52697905 mariategui s aesthetic thought a critical reading of the avant gardes

8/7/2019 52697905 Mariategui s Aesthetic Thought a Critical Reading of the Avant Gardes

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MARIATEGUI'S AESTHETICTHOUGHT:A CriticalReading of the Avant-Gardes*

VickyUnruhUniversity fKansas

Jose CarlosMariateguidevoted the most productive years of hisshort life (1894-1930) to analyzing contemporary Peru. Because of thisemphasis, a substantialportion of the research conducted in the pastthirtyyears has addressed his political and social thought. Morerecentinvestigations, however, have sought to document the significance ofhis aesthetic ideas, an appropriatedevelopment in light of Mariaitegui'sextensive writings on literature and the visual arts. For example, theperiodical Amauta,which appeared under his editorship twenty-ninetimes between September1926 and March1930, was primarilya maga-zine of the arts and intellectual life, notwithstanding its politicalagendaand indigenista rientation.1Also, Mariategui'sdetailed essay on Peru-vian literature,"Elproceso de la literatura," s the most extensive of theSieteensayosde interpretacione la realidadperuana 1928). In addition,between 1924 and 1930, the widely read Lima weeklies VariedadesndMundialregularly published his criticalarticleson national and interna-tional topics, including a large number of pieces on literature and thearts. Recentinquiries into Mariategui's iterarythought have addressedsuch issues as his modern concept of literaryrealism, the relationshipbetween his artisticconcerns and a Marxismthat has been repeatedlycharacterizedas "open," and the role of aesthetic issues in his socialagenda forPeru.2This research has establishedMariaitegui'smportancein the arts, not as a creative writer (althoughhe did write poetry,plays,and short storiesin his youth) but as one of Latin America's irst practic-ing literarycritics.*Support or this study came from two sources. Initial research nto Mariategui's ole inPeru'savant-gardeswas conducted in the summer of 1983 in Lima with the support of aTinkerFoundationgrant. Additional investigations, particularlynto contemporary heo-ries of the avant-gardes,were carriedout in the spring of 1986under a residentfellowshipat the Center forTwentieth-Century tudies at the Universityof Wisconsin-Milwaukee.would like to thank LARRManaging Editor Sharon Kellumand one anonymous LARRreviewer for constructiveeditorial suggestions.

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LatinAmericanResearch eviewA salient feature of Mariaitegui's esthetic criticism was his closeattention to the positions and practices of the interwar avant-garde

movements in Europe and Latin America as well. He had originallyplanned to call Amautaby the name Vanguardia,n orientation evidentin the journal's commitment to disseminating innovative intellectualand aesthetic currentsas well as in Mariategui's requent references tohimself and his contemporariesas "hombres de la vanguardia."He alsocommented extensively on expressionism, futurism, dada, surrealism,and LatinAmericanresponses to these movements. In addition, Maria-tegui has often been characterizedas the prime mover of Peruvian van-guardismof the 1920s, particularly n his role as editor of Amauta.3Butalthough scholars have noted the connections between his support ofaesthetic innovationand his social agenda for Peru,no in-depth investi-gation has been done on the relationship between his exegesis of theavant-gardesand the development of his aesthetic thought. The pur-pose of the present study is to undertake this investigation.Mariateguiwas an avowed Marxist,"convictoy confeso," and afounder of Peruvian socialism. But in politics as well as art, he was alsoa divergent thinker and a criticalinterpreterof contemporary move-ments who appropriateddiverse ideological currents in forming hisown conception of Latin American history and life. For example, hispolitical thought was shaped not only by his readings of Marxbut alsoby Bergsonian and Nietzschean antipositivist vitalism, Benedetto Cro-ce's aesthetic idealism, Georges Sorel's theory of myths, and the con-cernwith cultural ssues characteristicof Italian MarxistAntonio Gram-sci. Mariategui'saesthetictastes and sources were similarlydiverse. Hisfavorite artists and writers included Luigi Pirandello, VladimirMaya-kovsky, George Bernard Shaw, Waldo Frank,PanaitIsrati, Blaise Cen-drars, George Grosz, and CesarVallejo,and he drew on a multitude ofcontemporaryexperimentalmovements to form his own ideas about artand his own programfor Peru'sculturalrenewal.4 The complexconnec-tions between Mariategui'saesthetic thought and social agenda wereboth manifested in and shaped by his response to the postulates andpracticesof the avant-gardes.MARIATEGUI AS OBSERVER AND PROMOTER OF THE AVANT-GARDES

