If one can argue that in Joaquín Torres García’s vision of the city, there was an implicit provenance of the “structural” concept that reverberated within his Constructivist doctrine, one could add a second argument: that concept was formally evident between 1917 and 1930, not only within the strict landscape process, but more so, through mapping and outlining exercises. Such practices utilized linear elements that were articulated by syntactic logic of calligraphy. This calligraphic language seemed almost painterly, and would come to its full realization during Torres García’s stay in Paris, when he immersed himself in studying the linear decomposition of form, as demonstrated in the booklet Dessins that he published in 1929. The sketchbook contains a long sequential frieze of urban scenes. It is where Torres García establishes the conceptual support of his theory of form, rhythm, order, and structure which are in accordance with his “modern classicism.” In other words, an intense search for updating the archaic in an almost anthropological sense, led him to evoke the great machines, the metallic bridges, the great transatlantic ships, even to the point that he preferred an ethnographic museum to a museum of art. John Flo (b. 1933), when referring to the importance of “linear graphics” at the time Torres García was producing his experimental work, and the implication of its explicit objective to dismantling rhythmic structures, observed [in the foreword of the J. Torres García: New York, Manuscritos del Artista by the Montevideo: Editorial Hum y Museo Torres García, 2007)] that he did not practice this bold formalism simultaneously in his paintings. And he explains the following, “Just as if in his graphics he could afford liberties that he could not accept in his painting.” Such “liberties” are the ones that allow a direct connection between the idea and the representation without the intermediation of the core of technical and prescriptive conditions used when painting. These liberties are the ones that allow him to reach the materialization of the notion of “structure” with the attempt to encompass the visible totality but no longer with the “naturalistic” image of the object but rather with its ghost. In a previous manuscript written in 1927 by Torres García, he affirms that "drawings, as in past times, were entered at the forefront in a painting, and the painting had to enter into the artwork of the drawing.” A schematic image that is the graphic idea of something, will be, for us, a precious document. And that is the humanism that I propose [....], something that every image brings from far away regarding a ‘humanized thing’, a thing that has passed through the hands of man and that constitutes a most interesting essence. [...] “It seems to me that this new theory of art is the only one capable of overcoming the superficiality of the current concepts of the discipline.” (The notebook that was handwritten in Catalan dated MCMXXVII can be found in the files at the Museo Torres García in Montevideo). [For additional reading, please refer to the ICAA digital archive for the following texts written by Joaquín Torres García: “Con respecto a una futura creación literaria” (doc. no. 730292), “Lección 132. El hombre americano y el arte de América” (doc. no. 832022), “Mi opinión sobre la exposición de artistas norteamericanos: contribución” (doc. no. 833512), “Nuestro problema de arte en América: lección VI del ciclo de conferencias dictado en la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de Montevideo” (doc. no. 731106), “Introducción [en] Universalismo Constructivo” (doc. no. 1242032); “Sentido de lo moderno [en Universalismo Constructivo]” (doc. no. 1242015), “Bases y fundamentos del arte constructivo” (doc. no. 1242058), and “Manifiesto 2, Constructivo 100%” (doc. no. 1250878)].