By illustrating the work of the Peruvian artist Cossio del Pomar, the author exposes his concept of the artist as “the laborer of the idea,” a cultural humanistic model and an agent in pursuit of new forms of social consciousness. In a way, this saying implies social class, of the proletariat, the worker/laborer, and a willingness to think about social transformation through an implicit ideology that becomes evident in artistic practices. The assertions and examples given by Baroffio are somewhat simplistic, and are also detached from any philosophical artistic rigor.

The draftsman Orestes Baroffio (1879–1963) justifies the concept of the artist as “a laborer of ideas” based on the assimilation of an artist with the intellectual laborer who ambitiously seeks to create a new form of social art. In his opinion, the “artist of today” should express with his art the conditions of the social collective, their artistic demands, and their conflicts. Relating to “the idea” that does not allude to any early artistic conceptualism—which was unthinkable at the time—but references another comprehensive term: that of a “political ideology.” In this sense, Baroffio proposes an art that despite being an individual creation, should represent the “popular spirit” for it to be converted into a visual graphic idea, making the artist a figure debated on the stage of the “class struggle.” And, he specifies it as follows: “Today the artist must be an antenna, so perfect, that it can capture, even in the subtlest vibrations of the popular spirit and transmit them (...).” The text was references the Peruvian artist Felipe Cossio del Pomar (1889–1962), whom according to Baroffio, was from a continental cultural perspective, a true “fighter for the classes,” as one could see the concepts of “freedom, equality, and justice” were key elements in his artwork. This artistic personality is proclaimed as a model to incite and develop these ideas to vibrate in new spaces of the social conscience using art as the instrument.