The European avant-gardes of the period immediately beforeand after WorldWarI, which Mariateguiobserved, analyzed, and pub-licized in Peru, undertook a serious critiqueof the prevailingtechnicalmodes and social relationshipsthat had shaped artisticproduction. Onthe one hand, in rejecting mimetic conventions, avant-garde artistssought a more "authentic"apprehension of life and a returnto primaryexperience unmediated by censors of reason. On the other hand, they46


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attacked the artist'sautonomy and distance from everyday life, a privi-leged status originating with romanticismand culminating in late-nine-teenth-centuryaestheticism. Although it can be argued that the van-guardists created their own brand of elitism by producing highlyinaccessibleworks, they also promoted the model of a criticallyengagedartist as an alternative to the self-involved poete mauditof the art-for-art's-sake mode. In Theoryof the Avant-Garde, eter Burger posits theemergence of vanguardist discourse as a stage of self-criticismin arthistory and a challenge to art's social status as a bourgeois institution."What s involved in these manifestations,"Burgerasserts, "isfar morethan the liquidation of the category 'work' [ofart]. It is the liquidationof art that is split off from the praxis of life that is intended."5 Thecentralityof engagement to the avant-gardeproject was underscorednot only by assaults on implied readers and spectators from the pageand the stage but also by the eventual conversion of many vanguardiststo ideologically diverse causes.The fundamentaleconomic and social transformations hat tookplace in LatinAmerican life during the decades following World WarIgave Latin American vanguardism its distinct character. In the 1920sand early 1930s, self-consciously experimentalartisticventures arose inalmost every Latin American country and were designated by suchnames as vanguardia, rte nuevo, espiritunuevo, and, in Brazil, moder-nismo.These activities were undertakenprimarilyby groups but also byindividuals and were shaped in part by Europe's avant-gardesthroughwriters with transcontinentalexperience such as Vicente Huidobro,JorgeLuis Borges, and Oswald de Andrade. These efforts, which wereoften markedby indigenous culturalexigencies, were characterizedbythe affirmation of specific aesthetic positions, engagement in artisticexperiments through often ephemeral little magazines, manifestoes, ormanifesto-stylecreative texts, and occasionallyserious interdisciplinaryinvestigations into language, history, folklore, and politics.6 Despitetheir regional differences, these undertakings often reflected similaragendas and generatedparalleldebates about issues concerningmoder-nity versus culturalauthenticity.Out of this debate arose a critical n-quiry into the aesthetic values and social relationships shaping artisticpracticein LatinAmerica.7Because of Mariaitegui'sascinationwith theEuropeanavant-gardesand his commitment to developing a programfor Peruvianculturalindependence, he became one of the more cogentand imaginativearchitectsof that inquiry.Mariaitegui'snterest in the avant-gardesdates from his Europeanexile fromDecember1919to March1923. He had initiatedhis journalis-tic career at the age of fifteen with Lima's conservative La Prensabutsoon became involved in movements for aesthetic and social change.During these years, he wrote poetry, plays, and short stories. In 1916

