Cipriano Santiago Vitureira (1907−1977) was a multifaceted Uruguayan intellectual—a writer, poet, cultural activist, and promoter of artistic groups—who had a particularly prominent career as an art critic in the thirties and forties. This was a period in which he adopted anti-fascist political positions that were pacifist in nature and had great empathy toward those visual art trends that were profiled as social, redemptive, and humanitarian. It is no coincidence that in the first chapter of his book Arte simple (Montevideo, 1937), he focused on the work of Rafael Barradas during a particular period (1890−1929). Much of the artistic career of Barradas developed in Europe, even as a stage designer, yet he barely mentioned his commitment to the movements of the old-world avant-garde. On the other hand, he stops at the series Hombres de Café and Los Magníficos, a combined production by Barradas that emerged from the observation of humble people, workers, that in his opinion, were “grandiose,” “dignified and disinherited,” [living in a] “state of misfortune,” devoid of “the hand of God,” and acquitted because of it. Vitureira even highlights Barradas’s series Los Misticos establishing links with the previous series by means of a sensitivity that is susceptible to the essential humility of a Christian narrative. The critic’s own social and lyrical vein leads him to a debatable affirmation. In his opinion, the series can be related to the production of social art that emerged in Uruguay after the artist’s death. Additionally, the author also emphasizes the primitivism of these works (in particular, their independence from any academic source). It implies a contemporary primitivism that would manifest transcendent elements. Vitureira based the emphasis placed on those landscape series by Barradas instead of on a subjective sentiment of the critic, as Christian piety is associated in art with a comparable modern primitivism, that in his judgment, is as “the look in a child’s eyes.” [For further reading please refer to the ICAA digital archive for the following texts on the Uruguayan artista: “Barradas” (doc. no. 1243461) and “Barradas el uruguayo,” (doc. no. 1197352), by Manuel Abril, “Barradas pintor de eternidad,” by Artur Perucho (doc. no. 1243392), “Carta a Rafael Barradas,” by Alberto Lasplaces (doc. no. 1250919), “De la Tragedia de la Imagen [Barradas]” (doc. no. 1225969) and “Rafael Barradas” (doc. no. 1243440), by Vicente Basso Maglio, “Los artistas uruguayos en Europa: Rafael Barradas,” by Joaquín Torres García (doc. no. 1228429), and “En torno a Barradas,” by Clotilde Luisi (doc. no. 1227809)].
