Emilio Goyburu opens this text by asserting that the “abstractionist prejudice” of which Abril de Vivero speaks on the pages of this same publication (Plástica) makes references to a form of snobbery inevitable in any movement that brings thorough renovation. He revisits the words of Georges Braque cited in the publication: “you are either abstract or representative, there is no middle ground.” That statement, he asserts, rejects any eclecticism as “adulteration” and sums up the pursuits of non-figurative art. He compares Braque’s words to Abril de Vivero’s term “invisible painting,” an ironic label for expression that embodies pure and spiritual subjectivity in the external world. Goyburu uses the phrase “a tired old refrain” to describe the idea that the problem of “abstraction” should be envisioned as a thorough reordering of the elements of the objective world. In his view, that position denies the very fundaments of abstraction which is based on the creation of “forms in no way tied to exterior morphology.” He closes his defense of abstraction by calling it a form of artistic modernism “with endless means of reaching indisputable situations.” 

In this text, Emilio Goyburu responds to an article by Francisco Abril de Vivero published in the same issue of the journal Plástica (Lima, 1951).Whereas Abril de Vivero warns against the possible extremism of abstraction, Goyburu defends non-figurative art; both men were very active in the publication.

A group of artists committed to modernism—among them outstanding painters Carlos Quizpez Asín (1900–83) and Ricardo Sánchez (1912–81)—launched the journal Plástica in Lima in 1951; just three issues were published over the course of one year. Though short-lived, the publication played an important role in communicating avant-garde tendencies at the height of the debate on abstract art—a polemic that began in May 1951 pursuant to statements by painter Fernando de Szyszlo (Lima, b. 1925) [see in the ICAA digital archive “Dice Fernando Szyszlo que no hay pintores en el Perú ni América…” (doc. no. 1137793); and others]. Painter Emilio Goyburu (1897–1958) was one of the most enthusiastic contributors to Plástica. He was known for his adherence to the incipient avant-garde in the Peruvian capital and for his work with a Cubist bent produced as early as the 1920s. Goyburu’s commitment to modernism is evident not only in his groundbreaking support of abstraction, but also in a series of texts that communicated that tendency’s tenets. This article attests to the utopian character of “non-figurative” postulates, understood as an annulment of the past and, in its own eyes, as a progressive and inexhaustible strain of modernism.

[For additional information, see the following texts by Goyburu: “Vivencias estéticas en la pintura abstracta” (doc. no. 859970), “Un nuevo monumento en Lima” (doc. no. 1143291), and “El color en las diversas artes” (doc. no. 859948)].