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LatinAmericanResearch eviewhe participated n the aestheticist literarygroup thatpublished the mag-azine Colonidand sent poetry to this review.Editedby AbrahamValde-lomar,Colonidawith its iconoclastictone and nationalistorientationpre-figured Peru's iteraryavant-gardesof the mid-1920s.Meanwhile, how-ever, Mariategui's ntensified participation n Lima's radicaluniversityreform movement had begun to blurthe lines between his aesthetic andsocial concerns, and moving toward socialism, he distanced himselffrom what he later called his life as a "decadent, Byzantine literarysavant."8 n 1918he left LaPrensa or the more liberal El Tiempo,wherehe wrote critiques of the national scene. He also founded two journalsof political commentary:the ephemeral Nuestraepoca 1918) and, withCesarFalcon,LaRazon 1919),in which he supported Lima'semerginglabor movement and opposed the reformist dictatorship of AugustoLeguia (1919-1930). As a result, shortly after the new president as-sumed power, he arranged for Mariaitegui'sEuropean sojourn as an"informationagent"for Peru, an officially scriptedexile.Mariaitegui's uropean experience proved fundamental to the de-velopment of his political thought, particularlyhis emergent Marxism.This sojourn also vastly enriched his knowledge of contemporaryartis-tic movements and exposed him to the postwar avant-gardesat theirpeak.9 He arrivedin Paris at the time when dada founders, dispersedfrom their Zurich center, were regrouping there and in Berlin.In Paris,dada leader TristanTzara'sencounters with Andre Bretonand PhillippeSouppaultwere paving the way for the mergerinto surrealism.Maria-tegui's most significant Paris contact, however, was Henri Barbusse,founder of the leftist group Clarte, o which many surrealists were laterdrawn. This association kept Mariategui n touch with developments inFrenchsurrealismeven afterhe returnedto Peru.Mariategui spent most of his time in Europe in Italy,where hewas exposed to the visual avant-gardesat the 1920 InternationalExposi-tion in Venice of works by major painters and sculptors. He developeda strong admiration for the theater and narrative of Pirandello,an en-thusiasm that survived the latter's conversion to fascism. Shortly afterMariateguiarrivedin Rome, he read the majorfuturist manifestoesandheardfuturist founderF.T. Marinettispeak. At the TeatroSperimentaledegli Indipendenti, founded by former futurist Antonio Bragagliain1922, Mariateguiattended performancesof plays by major modern dra-matists and of futurist sintesi (brief, stylized compositions) and heardmusicalexperiments by FrancescoBalillaPratella,author of the TechnicalManifesto fFuturistMusic.In 1923Mariaiteguirrived n Berlin, then a center for literaryandvisual expressionism, for the Berlinphase of dada and for the emergingexperimentaltheaterof ErwinPiscator and BertoltBrecht.ThereMaria-tegui met HerwarthWalden, editor of Der Sturm,with whom he corre-48


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sponded after his return to Peru and whose work he published inAmauta.He also visited Walden'sprivate galleries of contemporaryart,which he later called one of the world'smost "complete museums ofmodern culture."10At Berlin'sCafe Schoteldam,Mariateguibecame ac-quaintedwith the satiricalpaintings of George Grosz, an artisthe con-tinued to admire, and he also attended performances of expressionistdrama.Although he canceled a projectedtrip to the Soviet Union, Ma-riategui began to follow developments in Russianpostrevolutionary vi-sual arts, literature, and film during this time. 'He also became inter-ested in the progressiveculturalpolicies of AnatolLunatcharsky,whomhe praised for keeping the USSR open to cubist, expressionist, andfuturist experiments. Mariateguilater observed approvingly that no-where did the arts of the avant-gardesreceive greaterofficial encour-agement than in the Soviet Union of Lunatcharsky's ra (1:114).Mariategui'sItalianchronicles appeared in Lima's El Tiempobe-tween 1920and 1922, and a few of them addressed artistictopics suchas futurism. When he returned to Lima in 1923,however, he undertooka serious analysis of the Europeanavant-gardesin various forums: inhis articles forMundialand Variedades,n the regularliterarydiscussiongroups held in his home between 1924 and 1926, and in the pages ofAmauta rom 1926 to 1930. Mariaitegui redicted in 1924that the play-ful dimension of the new art, its cosmopolitan"pirouettes,"would nottake root in the New World,but he perceived a potential source forLatin America's cultural development in vanguardism'scriticalpowerand creative spirit (11:19).For this reason, he activelyencouraged andsupported every group, artist, and ephemeral magazine in Peru andmany throughoutSpanish America that called themselves innovative oravant-garde.In Peru most of these publicationsappearedbetween 1926and 1930, coinciding with the life span of Amauta.Those published inLima were edited by friends or acquaintanceswhom Mariateguiknewthrough politicalactivities or the literarygatheringsin his home.1"Thework of a small number of people, several of whom were involved informingPeru'semerging leftist parties, these magazinescombined liter-ary experiments in the vanguardistmode with Americanist,Peruvian-ist, or indigenista cultural politics.12Mariaitegui ncouraged these ac-tivities editorially in the pages of Amautaand also through personalcorrespondence.He gave even stronger support to individualPeruvianartists whose work was highly innovative or influenced by the literaryavant-gardes.13He also directed generally favorableattention towardselected Hispanic vanguardistsoutside Peru, although he did not ana-lyze their aestheticpositions with the same rigorto which he subjectedthe Europeanmovements.14Although Mariategui'ssupport of self-designated vanguardistartists and activitiestranscendedideologicalaffiliations, his assessment

