Alberto Zum Felde (1887–1976) was a member of a group of intellectuals—which included poets, musicians, and visual artists—whose tertulias or discussion groups helped to reinvigorate cultural life in Uruguayan art circles during the twentieth century. As a director of La Pluma magazine and a contributor to other publications (such as La Cruz del Sur), Zum Felde was a key figure in the nascent local art criticism scene during the first half of the twentieth century. On more than one occasion his sharp eye was the first to notice signs of aesthetic exhaustion, leading him to describe comfortably settled art styles as obsolete. For example, he spoke up when he felt that Uruguayan literary modernism was past its prime. As far back as the 1920s he was supportive of the proposals concerning local art and art instruction advocated by Pedro Figari (1861–1938) [see in the ICAA digital archive (doc. no. 1254337)].
In this article, written in 1926, Zum Felde discusses literary nativism—which he prefers to call “traditionalism”—and singles out the poet Fernán Silva Valdés (1887–1975) from among the writers in that movement. Zum Felde describes this form of art as a “reaction” against both the hackneyed exoticism of literary modernism and European models that encouraged a sense of rootlessness, an idea that was also endorsed by the Argentinean intellectual Ricardo Rojas (1882–1957). Zum Felde believes that the rising tide of urban cosmopolitanism in Uruguay has spilled over into rural areas, “transforming pastoral lifestyles into a kind of slum existence” where people are inevitably exchanging “their horse for a Ford.” In his opinion gaucho poetry has become obsolete and affected, a poor imitation of the original, which he sees as an artistic expression of the general decline. This article is an example of Zum Felde’s many reflections on national and regional identity in Uruguayan art. It is a forerunner to his later thinking, which he expressed in his book El problema de la cultura americana (Montevideo, 1943).