MANUEL DE LA CRUZ GONZALEZ
"ABSTRACT COMPOSITION"
OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED
COSTA RICA, DATED 1953
39 X 23 INCHES
The Geometric Abstraction in Manuel de la Cruz González Luján These words said by Plato for more than thousand years and mentioned by Manuel de la Cruz González Luján in one of their conferences in Maracaibo, Venezuela, have been constituting a perfect frame to define the importance of the nonfigurative art and in particular of the geometric abstract art, fruit of the society of century XX and that stops the Greek philosopher was in the world of the ideas, and therefore, of the essences. The acceptance of the nonfigurative art took its years. The western world was difficult to break with the molds that taught to him to value the art in relation to the representation that this one did of the nature. Nevertheless, the denominated “abstract art” was extending little by little and, although delayed in relation to its génesis, will have an important development in Latin America. The Costa Rican art has been eminently figurative and in the field of the abstraction the abstract expresionista current has been more successful that the geometric abstract art. It is exactly for this reason that the work of Manuel de la Cruz González in this last tendency has great relief within the local art. Manuel de la Cruz is one of those artists who, by their opening, belonged to two important pictorial generations of the history of the Costa Rican art: first, to the generation of the Thirties and, later, to the one of the Sixties. Its race as painter initiated it in one of the most flourishing moments for the local art, during the generation of the Thirties, also called the New Sensitivity, a generation that released as much thematic aspects as formal. At this time it was already spoken of González like a painter with a trowel of strong colors, we found here to the colorista and, in addition, a tendency is observed the representation of flat chromatic areas for the first time, that seen separately of the context, give the impression of being abstract zones. A good example of it is the representation that the artist does of the sidewall of the house of marinates in the work “Landscape” (1935), property of the Museum of Costa Rican Art, that would have been used perfectly for the one creation as its nonfigurative lacquers of the Sixties. In addition to his pictorial work, González Luján dedicated itself to the locution and developed an extensive work in Costa Rica, Cuba and Venezuela. Its work since speaker did of his voice a weapon with which supported diverse causes, one of them its political commitment with the ideas of doctor Rafael Angel Calderón. The outcome of the Revolution of the 48 in Costa Rica and the situation that stops the calderonistas losers meant, made it autoexiliar himself and with it, without wanting it, it meant the beginning of a new more fertile earth life for the pictorial development. Indeed, this new way that was opened to him with its game of Costa Rica again gave the possibility him of being pioneering, now within two currents of the nonfigurative art: the geometric abstract art and the abstract expresionismo. Cuba was the first country that gave welcome him, here enjoyed a very fertile period for the creation. But, it will be his second destiny, Venezuela, the key country for the stage that interests to us here. Venezuela and the Geometric Abstract Art The work as speaker took to Manuel de la Cruz to this South American country in in 1950. Here it would find a propitious atmosphere for the pictorial task. To speak of geometric abstract art in Venezuela is to talk about to one of the most important moments of the Venezuelan plastic creation and to one of clearer the conjunctural alliances between the art and State of a country of Latin America. The success of this rational art in Venezuela is bound with the wealth generated by petroleum and with the necessity of the State, and the companies related to this industry, to create a progress image, as much at internal level as external. On the other hand, in artistic means it began to excel a series of creators who wished to break with the traditional art and which they were interested in the nonfigurative art and, very specially, in the geometric manifestations abstract. Some of these artists began to travel to Paris. First he was Alexander Knoll, in 1949, followed soon by others. On 1950 the group was based on that city “the Dissidents”, also integrated by other South American creators; among them Mateo Manaure, Alexander Knoll, Paschal Navarrese, Luis Guevara and Carlos González Bogen, The group published its own magazine also called “the Dissidents”, where they attacked the Venezuelan provincialismo strongly. Their critics soon found field fertile to germinate, because this contemporary artistic proposal was agreed with national desire to project an international image, novel and vital. Thus a great amount of projects of the artists already mentioned began in Venezuela, as well as of many