In the series of questions asked for the survey for Revista de Avance, Alfonso Hernandez Cata is asked four questions that go in accordance with the larger theme of question of identity “Que debe ser el Arte Americano?” (What should be considered American Art?) Hernandez Cata then addresses each question separately, and the answers are numbered so that the reader can follow. The first question is, “Do you believe that the American artist should reveal a preoccupation with America?” to which he answers that the work of an American artist must and cannot leave out the revelation or some type of American preoccupation whether he wants to or not.
The second question is “Do you believe that americanidad is a question of optics, of content, or of medium?” To which Hernandez Cata answers that “Americanidad” is a question of lifeblood, a necessity, and that it does not matter if it is received by the senses or by conscience. The artist is an antenna, a root, a loudspeaker of his generation and he receives and expresses himself in a way that the vibrations of his people and of his native land intentionally adds to the force of the manner in which it is received or expressed. Hernandez Cata then quotes Marti, who was a Cuban national hero, who said that patriotism is the piece of humanity that we get to know personally and up close. It can be felt then, this patriotism and he who expresses all of the earth, the sea, the globe itself, will be more man and more of an artist.
The third question is , “Do you believe in the possibility of common characteristics shared by the art of all of the nations of our Americas?” to which he answers, “I think that the external differences will not ever be so many between the American countries that they impede recognition to the other beings in their passions and in their relationships with the landscape, the ideas, or the sentiments, not even the identity so leveling that impedes to highlight each town and each one of its artists with certain figures and colors.”
The final question is “What should the American artist’s attitude towards Europe be?” Hernandez Cata says that “This last question on the survey displaces the curiosity of 1929 on the doctrine of conduct. The ethic of man should dictate a large part of the attitude of the American artist in respect to the European. Nothing is more expressive in every way, nothing runs out, and the pit, the birthplace, of these civilizations surges equally with artist’s works of beauty. All of the artists are travelers who try to get to this impossible point of absolute harmony, by various different routes. The European artist or the American must, mutually, be enjoyers of their works, admirers or cordial objectors. In sum, disciples, convinced that in art the school is and will always be within the individual, and that by no teacher, however strong and captivating, will be able to make them forget that which comes from further away than our memory nor instill that which is out of the possible use of our souls.”