In this article, the Peruvian poet César Vallejo reflects on the genre of portrayal, referring specifically to a bust of himself that was produced by the Spanish sculptor José de Creeft and exhibited at the 1925 International Exhibition in Paris. Vallejo muses on the relevance of this genre at a time when the avant-garde is forging ahead, asking himself the penetrating question: “could it be that […] the interpretative aesthetic has died, and has made way for the creative aesthetic?” As part of his reply, Vallejo adamantly denies that the reproduction of an external likeness can be considered a genuine expression of the individual. He adds, however, that his judgment is based on the opinion of someone who “is not an expert on the subject,” backing up his point of view with an ironic sampling of critical praise for de Creeft’s work. In view of the critics’ comments, the author congratulates de Creeft for producing “not a portrait, but an absolutely new and original creation.” He suggests that perhaps therein can be found the heroism of the portrait as an avant-garde artistic possibility; he also argues that it would be necessary to overcome the tension “between the infinite nature of a person, or their personality, which is discovered and revealed by the artist, and the location of that person in a particular time and place.” The latter, according to Vallejo, is what is understood as the likeness.

During the 1920s, the Spanish sculptor José de Creeft was one of the few members of the international avant-garde who was directly involved with the Peruvian art scene. In 1927, he entered an international competition in Lima, submitting a mock-up for a monument to Jorge Chávez, the aviator who, after flying over the Alps, died in Domodossola, Italy. His presence at what was mainly an academic event was surely due to his friendship with César Vallejo, the renowned avant-garde poet, whose likeness he had sculpted in 1924. The work prompted Vallejo to write a lengthy review—sent from Paris in 1925 and published in Mundial, the influential Lima magazine—in which he discusses the creative essence of the avant-garde, roundly dismissing traditional forms of imitation. Although in the end the Italian sculptor Eugenio Baroni (1880–1935) was commissioned to produce the monument to Chávez, Creeft’s submission helped to stimulate the few members of the Lima avant-garde who were moving against the prevailing tide of indigenism (led by José Sabogal). One of them, the painter and caricaturist Emilio Goyburu (1897–1958), praised de Creeft’s mock-up as a contribution to avant-garde art. Fully understanding the term, Goyburu extolled the almost abstract beauty of the piece and its Cubist geometry, an aesthetic he fought tooth and nail to defend as the authentic expression of monumental sculpture.