievement of our old goals and can be considered, to some extent, as more of a link to the past, to the cultural tradition of a century of independence. That is why I am saying that the artists of that period had one eye on Europe and the other on Latin America (in their attempt to solve the old issue of Latin American identity); that is, one eye looked to the future, to the new possibilities ahead, while the other looked backwards, to the tradition that they would bring to a climax.
The importance of that ambiguity in terms of what was to follow in the history of Latin American art can be better understood if we note that the more the movements of that crucial decade represented the fulfillment of past dreams and ambitions, the more they would be linked to that tradition, and the more they would therefore compromise their future. In fact, what came later can be largely understood as a result of that critical situation. Wherever there had been the greatest demand for a national form of art expressed in universal terms and where art had most obviously filled that immense void and felt like a goal that had finally been achieved—as in the case of Mexico—the link to that past was established more strongly in the long term. We could even go so far as to say that the greater the accomplishments of those movements of the 1920s—as movements rather than in terms of the artists’ personal works—the more they mortgaged their long-term future.
I said earlier that the events of that period could be described as a great hinge that divided the history of Latin American art between our independence and the future. But, of the two parts of the hinge, the one that carried most weight was the one that was attached to the wall of nineteenth-century romantic longings.
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Latin American art—which includes artists of the caliber of the Venezuelans [Luis Rafael] Soto and [Alejandro] Otero, the Argentine Julio Le Parc, and the Brazilian [Manabu] Mabe, all of whom in fact left their respective countries to go to school in Europe or the United States—seems to have permanently abandoned its search for its own form of expression and committed to the search itself. These were undoubtedly first rate, world class artists, who could have been from anywhere. There are other similarly first rate artists whose work, though eschewing the old nationalist tradition, nonetheless carries the unmistakable imprint of their native land, as is the case with the members of the older generation: [Rufino] Tamayo, Carlos Mérida, Wifredo Lam, Amelia Peláez, and Oswaldo Guayasamín, and younger artists such as the Peruvian [Fernando de] Szyszlo, the Chilean Marta Colvin, the Colombian Alejandro Obregón, and the Mexicans Pedro Coronel, Juan Soriano and, more recently, Francisco Toledo. But these days most artists just want to be artists. It does not seem to matter whether they are Argentines, Colombians, or Venezuelans; that appears to be a family matter that has nothing to do with art. And yet, who knows? Although after about 1945 the option to feel universal seemed to be the only valid one, it is still just an option that somehow still responds to the old conflict between identity and modernity. Latin America has undoubtedly chosen that latter path, but we can still ask ourselves: Is this just another stage in the pendulum swing that makes us alternate between closing and opening ourselves to the rest of the world?
1
Edmundo O’Gorman—La invención de América. El universalismo de la cultura de Occidente (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1958)—has approached the ontological issue of Latin Americans in those terms [SEE DOCUMENT I.1.7].
2
José Clemente Orozco, Autobiografía (Mexico City: Era, 1971), 56. Orozco enthusiastically supported efforts to produce the kind of mural painting that Dr. Atl and his students had been working on since before the Revolution of 1910 (op. cit., 31–32; 35–38). Cf. also Justino Fernández, Arte moderno y contemporáneo de México (Mexico City: UNAM, 1952), 211–35.
3
Rubén Navarra, “Iniciação à pintura brasileira contemporânea,” Revista Acadêmica, Rio de Janeiro, April 1944.
4
I. M. Altamirano, “La pintura heroica de México,”. El Artista (Mexico City, 1874); Manuel Olaguíbel. “Nuestros artistas: pasado y porvenir”, Ibid.; José Martí, “Una visita a la exposición de Bellas Artes,” Revista Universal, X, no. 297 (December 29, 1875). [SEE DOCUMENT II.1.1]. Cf. Ida Rodríguez Prampolini, La crítica de arte en México en el siglo XIX (3 volumes) (Mexico City: UNAM, 1964).