Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In response to the hypotheses of an “integral art” proposed by Alejandro Romualdo, the writer states his belief that Modern art trends entail a progressive “destruction of reality.” This is why art’s síntesis cannot entail a return to [...]

In this text, Luis Miró Quesada Garland responds to the letter from critic and playwright Edgardo Pérez Luna published on November 7, 1954. To counter the opinion that abstract art has no “meaning,” Miró Quesada Garland cites Hegel, Schiller, [...]

The writer Luis Miró Quesada Garland considers it wrong to brand any painting as either “Neo-Realist” or “Social Realist” based on a subjective interpretation of reality, with idealized figures and/or deformation as (a) technique(s). The [...]

In this essay, the author, after praising the arts of Peru for their acknowledged nationalistic direction and after recognizing the role of the ENBA (Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes), the author points out to certain explainable exaggerations as [...]

In this text, Luis Miró Quesada Garland responds to the letter from journalist Jorge Mejía published in El Comercio newspaper (Lima, August 20, 1950). Miró Quesada Garland rejects degree of representation as basis for artistic classification, [...]

This text is Peruvian modern architect Luis Miró Quesada Garland’s final response to a series of articles by Sebastián Salazar Bondy published in La Prensa newspaper (Lima, September and October, 1955). As a correlate, the text quotes poet Walt [...]

This is the response of the Peruvian Modernista architect, Luis Miró Quesada Garland, to a series of three articles by the writer, Sebastián Salazar Bondy, published in the Lima daily newspaper, La Prensa,in September 1955. The writer describes [...]

In the context of remarks on an exhibition of work by painter Mario Urteaga and the public acquisition of a large set of works by academic portraitist Carlos Baca-Flor, this text by Luis Miró Quesada Garland voices criticism of nationalism in art. [...]

In this text, Luis Miró Quesada Garland offers theoretical observations on the Surrealist exhibition held at the Galería de Lima in July 1954. On the basis of specific quotes, the author disputes the arguments put forth by writer Sebastián Salazar [...]

In this text, Luis Miró Quesada Garland enumerates the main formal virtues of the works in the exhibition of Surrealism held at the Galería de Lima in July 1954. In his view, the show reflects none of the movement’s initial aggressiveness in [...]

In this text, Luis Miró Quesada Garland offers a categorical response to “Punto final,” an article published by essayist Sebastián Salazar Bondy in La Prensa newspaper (Lima, July 26, 1954) in which he declares his exchange with Miró Quesada [...]

Commentary by Luis Miró Quesada Garland on the Mexican art exhibition organized by La Crónica newspaper. The author begins by recognizing the quality of the exhibition as a holistic view on Mexican painting within the last few years. Nevertheless, [...]

This is Luis Miró Quesada Garland’s final response to the comments made by Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias (El Comercio, Lima, August 21, 1955) regarding the latter’s conclusions concerning the newspaper’s survey about “classical” [...]

In his weekly column in the El Comercio newspaper, Luis Miró Quesada Garland discusses the relationship between ethics and art as part of the debate prompted by the survey about “classical” painting and “modern” painting that was sponsored [...]

Focusing on the issue of the “significance” of art, the author indicates that he agrees with his polemicist in making a distinction between two types of significance: “artistic or apparent” and “logical or associative.” Garland rather [...]

On the matter of the existential “obligations” mentioned by Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias, the author challenges the idea that “in order to ‘be’ one has to act.” Believing in an “essential nature of ‘being,’” his relative, [...]

Referring to the connotations implicit in several phrases that both he and Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias have used, Luis Miró Quesada Garland underscores the difference between “the spiritual mood,” which he used, and the idea of “cosmo- [...]

The author rejects the idea—proposed by Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias—of renaming figurative art as “significant art,” thus emphasizing the differences between formalism and abstraction. In the author’s opinion, the ambiguity of the [...]

Luis Miró Quesada rejects claims concerning the social responsibility of art by denying any connection “between the aesthetic event and the ethical event;” in his opinion, rather than influencing society, art is its expression, or rather the [...]

Luis Miró Quesada Garland believes it is necessary to address the questions concerning “art as a product and a form of social expression” posed by the painter Alfredo Ruiz Rosas and the poet Alejandro Romualdo Valle (whom Garland does not [...]

The majority of the excerpts from articles published throughout 1954 by Luis Miró Quesada Garland addresses the issues of art theory and exhibition critiques. In the overall summary of the year for his column “En blanca y negra,” the author [...]

Commentary by Luis Miró Quesada Garland on the I Salón de Arte Abstracto held in Lima (January 1958). The author notes the importance of the event given that its axiology runs contrary to that of figurative art and the concept of nationalism in art [...]

To the writer, referring to recent exhibitions of realistic painting in Lima, art criticism may not be subordinated to “any predetermined ideology or taste.” As an example of a country where this is routine, Garland points to the Soviet Union, [...]

Luis Miró Quesada Garland acknowledges that the mural La construcción del Perú, by Teodoro Nuñez Ureta, entails a commendable attempt to integrate the visual arts with architecture in public buildings. However, he lodges the criticism that the [...]

Continuing his debate with Sebastián Salazar Bondy (a defender of art with social implications), Luis Miró Quesada Garland used this specific weekly column to argue in favor of Abstract art. His starting point is an article recently published by [...]

The writer considers the term “integral art,” coined by Alejandro Romualdo Valle, a rhetorical excess, certainly inapplicable to any particular work, as a general rule. It is also specifically inapplicable to the artwork by Alfredo Ruiz Rosas [...]

While Garland points out administrative and economic problems that beset art competitions in Peru, his emphasis is on the art standards that must remain important after all. This column alludes to comments written by the poet Alejandro Romualdo Valle [...]

The writer Luis Miró Quesada Garland explains why—in spite of being a known defender of Abstract art—he supported a figurative painting by Alfredo Ruiz Rosas for the first prize at the Second Salón Moncloa. His vote was based on strictly [...]

The author, Luis Miró Quesada, laments the absence of figurative artists [at the III Salón Moncloa], although he particularly values non-figurative art. He highlights the “fine and delicate pictorial qualities” of the winner of the III Salón [...]

In this article, Luis Miró Quesada notes that Lima art critics were unanimously agreed on the importance of Jean Dewasne’s exhibition of paintings, despite the local art world’s animosity toward abstract art. Quesada rejects claims that this [...]

In this review Luis Miró Quesada Garland discusses the exhibition of works by Jean Dewasne at the Galería de Lima. The reviewer suggests that the French painter’s works might be a little too radical for local tastes. They are examples of a form [...]

As part of the debate over abstract art, the architect Luis Miró Quesada categorically denies that there is any similarity between the functionality of architecture and painting, as suggested by Sebastián Salazar Bondy because, if that were the [...]

Among other arguments he posits in support of abstract art, Luis Miró Quesada equates the goal of non-figurative works with the act of painting, thus rejecting the idea that it is necessarily “decorative.” Similarly—and in response to Sebasti [...]

In response to (though not referring to them directly) the critical reviews written by Sebastián Salazar Bondy and Antonio Flórez Estrada about the exhibition of works by contemporary Italian painters held in Lima in May 1954, Luis Miró Quesada [...]