Interarts Aesthetics in Latin-American Avant-Garde. on Creative Constructionism in Xul Solar, Vicente Huidobro and Joaquín Torres-García
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Interarts Aesthetics in Latin-American Avant-Garde. On Creative Constructionism in Xul Solar, Vicente Huidobro and Joaquín Torres-García. by David Fernando Cortés Saavedra a Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History and Theory of Art Approved Dissertation Committee __________________________________ Prof. Dr. Birgit Mersmann Prof. Dr. Immacolata Amodeo Prof. Dr. Susanne Klengel, FU Berlin Date of Defense: January 9, 2015. Statutory Declaration (on Authorship of a Dissertation) I, David Fernando Cortés Saavedra hereby declare that I have written this PhD thesis independently, unless where clearly stated otherwise. I have used only the sources, the data and the support that I have clearly mentioned. This PhD thesis has not been submitted for conferral of degree elsewhere. I confirm that no rights of third parties will be infringed by the publication of this thesis. Bremen, March 17, 2016 Signature ___________________________________________________________ 1 Abstract The present investigation traces the theoretical and productive interrelations between the Latin-American writers-artists Xul Solar (1887 – 1963), Vicente Huidobro (1893 - 1948) and Joaquín Torres-García (1874 -1949). This work demonstrates the existence of a Creative- Creationist aesthetic shared by the three authors based on a) the recuperation of the rational elements found in Pre-Colombian art, b) a common theory of inter-artistic translatability, c) the fusion of the processes of creation and construction and d) a transformation of the concept of writing derived from interartistic exploration in the fields of painting and poetry. By exploring elements that have been left unattended in previous works concerned with the Latin-American Avant-Garde, this investigation proposes an alternative to the mapping of the continent as divided in open and closed regions, offering a less antagonistic panorama of the cultural and artistic interchanges that took place in the region during the first half of the twentieth century. The programs of social and spiritual transformation, as well as the structured and anti-colonialist recuperation of Mesoamerican and South-American cosmology found in the work of these authors, provide a renewed and more comprehensive image of the formal, programmatic and spiritual direction taken by Latin-American Avant-Garde. Furthermore, by a close comparative reading of key works which had not been interpreted with the adequate tools of analysis until now, such as San Signos and Grafias from Xul Solar, the Poèmes Peints of Vicente Huidobro and the rustic illustrated books of Torres- García and his constructive ink drawings, it will be demonstrated that the Creative-Constructive aesthetic is a revaluation of articulated and visual languages, embracing new systems of writing which anticipate conceptualism and post-structural theory. 2 Contents List of Tables………………………………………………………………………………… 5 List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………6 Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………… 7 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..……… 9 1. Creating a Tissue. Latin-American Criticism about the Work of Torres-García, Vicente Huidobro and Xul Solar………....…………………………….... 16 1.1 The Triangular Artist Network: Torres-García, Vicente Huidobro and Xul Solar…………………….……………………………............18 1.2 Archaic Transcendentalism: Torres-García and Xul Solar……………………………… 20 1.3 Footprints of an Intellectual Friendship: Torres-García and Vicente Huidobro………… 22 1.4 Critical Reception of the Cubist, Calligrammatic and Visual Poetry of Vicente Huidobro……………………………………………………………..………. 27 2. Cultural Debates on Latin-American Avant-Garde in Parallel 33 South………………...…………………………………………………………. 37 2.1 Xul Solar and Buenos Aires’ Peripheral Modernity……………….………………….… 37 2.2 Torres-García and Montevideo’s Cultural Eclecticism.…………….….…….……….… 43 2.3 Vicente Huidobro and Santiago’s Passage Towards the Institutional Avant-Garde………………………………………………...……………... 50 3. Two Epistemological Frameworks: Modernism and Avant-Garde…………………...……………………………………………………...…......60 3.1 Modernities and Modernisms……………….………….……………………………........60 3.2 The Topics of the Latin-American Avant-Garde…………………………………..……. 65 3.3 Two Variants of the Latin-American Avant-Garde………………………………...….....69 3.4 A Hypothesis: Torres-García, Huidobro and Solar between Modernism and Transmodernidad…………..……………………………………..……..73 4. The Visual-Textual Universe of Xul Solar and Vicente Huidobro………..…………………………………………………………………. 81 4.1 Xul Solar’s Painting between Esoteric Mysticism and Mesoamerican Mythology………...…...……………………………………………..…. 81 4.2 Image-Text Relation in the Solarian Universe …………….