Leonardo Estarico sketches a humorous, tree diagram of Argentinean art and its diverse trends, such as they manifested in the early-1930s, in order to defend new art. The chart is organized in two large groups, branding a total of fifty artists who are mentioned: “Paleontology” (forerunners, guides, the negative ones, vegetative, troglodytes, conceited, purifiers) and “Era of Invention” (inventor, up-shots, decorators, illustrators, isolated, under-realist).

The modernization of art forms in Argentina had one of its main periods in the 1920s. Following the artists linked to the Martín Fierro journal—Emilio Pettoruti (1892–1971), Xul Solar (1887–1963) and Norah Borges (1901–98)—towards the end of the decade Alfredo Guttero’s (1882–1932) activities came to light, in addition to that of the Artistas del Pueblo [Artists of the Town] involved with social political engraving, and the local activity of the artists who trained in Paris: Aquiles Badi (1894–1976), Horacio Butler (1897–1983), Héctor Basaldúa (1895–1976), Raquel Forner (1902–88), Alfredo Bigati (1898–1964), Antonio Berni (1905–81) and Lino Enea Spilimbergo (1896–1964).

In the early-1930s, there was a confrontation between two poles. On the one hand, the artists who defended political art, driven in 1933 by the arrival of Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974); its key figures were Berni and Spilimbergo. On the other hand, those who proposed the formal renewal of pure art; among them Emilio Pettoruti, Butler, and most of the artists trained in the so-called School of Paris. However, both circles shared the awareness of being modern artists in overt opposition with academic Naturalism. 

Argentina is a publication directed by Cayetano Córdova Iturburu (1902–77) in defense of art’s autonomy, published in the years 1930–31. Leonardo Estarico is an art critic, close to Emilio Pettoruti (1892–1971), a collaborator in Crítica [Critique], a promoter of Boliche de Arte [The Cheap Bar of Art] fair, an alternative space for exhibitions in the late-1920s, in addition to being the director of Agrupación de Artistas Signo [Signo Artists Group] between 1933-34. 

This document, which presents an ironic synopsis of the Argentinean painting’s map at the time, serves to explain how art critics supporting the modern movement maintained the breaking line of the 1920s vanguards. Estarico defines modern artists as the dawn, the emancipation, and the new spirit, thus creating an opposition with false Impressionism—both curious and failed— of historic and traditional art.