Starting with a poetic image—the work of Reverón made manifest through the “miracle of Reverón”—the French diplomat Gastón Diehl discusses three fundamental aspects of the artist whom he describes in a manner that is almost supernatural: “moral miracle,” “emotional miracle,” and “artistic miracle.” In his judgment, the first miracle reveals a nature that is so deeply human, that the artist managed to position himself almost completely at the margin of society; the second made it possible for Reverón to express the most authentic aspects of Venezuela; and the third is that the artist, while knowing little of the European pictorial movement, still knew how to “walk to the same rhythm” as the Western arts.

This brief text on Armando Reverón by Gastón Diehl (1912–99), the diplomat, art critic, and French cultural advisor who was closely linked to Venezuela beginning in the 1950s, was published in the catalogue for the exhibition at the Centro Venezolano-Americano of 1951, along with a text by Enrique Planchart. Diehl commands attention for his surprising skill at synthesis and by using the literary device of a foundational image (Reverón as a miracle) to weave ideas together; he establishes a triple axiology of Reverón, that in the author’s judgment, is critical to understanding him: the asceticism of the artist, his isolation and liberation from the influences of his artistic and social scene; the expression of nationalism, customs, folk traditions, landscape; and finally, the artist’s development of the language and means for creating a pictorial revolution, which moves to the same “rhythm” as universal modern art. Diehl considers it a miracle that—similar to what the Fauvists, led by Matisse, had been able to achieve—Reverón was able to “achieve his conquest alone, with no external help.”

This text by Gastón Diehl is illuminating for those readers who are just beginning to know the Venezuelan painter. As a complement to this essay, there is also the text on the first retrospective on Reverón (1951), written by Enrique Planchart [see doc. no. 808725].