In this critical piece, Samuel Pérez Barreto ventures an interpretation of the relationship between contemporary art and historical time. In the author’s view, every work of art is determined by its historical-chronological period, which interprets the human universe at a given moment on the basis of its own philosophy, science, and art. Regardless, he believes that in every work of art the future and the past converge, manifesting the unchanging existence of “the absolute,” “the essence of a sole truth,” which is immutable and constitutes the very continuity of history. Though he asserts that “man is a creature of his time,” Pérez Barreto clarifies that that idea shouldn’t be misconstrued to refer to “a process that comes to an end within the purely chronological”; it is, rather, “an open dynamic in which the flow of continuity operates and produces effects.” The idea that the modern era is a radical break with the past is, he argues, a reaction against a particular interpretation of the essential always operative in human values.

Peruvian cultural journalist Samuel Pérez Barreto was one of the most eminent art critics active in the late forties. Like many intellectuals of his generation, he adhered to the Agrupación Espacio’s manifesto (1947), a founding document in Peruvian modern architecture and art. He was the editor of the first five issues of the journal Espacio (1949–50), that group’s platform, while also writing art criticism for the magazine Semanario Peruano. Pérez Barreto believed that it was possible to reconcile formal experimentation with a sense of historical continuity. Indeed, he maintained that the only way to create art both modern and Peruvian was by looking to the country’s earthly roots, the way pre-Columbian artists had. Well ahead of its time, Pérez Barreto’s view foretold the non-figurative veer in Peruvian painting in the sixties. Paradoxically, his position was attacked by fellow former members of Espacio during the major polemic on abstraction unleashed in May 1951 by the statements of painter Fernando de Szyszlo (b. 1925).

[For further reading, see in the ICAA digital archive the following texts on the Espacio group: “Expresión de principios de la Agrupación Espacio” (doc. no. 1126309), and (unsigned) “Dice Fernando Syszlo que no hay pintores en el Perú ni América: el joven pintor peruano declara sentir su pintura y la de los demás pero no puede explicarla” (doc. no. 1137793). The following texts were written by the Agrupación Espacio itself: “Posición” (doc. no. 1143745), “Presencia” (doc. no. 1150278), “Polémica” (doc. no. 1137823), “Prescindir o no prescindir” (doc. no. 1138933), and “Polémica: ¿hay pintores en el Perú?” (doc. no. 1139402). See as well the following texts also by Samuel Pérez Barreto: “El Perú y la cultura: Sentido y expresión de las formas” (doc. no. 1138491), “Polémica: ‘polémica Espacio’” (doc. no. 1137916), and “Pintura: la guerra de los pintores: plumas por pinceles” (doc. no. 1137839)].