The literary critic Juan Liscano issues a warning about the tendency for technique to take on a value of its own in contemporary society, and how that trend can affect the artist. He mentions a few instances among the European avant-garde, and the specific case of Venezuela, and then goes on to review the styles of, and a number of works by, the artists Pedro León Castro and Héctor Poleo, two of his compatriots who, according to Liscano “have decided to take a serious approach to painting.” He explains that the former has resolved to perfect his realist technique, and the latter has decided to work on his creative approach and technical skill. Liscano notes that he sees a better balance between “container and content” in León Castro’s work, thereby warning Poleo about the “weakness” of favoring technique over content.  

The Venezuelan poet, essayist, and literary critic Juan Liscano is the author of this article, which is a sort of comparative and critical review of the III Salón Oficial Anual de Arte Venezolano held in 1942. The article is important because it focuses mainly on two young artists, Pedro León Castro and Héctor Poleo, whose paintings are beginning to privilege the human figure over the landscape, and represent “indigenous” and “national” values as facets of mankind. This article captures the mood of the moment in terms of both the Escuela de Caracas and the Maestros at the Círculo de Bellas Artes. It also foreshadows the arrival of the social realism of the 1950s, a movement loyally supported by Pedro León Castro. Héctor Poleo, meanwhile, was moving toward a more universal form of Surrealism. In this essay, in a sense, Liscano glimpses the importance of Pedro León Castro’s social realist period (which, according to Francisco Da Antonio, occurred between 1952 and 1958). Liscano wrote this article in 1942, when León Castro was just beginning his lyrical realism phase. He foresees León Castro’s commitment to social realism in his analysis of his works and in certain traits that he detects in the artist’s character, as well as in the quotes he refers to, such as those taken from a radio interview in which the artist said: “I hope to master a realist technique with which to express my collectivist feelings about life.” All of which leads Liscano to state that “León Castro, a realist painter, can be described as the possible creator of a solid form of art (…) expressed with great clarity and objectivity.”     

For other articles about Héctor Poleo’s work, see the reviews by Alberto Junyent “Aromas de la gracia” [doc. no. 1153851] and “Obras recientes de Héctor Poleo” [doc. no. 1153835]; the article by Simón Noriega “Fuentes concretas del surrealismo de Poleo” [doc. no. 1153819]; the article by Bélgica Rodríguez “Héctor Poleo, inventor y fabulador de formas” [doc. no. 1153899]; the essay by Denys Chevalier “Poleo: la opción simbolista” [doc. no. 1162167]; and the articles by Alfredo Boulton “Introducción” [doc. no. 1153883] and “El tema de la figura humana en la obra de Héctor Poleo” [doc. no. 1153964].