other nationals and foreigners, who received the opportunity to carry out their proposals in buildings and spaces public. When extending the geometric abstract art to these spaces, the creators saw themselves in the necessity to look for, therefore, new formats, new techniques, new supports. Since he has been mentioned, although Manuel de la Cruz González had shown in his previous work a tendency and an interest by the abstraction, his estadía in Venezuela was, without doubt, determinant for his enter the world of the nonfiguration, as much in his geometric abstract slope, like in the abstract expresionista. The represented forms are simplified little by little, until getting up themselves in geometrizadas structures, as it is the case of the important series of Venezuelan women “Goajiras”. The passage towards the figuration already was not given. During the eight years that lived in Maracaibo, Manuel de la Cruz participated in collective exhibitions with the most representative artists of the moment, Created friendly bows with some of them, as it is the case of Mateo Manaure, Bermúdez Plaited esparto rope, Alexander Otero and Jesus Soto. He took his activity beyond the mere presentation of his works, distributed conferences and he wrote texts of presentation for catalogues. He is possible to mention, for example, the made one for an exhibition of Jesus Soto. The study of writings of artists, such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, was determining for this entrance in the nonfiguration and the possibility of creating a new world, based on the number and geometry like approaches to the cosmos. As he himself in center showed it in a dictated conference of Beautiful Arts of Maracaibo, titled “the art like cosmic integration”. “The Abstract art, proposes in conclusion, a new aesthetic formula like those proposals by the Greco, Rembrandt or Goya, through which, the man returns to the infinite of more direct way, hermanando his postulates with the Pitágoras of the universal harmony,…” At the beginning, their works of abstract tendency were elaborated by means of the traditional techniques. Soon, abstract the geometric ones were conceived for the technique of the laqueado one (lacquers) and implied an accomplishment in agreement with new guidelines, that the artists of the time considered like the technical advances of the moment. The painter continued being the creator, but the technical execution could be made by another person, in this case a laqueador, that it worked in agreement with the sketch provided by the artist. These “lacquers”, carried out in the middle of the Fifties in Venezuela and the Sixties, and until 1971, in Costa Rica will be then, the entrance in a new concept of the creativity and the production. This type of work is conceived of the rational way, as much in its structure as in the selection of the color, with desire to find a balance in the design that emerges from a geometric or mathematical exposition. In its conception, the emotion is not overflowed but, rather, it is contained in the intrinsic power of the color and the form. The resulting work is the fruit of a patient investigation that takes place, mainly, taking as it bases the geometric organization of the space, with a departure framework of which they will be emerging the forms. The process is slow and delicate. In some of the works the denominated “number of gold” is also important, of which it starts off to organize the design of the harmonic growth of the beings of the nature, that is conceived in a number 1,614. The Abstración in Costa Rica Manuel de la Cruz has been one of the most influential artists on the new pictorial generations of Costa Rica. Its work in the Group Factory, and later as particular professor, had as logical result a great influence in means. Nevertheless, he is interesting to write down that in relation to the geometric abstraction, it did not leave school some. Although from time to time some of the young people near him painted one that another work within this tendency, did not demonstrate an interest by this type of proposals, but rather by its abstract expresionista vein, that is the one that has had greater root in the local task of the previous generation. The way was not easy for this important and singular artist within small and provincial means like the one of Costa Rica. He knew it well as he expressed and n his text “the abstract art”, ilustrativa defense of the Abstract Art: “… the “Abstract Art” is not a easy way, but the discovery of the pure creation, we could call it “the invention of itself”. Definitively, Manuel de la Cruz created harmonic a personal world in his lacquers, that relation does not have none with the difficulty to live in means still predominantly figurative. Ileana Alvarado Venegas Bibliographical summary Stream, Miguel. Brief introduction to the painting in Venezuela. Fundarte, 3era. ed. 1981. Magazines: Gratefulness Taken from: González Luján, Manuel de la Cruz “the abstract art”, ilustrativa Defense of the Abstract Art. |