……..……………………... 85 4.3 Translatability of Textual and Visual Images…………………………………….….….. 95 4.4 Vicente Huidobro’s 1913 Experiments with Visual Poetry….……………….…….….. 100 4.5 Salle XIV…………………………………...……………………………………….….. 107 5. Altazor and the Book of San Signos…………….…………………………………….. 122 5.1 Celestial Landscape and Divine Language……….………………………………....…. 122 5.2 Language Transformation……………….………………………………………….….. 138 5.3 The Ultimate Liberation……………….……………………………………………….. 148 3 6. Joaquín Torres-García and Vicente Huidobro: Humanization of Art through the Principle of Creative Constructionism……………………………………..….………………………………… 153 6.1. Unifying Creation and Construction………………...………………………………… 153 6.2 Humanization of Art…………………………………………………………………… 159 7. The Universal Writing………………………………………………...……………….. 164 7.1 The First Series of Grafias……………………………….…………………………….. 164 7.2 The 1960s Grafias Plastiutiles: Six Systems of Picture Writing………….…………… 174 7.3 Tiahuanaco, Inca and Nazca Influence in the Constructive Work of Joaquín Torres-García………………………………...……………………… 191 7.4 Textual-Visual Reorientation and Transformation of the Latin Alphabet in the Work of Joaquín Torres-García……………………………...…. 198 7.5 Elements of Hieroglyphic Writing in the Work of Joaquín Torres-García and Xul Solar……………….…………………………………. 207 7.6 The Illustrated Rustic Books of Torres-García…..…………………………………….. 218 8. Portraits and Architectures………………….……………………….……………….. 228 8.1 The Symbolic Portraits and Psicogramas of Xul Solar and Torres-García………………………………..………………………. 228 8.2 Medieval and Modern Urban Architecture in Xul Solar’s Watercolors…………….… 234 8.3 The Cathedral Constructive Paintings of Torres-García………………………………. 243 Conclusion. The Creative-Constructionist Solution to the Antagonist Panorama of Latin-American Avant-Garde..……………………………… 252 Figures………...……………………………………………………………………………. 262 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………... 290 4 List of Tables Table 1………………………………………………………………………………………...94 Table 2……………………………………………………………………………………….168 Table 3……………………………………………………………………………………….170 Table 4……………………………………………………………………………………….176 Table 5……………………………………………………………………………………….179 Table 6……………………………………………………………………………………….181 Table 7……………………………………………………………………………………….182 Table 8……………………………………………………………………………………….183 Table 9……………………………………………………………………………………….187 Table 10……………………………………………………………………………………...203 Table 11……………………………………………………………………………………...204 Table 12……………………………………………………………………………………...209 Table 13……………………………………………………………………………………...216 Table 14……………………………………………………………………………………...247 5 List of Figures. Figure 1. Xul Solar, Nana Watzin………………..…………………………………….…....262 Figure 2. Xul Solar, Tlaloc…………………………………………………………….….....262 Figure 3. Xul Solar, Banderas, amor te alcanza…………………………………………....263 Figure 4. Xul Solar, Poco podré alzarme sino la rompo………………………………..…..263 Figure 5. Xul Solar, Apoyo moral doi……………….……………………………………....264 Figure 6. Xul Solar, A los Astros……………………………………………………...…….264 Figure 7. Xul Solar, Podré………………………………………………………………..…265 Figure 8. Xul Solar, Drago……………………………………………………………….....265 Figure 9. Xul Solar, Ciudá y Abismos……………………………………………………….266 Figure 10. Xul Solar, Palacios in Bria…………………………………………………..…..266 Figure 11. Xul Solar, País duro en noche clara…………………………………….………267 Figure 12. Vicente Huidobro, Ocean I……………………………………………………...267 Figure 13. Vicente Huidobro, Tour Eiffel…………………………………………………...268 Figure 14. Vicente Huidobro, Piano…………………….……………………………….….269 Figure 15. Vicente Huidobro, Marine……………………………………………………….270 Figure 16. Vicente Huidobro, Minuit…………………………………………………..........271 Figure 17. Vicente Huidobro, Couchant…………………………………………….………272 Figure 18. Vicente Huidobro, Kaleidoscope………………………………………………...273 Figure 19. Vicente Huidobro, Moulin………………………………………………….........274 Figure 20. Xul Solar, Grafía Antica………………………………………………………....275 Figure 21. Xul Solar, Todo Ta Hecho…………………………………….…………………275 Figure 22. Xul Solar, El Sei rey wan. Telud (…)…………………………………………....276 Figure 23. Xul Solar, No sabe no parle (…)…………………………..…………………….277 Figure 24. Xul Solar, Xamine Todo…………………………………………………………278 Figure 25. Xul Solar, Xamine Todo retene lo bon!.................................................................278 Figure 26. Xul Solar, San Pablo Say……………………………………………………..…279 Figure 27. Xul Solar, Gran Rey Santo Jesús Kristo…………………………………………280 Figure 28. Xul Solar, Pagoda…………………………………………………………..…...281 Figure 29. Xul Solar, Ciudad…………………………………………………………….…281 Figure 30. Xul Solar, Vuelvilla………………………………………………………...........282 Figure 31. Xul Solar, Mestizos de avión y gente…………………………………………...282 Figure 32. Xul Solar, Proyecto…………………………………………………….…….….283 Figure 33. Xul Solar, Iglesia de María………………………………………………..…….283 Figure 34. Xul Solar, Marina………………………………………………………………..284 Figure 35. Torres-García, Untitled……………………………………………..……………284