In this article, the critic Víctor Guédez drafts twelve points that, in his view, serve as a guide for an analytical approach to the work of Miguel von Dangel, La Batalla de San Romano. The author points to the contradictory vision projected by the Venezuelan visual artist on what he considers “sacred,” relinquishing it to his allegorical, reflective, and emotional discourse. According to Guédez, the work evokes the conjunction of two dissimilar cultures—the German and the Venezuelan—with regard to the considered text (“intertextuality”) and an identity produced by multiple identities: a Universalist intent that interweaves the texture of his (“intertextural”) proposal. According to Guédez, the “overwhelming pomposity” represents the grotesque, in the same way that its symbolism originates from its necrophilic elements, in his “objectivism.” The author claims that the work has great formal and conceptual richness, the reason why a series of terms have been established to define it.

This article by the art critic Víctor Guédez exemplifies the great impact the exhibition of La Batalla de San Romano had in Venezuela on the public and the critics, a work created by the Venezuelan artist of German origin Miguel von Dangel (b. 1946). In this piece—compared to the version of a painting with the same name by the Renaissance artist Paolo Uccello—von Dangel mixes paint and sculpture, distributing it on panels that measure about thirty-two meters long altogether. In 1990, it was exhibited for the first time at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas. Subsequently, in 1992, the work represented Venezuela in the forty-fifth Venice Biennale (1993). As a viewer, Guédez relates his first impressions of the imposing work in a tone of open and honest admiration, formulating and briefly detailing a series of principles denoting possible critical approaches to this work. In fact, such assumptions could be perceived as critical veins; categories, terms, and definitions that (from a poetic, philosophical and a linguistics standpoint) suggest ways for its interpretation from various and diverse perspectives. In a general way, emotional, ideological, and aesthetic contents are encompassed by von Dangel’s major work.

[For other critical texts on the work by von Dangel, see in ICAA digital archive the essays by María Luz Cardenas “La Batalla de San Romano de von Dangel (I)” (doc. no. 1154028) and “La Batalla de San Romano de von Dangel (II)” (doc. no. 115409), both published in 1990; the preface by Julio Ortega “La iridiscencia del ojo de la materia o cómo leer un objeto artístico procesal” (1997) (doc. no. 1155251); and in English, by Axel Stein, “Interview with Miguel von Dangel” (1998) (doc. no. 1102348). Additionally, there is the text by Yasmín Monsalve “Mi obra ha tenido que luchar contra muchos prejuicios: un premio nacional visto con la luz de Petare” (doc. no. 1102125); the essays by Elsa Flores “Miguel von Dangel: la respuesta latinoamericana (I)” (doc. no. 1155150), “Miguel von Dangel: la respuesta latinoamericana (II)” (doc. no. 1154906), and “Miguel von Dangel” (doc. no. 1056044); the essay by Ruth Auerbach “Hoy, el paisaje es aquí y ahora,” published in 1996 (doc. no. 855314); the interview by María Josefa Pérez “Miguel von Dangel: No creo el cuento de que Reverón era loco” (doc. no. 1154012); another article by Víctor Guédez “Lo barroco y lo simbólico en la obra de Miguel von Dangel” (doc. no. 1154124); and lastly by María Cecilia Valera, “Entrevista con Miguel von Dangel” (doc. no. 1154060)].