This text includes a few excerpts from the six lectures that Jorge Romero Brest gave in São Paulo in 1948. At that time, Romero Brest held an academic position at the Universidad de Montevideo and was the director of the magazine Ver y estimar. The Argentinean art critic refers to the mathematical support undergirding (Geometric) Abstraction in which “intelligence holds sway over the senses.” He says, in short, that “figurative art makes you feel, whereas abstract art makes you think.” Figurative art draws from Euclidean geometry and “is concerned with the finite, remaining accessible to the senses.” Abstract art, on the other hand, is more concerned with an “nth” degree geometry that “approaches the infinite.” In Romero Brest’s opinion, modern sculpture is so focused on the spatial demands of abstraction that he foresees “the supremacy of sculpture over painting.” According to him, “the great art of our century is architecture because, like sculpture, it functions in real space.”

This text appeared in Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte, the catalogue for the exhibition organized in São Paulo by Aracy Amaral (b. 1930) and Lygia Pape (1927–2004). The event was hugely influential in Brazil, prompting an innovative reading of the meaning of the rationalist movements in Brazilian art. The exhibition was presented in 1977 at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and, later on, at the MAM-RJ (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro). [For further information on this exhibition, see the following in the ICAA Digital Archive: “Projeto construtivo brasileiro na arte,” by Lygia Pape (doc. no. 1110680), and “Arte Concreta,” by Ferreira Gullar (doc. no. 1315020)].  

The Argentinean art critic Jorge Romero Brest (1905–1989) published his first book, El problema del arte y del artista contemporáneo, in 1937 and began to make a name for himself as an art critic and lecturer in 1943. In 1947 he launched the art magazine Ver y estimar with the help of his art history students (including Damián Bayón) after being dismissed from his university position by the first Peronist government (1946–55). He continued teaching aesthetics and art history throughout his career, traveling frequently to attend seminars such as the one mentioned in this document. In 1955, immediately after the overthrow of President Juan Domingo Perón, he was appointed director of the MNBA (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes), a position he held until 1963, when he resigned in order to head up the Centro de Artes Visuales del Instituto Torcuato di Tella, which became the pivotal venue for Pop Art, experimental theater, and conceptual art in Argentina. Romero Brest’s activities at the MNBA and the Centro del ITdT have been quite well documented, but this text sheds light on the very early stages of his career as a “distinguished critic” when he was widely regarded as a great champion of modernism.      

[For more information on some of Romero Brest’s writings, see the following in the ICAA Digital Archive: “Diálogo sobre el arte abstracto y el arte concreto” (doc. no. 824437); “Punto de partida” (doc. no. 787253); “Punto de vista crítico” (doc. no. 742528); “[Por tercera vez se organiza el ‘Premio Ver y estimar’]” (doc. no. 753937); “[De todos los premios afortunadamente se multiplica fomentando (...)]” (doc. no. 753920); “Sociología y ontología a propósito del arte nuevo, 1966” (doc. no. 761944); and “La problemática del arte latinoamericano” (doc. no. 805676), among many others.]