Juan Cerdá Carretero responds to a survey sponsored by Letra y Línea [Letter and Line] in which he states his opinion that emotion expressed through color and form is the principal to be considered. At the same time, he believes that there are infinite possibilities within the elements of painting, for both abstract as well as representational art. His stance assumes the defense of painting’s intrinsic value.

Letra y Línea. Revista de cultura contemporánea. Artes plásticas. Literatura. Teatro. Cine. Música. Crítica. [Letter and Line. Magazine of Contemporary Culture. Visual Arts. Literature. Drama. Cinema. Music. Criticism] was a contemporary culture publication edited by Aldo Pellegrini (1903-1973) whose four issues appeared between October 1953 and July 1954. Its collaborators included Edgar Bayley (1919-1990), Osvaldo Svanascini (1920), Oliverio Girondo (1891-1967), Mario Trejo (1926), Enrique Molina (1910-1997), Juan Carlos Paz (1897-1972), and Norah Lange (1906-1972), among many others. The survey’s agenda was based on the following questions: 1) What is the fundamental nature of painting in your opinion?; 2) Where is modern painting headed?; 3) Is there such a thing as Argentinean painting?; 4) Do you believe in the previous generation? Tomás Maldonado (1922), Sarah Grilo (1921-2007), José Manuel Moraña (1917-2005), Fernández Muro (1920), Juan Cerdá Carretero, Ideal Sánchez (1916-1988), Lidy Prati (1921), Víctor Magariños “D” (1924-1993), and Miguel Ocampo (1922) responded to the survey. Juan Cerdá Carretero is an Argentinean artist who developed his visual arts language beginning with the simplification of forms; he created illustrations for scholarly publications and, in some cases, his original works circulated within books of limited print runs. This article was selected because it documents a young artist’s opinion regarding the debates that were then mobilizing the Argentinean artistic field at the moment abstraction was being consolidated.