These reviews by Casimiro Eiger (1909–1987) are relevant to art criticism because his description of the “evolution” of the sculpture produced by Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar (1923– 2004) provides insights into the emergence of modern art in Colombia in the late 1940s and its eventual acceptance. Ramírez Villamizar—like other Colombian artists including Alejandro Obregón (1920–1992) and Édgar Negret (1920?2012)—started using new languages as he veered toward abstraction; Eiger discussed that process during the radio program Exposiciones y museos [Exhibitions and Museums], broadcast by Radiodifusora Nacional de Colombia from 1948 to 1955, and after a hiatus, from 1959 to 1960. It was a weekly fifteen-minute program, during which Eiger read his essays for an audience that in the mid-1950s, was “curious” about abstract art. Eiger’s talks about that the Colombian artist helped to develop the audience’s understanding of art through detailed discussions about his composition, his use of line and color, and an explanation of how he gradually abandoned visual art in his portrayal of objects found in nature.
Ramírez Villamizar’s murals and “bas reliefs” revealed his embrace of abstract art, and were praised by the critic for the purity of his line and his use of opaque white on the surface of the work. It is of interest to note that Eiger refers in particular to the mural El Dorado (1958) at the Bank of Bogotá, the subject of two of his programs in which he explained abstract art, thus defusing negative reaction to the mural. This sculpture established Ramírez Villamizar as an abstract artist who merged modern and traditional ways, the latter reflected in the gold plate covering the surface in the style of colonial altarpieces in Colombia, of which there were plenty.