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LatinAmericanResearch eviewof the pertinence of the Europeanavant-gardesto Latin Americapro-vided a focal point for his inquiry into the relationshipof art to sociallife. Unlike Marinetti, Breton, or Huidobro, Mariateguiwas neither a"believer" n vanguardismnor a promoterof a specific aesthetic creed.Rather,he viewed the avant-gardesas the most important aesthetic de-velopment of the postwar era. He wrote in 1924, "Los mas grandesartistas contemporaneos son, sin duda, los artistas de vanguardia"(6:63).He later submitted that because art was a barometerof the times,the avant-gardes n theirplayfuland iconoclasticmodes were the "quin-tessence" of the same declining bourgeois society whose artistic expec-tations they sought to attack. But the attack on bourgeois art, Mariaite-gui asserted, could be in intent as well as outcome either reactionary,leading to an extreme aestheticist posture of art for art's sake or the"decadence"of mere "formalconquests," or revolutionary, posing areconstructionof positive culturalvalues (6:18-22).Mariateguibelieved that the avant-gardemovements were coher-ent, despite their internecine differences and chaotic dempnstrations:"Elproceso del arte moderno es un proceso coherente, logico, organico,bajo su aparienciadesordenada y anarquica" (6:63). He also viewedthese movements as constructive and integrative:"Elcubismo, el da-dafsmo, el expresionismo,al mismo tiempo que acusanuna crisisanun-cian una reconstruccion" 6:19).Although each avant-garde endency inisolation might not present a specific new formula for art, each pro-vided a different "element,""value,"or "1principle"n the elaborationofan integrated whole (6:19). Although Mariateguioccasionally defendedthe playful dimension of modern art and confessed personal delight insavoring its offerings like "bonbons"(12:109),he perceived a seriouspurpose in its experiments. "Aunquetengan todo el aire de cosas gro-tescas," he wrote, "se trata, en realidad, de cosas serias" (6:69). Hisexegesis of vanguardismwas therefore directed toward discerning itscoherent, constructive, and integrative elements as well as the sub-stance of its criticalpotentialand "revolutionaryspirit."In Mariategui'sview, these qualitieshad been announced by dada but had culminatedin surrealism. Throughthis analysis, he gradually developed a conceptof an "authentic"or "comprehensive"vanguardism,which was epito-mized in his mind by some of his favorite artists like Mayakovsky,Grosz, and Vallejo.Their art constitutedan originaland eclecticsynthe-sis of many vanguardist techniques, Mariategui suggested, and wasmotivatedby a unifying and constructivelycriticalworldview.15Amauta's irst issue cast its own vanguardismin similarly eclecticterms: "Estudiaremos odos los grandes movimientos de renovacion-politicos, filosoficos, artfsticos, iterarios,cientificos. Todolo humano esnuestro."'16Artistic material always made up a significant portion ofAmauta's fferings-even after its commitmentin 1928to moreexplicitly50


