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OUR
CULTURAL PANORAMA
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| Any
Country shows itself in its cultural treasures. This is thhee
reason of this panoramic sight into some of the expressions
of cultural patrimony in Uruguay, knitted with its Christian
and European historical inheritance as well as with their
indigenous routes that spurt out from the deepness of the
native ground. Since the first time, our young Nation has
been interested in intellectual and spiritual affairs, drawing
its cultural profile through the activities of well-known
Nation sons, who detached in their way of thinking, in literature,
in arts and in sciences. At time of remembering, those illustrious
personalities of our Nation, have the right to come to our
mind all together, but the tyrannical and necessary synthesis
we must do, allows us to mention just a few representative
and unforgettable names among those who we and foreign Countries,
feel as being still alive through their works. |
PLASTIC
ARTS
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 Uruguay
has gathered the harvest of really satisfactory goals, exhibiting
big and well-known pictorial works, in the world of plastic
arts. Juan Manuel Blanes (1830-1910) is one of the first painter
that revived on its pictures, historical features. He is also
considered an acute portrait painter of the gaucho image:
his work as a prolific creator is recognized in the "Rio
de Plata" region and it is shown in many museums in Montevideo.
(Museos: Blanes, Nacional de Artes Visuales, Histórico
Nacional).
Portrait paints as well as landscape paints of Carlos María
Herrera (1875-1914) and Pedro Blanes Viale (1879-1926), having
the latter an impressionistic style, are shown in the capital
museums as other main values of the development of National
paints that reaches the top with three artists whose esthetic
quality put the Uruguayan paints at the level of the Universal
art. These artists, who have to-day international glory and
value, are: Pedro Figari (1861-1938) anecdotic and habit recreational
painter, recreates typical scenes of daily life of the Old
Montevideo and of the country with a charming formal expression
and unquestionable art. (Its works are shown at the Museo
Blanesand Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales). Rafael Barradas
(1900-1929) breaks with the academicism of his time using
his own technique: the "Vibrationism" where the
observer goes from a color sensation to a plastic symphony
(Its works are shown at he Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales).
Joaquín Torres Garcia (1874-1949), was the founder
and the divulger of the "Constructive Universality",
esthetic expression that reaches with his works the highest
excellency. As an extraordinary teacher he taught and influenced
all a generation of Uruguayan painters, at "La Escuela
del Sur". The development of his paints can be followed
at the Museum "Torres García" in Montevideo
and in other places. José Cúneo (1877-1977)
was brought it into by his paint "Lunas y Ranchos".
Carmelo de Arzadum, José Gurvich, Horacio Torres, Alfredo
de Simone, are among others, some representative artists of
the contemporaneous Uruguayan painting that surprises by its
renewed, prolific and qualified creativity as it can be proved
visiting any of the centric art galleries in town.
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SCULPTURE
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 European
artists were the first to represent the sculpture in our Country.
The national development of sculpture begins with Juan Manuel
Ferrari (1874-1916), not to early in our history but with
important exponents. José Belloni (1880-1965) is among
the most famous artists. He removed to a distance from the
allegoric forms and carved, with great mastery and realism,
personages and scenes of our Uruguayan history, in marble
and bronze. His sculptural groups: "La Carreta",
"A La Diligencia", "El Entrevero" enhance
the beauty of Montevideo, and are often surrounded by tourists
with their cameras. José Luis Zorrilla de San Martín
(1891-1979), another one of our best Uruguayan sculptures,
tries to show with his marbles, the importance of human beings
and of things. Among others of his most important and admired
monuments in Montevideo, are the Obelisco, made of red granite,
with perfect proportions and strategically located, the equestrian
monument "Al Gaucho", a Jose Artigas, a Monseñor
