Referring to the famous quotation by the French painter Maurice Denis, in this open letter, Edgardo Pérez Luna agrees that a piece may only be considered an artwork if it has aesthetic value. However, he adds that art’s highest mission goes beyond aesthetics, transcending art itself. In his opinion, abstract art has some aesthetic value, but, lacking a message, it is on a lower level of art. While the technical artistry, rather than the theme, determines the value of an artwork, it “will be greater depending on the nobility and humanity of its message.” He thus claims the “sublime utility” of “great artworks,” backed by quotations from Plato, Hegel and Freud. Along these lines, the writer proposes a comparison of the achievements of Piet Mondrian with Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. The writer notes Picasso’s statement that art is a combat weapon, an idea he uses to justify his own opposition to the ideas of his opponent, Luis Miró Quesada Garland.

This letter was the final response by the Peruvian critic and playwright Edgardo Pérez Luna to the comments written by the architect Luis Miró Quesada Garland, published in the daily newspaper El Comercio (Lima, November 14, 1954). 

October 1954 marked the launch of La construcción del Perú, an allegorical mural executed in the building of the Treasury Department, then called the Ministerio de Hacienda del Perú (now the Ministerio de Economía, Finanzas y Comercio). Created by Teodoro Núñez Ureta (1912–88), the most prolific and celebrated of muralists in Peru, the work was awarded the Ignacio Merino National Painting Prize. Nevertheless, the presentation of the mural gave rise to a significant controversy inevitably linked to the ongoing debate between abstract and figurative art that dominated the 1950s Peruvian art scene. This round began with an article written by Edgardo Pérez Luna (1928–84) praising the work [see the ICAA digital archive, “El mural de Núñez Ureta: un canto al esfuerzo del hombre” (doc. No. 1227007)]. That text was met by an immediate challenge from Luis Miró Quesada Garland (1914–94), the main ideologue of Modern art and architecture in Peru. [See Garland’s “En blanca y negra...” (doc. No. 865020) and “Puntos de vista” (doc. No. 1227082)] However brief, the exchange of opinions set forth what each side considered “transcendent” in an artwork: art for art’s sake (according to Garland) and the social message that must prevail over aestheticism (according to Pérez Luna) [“Puntos de vista: el mural de Teodoro Núnez Ureta,” (doc. No. 865055)].