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political ends. But a certainanti-aestheticism was implicit even in thereview's initial position, which placed art on an equal footing withother intellectualactivities as only one of several endeavors to be un-dertakenby Peru's"hombresnuevos." The title of Mariaitegui'sssay onPeruvian literature, "El proceso de la literatura,"reveals a good dealabout his views on the artistic issues of his time. As he explained, hewas employing the word proceson its forensic sense, thus affirmingthat in his examination of Peruvianmaterials, and by extension in hiscommentaries on the avant-gardes, he was placing literature,or art it-self, under scrutiny and on trial. For Mariategui, that criticalprocessaddressed three fundamental issues, which will be examined here: themimetic connection, or art's relationship to reality; divisions and con-nections between artists and their public and between high art andpopularculture;and the implications of vanguardismfor creatinga newPeru.MARIATEGUI S CRITICAL READING OF THE AVANT-GARDESArt andReality

One unifying threadin the internationalavant-gardeprojectwasits attackon conventions of representation. Underlying visual and ver-bal experiments was a rejection of referentialmimesis, an antipathytowardnarrative,and a loss of faith in the cognitive power and vitalityof Cartesian discourse. The avant-gardes'antimimetic stance was alegacy of the romantictradition and turn-of-the-century ymbolism, butit differed from these movements in conception and intent, if not al-ways in results. For example, Chile's Vicente Huidobro, whose workbridgedthe avant-gardesof the Old Worldand the New, affirmed n his1914Non serviammanifesto thatyoung poets should turn theirbacks onboth nature and literarytraditionto createan autonomous world.17 Atthis point, he was still writing within the aestheticist traditionof thepoete maudit. In contrast, futurists, dadaists, and surrealists alike af-firmed that in rejecting representation, they were turning toward re-ality,not away from it. "Ilove nature but not its substitute,"wrote dadaartist Hans Arp in opposing the artisticpracticesof naturalism.'8The denigrationin Mariaitegui'swritings of the scientific and therational n favor of the intuitive, the unconscious, and the metaphysicalcan be traced in part to the diverse antipositivist, vitalist turn-of-the-century philosophical currents that shaped his intellectual develop-ment, but this attitude also constitutes one of his strongest ties to theavant-gardes. Rationalism, the foundation of the postwar bourgeoisworld in decline, had served only to discredit the rationalistprojectwith its "paradojica ficacia de conducir a la humanidad a la desconso-

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LatinAmericanResearch eviewlada conviccionde que la Razonno puede darleningun camino"(3:23).Declaring that the era of Descartes had ended, Mariaitegui elebratedthe demise of the "mediocrepositivist edifice"(3:26)and characterizedhis own age as antirationalistand "shakenby the strong currentsof theirrationaland the unconscious" (7:39).Agreeing with the surrealists,Mariateguiaffirmedthatreinstatingthe fictitious,the irrational,and thefantasticwould reintegrateart with life: "El arte se nutre de la vida y lavida se nutre del arte" (6:186).His vitalist declarationthat art was asymptom of the "plentitudeof life" (6:186)was comparable n spirit toBerlin dada founder RichardHulsenbeck'saccount of his simultaneouspoems as nothing more than a "hurrah for life!"19Mariategui alsopraised the French surrealistsfor having paved the way for the "recov-ery of the superreal"(6:178)and suggested that the demise of artisticrealism had actually facilitated knowledge of reality and energizedman's relationship to the world. Once liberatedfrom the "trammelofverisimilitude,"artists would be free to launch themselves into the"conquestof new horizons"(6:24).Internationalvanguardismblamed art'sdistortion of human ex-periencenot only on mimeticrealismbut also on the institutionalizationof art itself, particularlyiterature.TristanTzara characterized iteratureas "anote of human imbecilityto aid futureprofessors,"20while Bretondescribed it as "one of the saddest roads that leads to everything.",21WalterBenjamin's andmarkessay, "The Workof Art in the Age of Me-chanicalReproduction,"posited that the work of art, having graduallylost all claims to authenticityor uniqueness, had relinquished in themodem era the remnants of its ritual or sacred function, its distancefrom ordinary life or "aura."22But the avant-gardes'response to thedemise of the aura of art was actually equivocal. In reacting againstaestheticism, vanguardistsattacked art'sdistancefromeverydaylife. Asalternativesto the concept of an organic workof art, their decontextual-ized "works"parodied art'stechniques and questioned its status.23Yetby setting the searchfor primaryexperience against the mediated qual-ity of mimeticactivity, they createda new myth of the authenticityandoriginalityof art, an aura of immediacy rather than of distance. Thisquest for unmediated experience was manifested in denigrating theverbal, particularlythe discursive, and favoring the visual, either di-rectly by suppressing narrative n the visual artsor by emphasizing thevisual and synthetic aspects of verbal art. "No more words," pro-claimed TristanTzara,24 s the futuristsintesi, the multigenericcollageform Merzof dada, and the unexpected surrealistmetaphorall soughtthe imminence of (in)sight.Mariategui,who has been called the WalterBenjaminof LatinAmerican etters,25also recognized that the avant-gardeswere attackingart as an institution. He observed that ultramodernaesthetic experi-52


