This article by the critic Carlos Raygada is about the painter and poet César Moro, considered “one of the few exponents of modern art in Peru.” According to Raygada, Moro’s work is unknown because it “never appears in the kind of publication that appeals to popular readership.” His work is unique, as distinct from “modern, iconoclastic styles,” because it is “the logical result of the concerns of the century.” In Raygada’s opinion, the appeal of Moro’s prints “emanates directly from the mystery of his ideas” and his aesthetic is based on “imagination, not imitation.” Moro’s work therefore appeals to Oscar Wilde’s “critic-artist” instead of the general public. The reviewer notes that Moro will soon be arriving in Paris, where he will find the kind of creative environment that Lima could not provide.

In Peru, the 1920s ushered in avant-garde expression, albeit influenced by the “decadent” aestheticism of local modernist graphic illustration: a language marked by symbolist suggestions, a taste for the fantastic, and a strongly decorative flair. Some draftsmen and painters assimilated elements of Cubism and Futurism, and even reached out to Surrealism. These works fit comfortably in the field of literary illustration and were also compatible with the prevailing indigenist approach in Peruvian painting. Most exponents went to Europe in search of modern metropolitan movements. The first to leave was Carlos Quízpez Asín (1900–1983), who studied at the Academia de San Fernando de Madrid (1921). While he was in Paris, Quízpez was exposed to Cubism, which strongly influenced his later, mature painting, leading him to embrace a rigorous classicism along the lines of the postwar rappel à l’ordre. When he returned to Lima in 1927, he brought with him a critical view of indigenism, but his subsequent move to the United States prevented him from having a major influence on the local scene in Peru. Two years earlier his brother Alfredo—better known as “César Moro” (1903–1956)—left Lima and went to Paris. Once there, he took part in a group exhibition in Brussels in 1926, and the following year he exhibited with Jaime Colson at the Cabinet Maldoror in Paris. After meeting André Breton and Paul Eluard, he became an active member of the Surrealist movement. Juan Devéscovi and Jorge Seoane also went to Paris (in 1927 and 1928, respectively). While Seoane went to Spain to study medicine, Devéscovi had some success exhibiting with the poet Xavier Abril (1905–1990) at the Maison de l’Amérique Latine in Paris; this exhibition also traveled to Madrid. Meanwhile, Emilio Goyburu (1897–1962) remained in Lima, although this did not prevent him from becoming a radical member of the avant-garde. Although these painters never managed to create a movement that offered an alternative to indigenism, they nonetheless played important roles in the Peruvian art world. Some of them came up with original interpretations of the Peruvian Pre-Columbian heritage that (as distinct from ethnographic expressions or archeological reconstructions) challenged the premise of what was referred to as “national” art in those days.