“Under the Republic, Peruvian painting was colonial for the first time”

Interview with Fernando de Szyszlo, Peruvian artist and a leading figure in developing Latin
American abstract art*

During the Conquest, painting was used as a tool of indoctrination and evangelization. What
was the role of art in creating a Peruvian identity?

Colonial art in Peru us an interesting phenomenon, because priests needed images for their
churches. So they brought over a number of Spanish painters, and, above all, great numbers of
engravings, and they got artists to copy their subjects. But as far as indigenous artists were
concerned, they didn’t really copy them so much as re-create them, and the result has a lot to
do with their own traditions. The art they produced –colonial Peruvian art- doesn’t have a
third dimension; it consists of a flat painting, without volume, and there are no empty spaces.
That “horror vacui” is a pre-Colombian legacy. And here’s the interesting phenomenon:
despite the fact that it was colonial art, subject to the demands of those who commissioned it,
native artists succeeded in reinterpreting the things they were required to paint. That didn’t
happen under the Republic. Under the Republic, art became colonial again, because it turned
into an imitation of European art.

It is paradoxical to say colonial art enjoyed greater freedom than art under the Republic. It
should be the other way round. What happened?

Under the Republic, circumstances led both public and artists to believe that to be free was to
make European-style art. So they produced art that, for me, is without any interest. The classic
example is Luis Montero’s The Funeral of Atahualpa, painted between 1865 and 1867; Peru
had been independent for forty-five years, and the painter tried to make the death of
Atahualpa European.

Under the Republic, Peruvian painting was colonial for the first time; it lacked autonomy. One
painter escaped that fate: the mulatto Gil de Castro, whose painting has character. But the first
strong reaction against that situation came around 1920, with the indigenista group.

What were the political implications of that movement?

Only that they painted indigenous people. That really shocked the Peruvian society of the time,
which rejected indigenismo. This turned it into the first modern movement, because it was
contrary to what its society wanted.

But in themselves the results were very poor. Indigenismo tried to create a Peruvian painting,
but there was a major confusion: that movement identified Peruvian subjects with Peruvian
painting. A Peruvian subject is within anyone’s reach: anyone can paint an Indian in his typical
dress. They did more than that, of course. They tried to be innovative in painting, vaguely
influenced by Mexican murals and Gauguin, but their work was dominated by depicting
folkloric subjects.

If, as you say, Peruvian subjects do not define Peruvian painting, where is that definition to
be found?
It’s very difficult to say what it consists of. There is a sense that it is distinct, that it reflects a
local reality. It’s like asking what is Peruvian in César Vallejo’s poetry. It’s very hard to say, and
yet it’s different from all the other poetry of its time. And you know that it’s adding something
real. Vallejo, as Ortega y Gasset said, is himself plus his circumstances. In other words, he’s
Vallejo, plus all the surrounding circumstances: the Andean mindset, the Peruvian conception
of history and class.

You have said that you are always trying to paint a recurrent feeling that expresses itself in
your work in different ways. Do you believe Peru also pursues a recurrent feeling in its art?

The nation has nothing to do with this process. You try to bring out something that is hidden
deep inside yourself, in your subconscious. If it emerges, it has distinct characteristics of its
own. There are no subjects in Peruvian art. It would be very easy to make a painting with its
own characteristics if there were any identifiable characteristics. What links Goya with Picasso
is that rather tragic, violent feeling that Spanish painting has; in French painting, what links
Poussin with Cézanne is a delicate, refined approach to painting, a special feeling for color. If
only we could say, “that’s it,” because then it would be very easy to make Peruvian painting,
and it’s actually the hardest thing to do.

It’s a problem that has to do with what surrealism tries to do: take things from the individual
unconscious, which, while being genuine products of that unconscious, also have links with the
collective unconscious. So, what is valid for me is valid for other people; and the more
profound it is, the more people there are for whom it is valid. Bach brought from within
himself music that is played in Japan, Argentina, or Russia. He found within himself something
that is valid for the whole world; you don’t have to be Protestant, or understand Latin, to be
moved by one of his cantatas.

Is it true that you found part of your voice as an artist in the Quechua tradition and by
looking at the pre-Colombian past? What presence does it have in Peruvian art?

It was not that it helped me find my voice, but I realized that there was something that made
an impression on me, especially in the poem “Elegía a la muerte del Inca Atahualpa.” It’s not as
easy to point to what it was. It’s an obscure thing that a person has to discover for himself.
André Breton said: “It’s a question of finding out what message I alone transmit, and to whose
fate I must respond with my brain.” And Rilke said: “To write a poem one has to have loved,
suffered, felt joy, seen birth and death; then we have to forget those sensations so that when
they return they are in our bloodstream, and the work can come forth.” When an inner feeling
is connected with the subconscious of other peoples, it becomes a language. That means there
is no need to say whether it is true or not; it is there in reality.

Peru is a country with a great deal of popular art, but there is a gap between that and “Art,”
which operates on a more hegemonic plane. How do these two talk to one another?

They are different things because they are made from a different perspective. They may be in
contact, but it has never been the same to make a statue of the Virgin as to design a saltcellar.
Benvenuto Cellini’s saltcellars are wonderful, but the spirit behind the creation of
Michelangelo’s Pietà is of a different order. It’s very easy to see that in pre-Colombian art. A
piece of Chancay ceramic and a piece of Paracas weaving are on the borderline between art
and craftsmanship. Nevertheless, there is no individual behind them, it is anonymous art,
produced by a group and not by an individual.

In a very difficult political climate, as under the government of General Velasco Alvarado, the
radical Left tried to mix craftsmanship and art. It’s not that easy. An illustration of what
happened at that time is that the work of a craftsman from Ayacucho who made retablos was
submitted to the São Paolo Biennial. A number of us protested. At the time I wrote a letter to
the newspaper, in which I said racehorses were beautiful, but that wasn’t a reason to let them
compete in Formula One. Everything has its place, and you can’t mix them up.

*From the book Peru: Kingdom of the Sun and the Moon, published by the Montreal Museum
of Fine Arts (2013)