When Hans Platschek (1923−2000) wrote this article, he had been living in Montevideo for more than ten years. He had come as an immigrant due to the Jewish persecution in Germany during the European holocaust. Furthermore, he complimented to his German formation on subject art matters and artistic techniques, the Montevidean experience that was primarily dominated by the presence of the TTG (Taller Torres García [Torres García Workshop]) practically during the entire decade of the forties. Without having systematically exerted in the critique of art, as he was especially evolving as an artist, Platschek was one of the writers who demonstrated a higher knowledge and maturity in the field, extending his analyses to include political as well as socio-psychological aspects rarely approached by other Uruguayan essayists of the time.
In this article, Platschek raised the question of the opening of new horizons with “Art Nouveau or young art” after the resistance to universalism had ended. He did not hide his skeptical temperament of what he considered an “imitative art” within the framework of “an infertile society.” The Germanic artist was referring to the struggle between “living reality” versus “spiritual and ideological illusions” which in his opinion, involved the latter. He believed that the difficulty of “young art or Art Nouveau lied in penetrating that casing rather than remain with doctrinal matters. He perceived a promising horizon with the possibility of opening new research in abstract art. Yet, at the same time, he observed a “tone of spiritual fatigue” in the world and among local artists.
His stance against figurative imitative art and against all forms of academicism, tends to conceptualize the conquest of modern art as forma-signo [the concept that the sign is both the concept and the meaning of the form] as a transcendent mark snatched from the chaos of contemporary social conflict. He argued that discussions could evolve in terms of “technique” and “landscape doctrines.” However, the underlying issue always ends up being the “ethical position” of the artist. This moral individuality is, for the author, promising. It indicates the assumption of a responsibility for the problems of the world. A theme that is accompanied by the decompiling of “movements” and the group programs. He affirmed that, “we are attending the decline of schools and to the forced affirmation by the artist.”
Both when it speaks on the relevance of the ethical issue, as when he refers to the need to “continue the lineage of the living tradition” of modern art which means not to repeat what has already been done between 1910 and 1930, Platschek seemed to be referring to the Torres García discourse that is based and implicative of existentialist ethics combined with a commitment to the “great tradition of art” of humanism, and this must be underlined, and always assumed in in relation to abstract art.
