Fernando Guillén Martínez (1925–1975) was a Colombian critic of literature and art who wrote numerous articles on the visual arts, dance, music, novels, poetry, and culture from 1940 until the time of his death. In this text, his conception of art is informed by mysticism as he upholds the existence of immutable laws that the artist must discover and obey. Art is thus compared to religion and philosophy, since all three aspire to truth and the expression of humanity in all its facets. On the basis of these formulations, Guillén Martínez attempts to settle a debate crucial to the history of aesthetic thought in Colombia, one regarding the nature of the tie between artistic expressions and social conditions in relation to critical judgment.
Guillén Martínez condemns those who see art as a direct expression of social values, a vision that he believes fails to take into account the aesthetic dimension of creation. This is why he repudiates strains of criticism that impose sociopolitical beliefs on the artist, thus curtailing freedom of creation. This disdain is aimed specifically at Socialist Realism and critics who attempted to influence contemporary production by applying Marxist principals wholesale. Guillén Martínez argues that that attitude fails to embrace the relationship between art and reality because it conceives of the former as conditioned by politics. This article, then, makes a contribution to two central debates of the time: the influence of politics on aesthetic ideas and the relationship between art and life.