Mariano Soler. The latter one is in the Cathedral of Montevideo,
where there are his engraved medals in bronze as a testimony
of his not exclusively monumental art. Among others, Juan
D´Anielli, Antonio Pena, Luis P. Cantú, Edmundo
Prati, are some of the names that detach in the Uruguayan
sculptor art and whose works can be found during visits to
museums, plazas and parks. |
POETRY
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| Considering poetry,
and following a chronological order, those detached names
are: Bartolomé Hidalgo (1788-1822), our first native
poet in Rio De La Plata, founder of lyric named "gauchesca"
(works: "Cielitos y Dialogos Patrioticos"); Francisco
Acuña de Figueroa ((1791-1862) whose poetry has a historical
and testimonial value about the time he lived. Besides, he
wrote the touching words of the Uruguayan National Hymn (Works:
"Mosaico Poético", etc); Juan Zorrilla de
San Martin (1855-1931) our most well-known poet "the
Nation Poet" that recovered in his work, National Gests
as well as its heroes. "Tabaré" is his main
composition that reaches the top of American Romanticism and
constitutes a really beautiful lyric epopee. He also was a
prose writer and orator and combined in his vast work his
religious faith with his fervent patriotism (Works: "La
Leyenda Patria", "La Epopeya de Artigas", "El
Libro de Ruth", etc.); Julio Herrera y Reissig (1875-1910)
detached Modern poet controlled the literary scene in the
Montevideo of his time, entering, beyond localisms and literary
fashions, the great Hispano-American poetry (Works: "Los
Peregrinos de Piedra", etc) Delmira Agustini (1866-1914)
with a fascinating personality where anguish of life is expressed
with unusual lyric force, she is recognized as one of the
great poetic voices of the Spanish language. (Works: "Los
Cálices Vacíos", "Poesías Completas",
etc.); Juana de Ibarbourou (1895-1979) is the poetess that
conquered the greatest honors during her life, being known
as " Juana de America". Her work melts delightfully
with nature, in a clear and fresh way, emerging the mystic
fervor of her Christian roots. (Works: "Las Lenguas de
Diamante", "La Rosa de los Vientos", etc.);
There are three names of Franco-Uruguayan poets who wrote
in Frenh language and that have a monument in memorial in
Montevideo: Jules Supervielle, Jules Laforgue and Isidore
Ducasse, Lautreamont Count. Among the prose writers and essay
writers, we will mention Francisco Bauzá (1849-1899)
who brightly dominates different disciplines (Works: "Estudios
Literarios", "Historia de la Dominación Española
en el Uruguay"); José Enrique Rodó (1871-1917),
exceptional American writer who projected his, idealist and
reformer American Thoughts, out of frontiers, with a great
formal beauty. He is considered the best Modern prose writer
and one of the teachers of the Hispano-American intellect.
(Works: "Ariel", "Motivos de Proteo",
"Ruben Darío", etc.); Eduardo Acevedo Díaz
(1851-1921) was the first in our Country to write historical
novels, writing about heroic features with a vigorous style.
(Works: "Ismael", "Lanza y Sable", "Grito
de Gloria", etc.) Carlos Reyles (1868-1938), essay and
novel writer with a careful descriptive style, with his own
vision of the gaucho image and of the Uruguayan country, who
also wrote successfully about a Spanish city atmosphere. (Works:
"El Gaucho Florido", "El Embrujo de Sevilla",
"a Raza de Caín", etc.); Horacio Quiroga
(1878-1937) was a short story writer, in whose works the fascinating
American nature supports a potent imagination that gave him
his fame. He made the best stories of the Rio de La Plata
literature. (Works: "Cuentos de Amor, Locura y Muerte",
"Los Desterrados", "Cuentos de La Selva"(for
kids)); Florencio Sánchez. (1875-1910) one of the best
playwriters of the Uruguayan Theater that reflected the theater
level in the Rio de La Plata scene, painting in a naturalistic
way the rural and familial drama of those days, showing a
profound knowledge of the human nature and of the scenic art,
forming permanent part of the Hispano-American theater (Works:
"M´Hijo el Dotor", "En Familia"
"Barranca Abajo", etc.). <many writers had dedicated
its works to the native style and the treatment of the habits
and destiny if the gaucho. Considering either the poetry or
the prose written we can remember: Antonio Lussich ("Los
Tres Gauhcos Orientales"); Serafin J. García ("Tacuruses");
Fernán Silva Valdés ("Poemas Nativos");
Javier de Viana ("Gaucha", "Macachines",
etc.) |
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