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MARIATEGUIIS AESTHETIC THOUGHTments arose from a conception of art that was "absolutely diverse"(6:64)and that the dada reaction against contemporaryart's ntellectual-ism contained the "germs of a new aesthetic"(6:43). But he was drawnfar more toward the avant-garde mpulse to recreateart'saura through anew idea of authenticity than toward the critique of aura implicit inverbal gymnastics and decontextualized works. Mariaitegui ecognizedthe critiqueof aestheticism implicitin the avant-gardes' conoclasmandthe attack on rationalism underlying linguistic experiments. He alsovalued visual and verbal satire, as in the work of George Grosz. Else-where Mariateguiaffirmedthe inextricable relationship between formand content (2:309)and conceded the criticalpower of "pure nonsense"in his review of the work of PeruvianwriterMartinAdan (11:155).Nev-ertheless, Mariategui'swritings on art revealeda fundamental prejudiceagainst self-reflexivity,and he suggested that contemporaryart's obses-sion with form as an end in itself was ultimatelya sign of sterilityanddecadence. Asserting art'sproximityto the authenticityof life, he pre-ferred art in which devices were not laid bare and the illusion of or-ganicity was maintained. This preference can be detected in his reviewof Soviet writer G. Ognev's Diario de KostiaRiabtzev:"La literaturadecadente y 'deshumanizada' nos ha habituado tanto al ruido de sutramoyaque esta obra en la que funcionan silenciosamentelas ruedas ylas poleas del artificio nos llega con la naturalidadde un mensaje di-recto de la vida" (7:110-11).A sustained dichotomy emerged in Mariategui'sown discoursebetween art as distorting artifice and art as primaryor "organic"en-gagement with life. This contrast is reminiscentof avant-garderhetoricaffirmingthat language served both to deform the more primaryac-tivityof thought and to mask what might be more directly experiencedwithout it. Similarly,Mariateguiargued for art that would capture the"living essence" of reality (7:23)and praised works that contained the"smallest possible dose of literature" (7:110). He censured writerswhom he regardedas mere "artisansof the word" (1:172)while prais-ing those like Vallejo who synthesized elements from symbolism, ex-pressionism, dada, and surrealismbut also used a language divested of"allrhetorical ornament" (2:310, 316). In his critique of verbal artifice,Mariateguicharacterizedvisual experienceas more immediatethan ver-bal. He perceived this predilectionin the avant-gardes,and it also per-meated his own writing. For example, his observations on the Italianlandscape linked visual experience with intensity and authenticitybuttraditionalliterary verbiage with artificialityand deceit. He assertedthat in order to know Italy "naked and living," he wished to see it"without literature"and without the "ambiguousand captious lens oferudition"(3:77-78).In Mariategui'sopinion, the desire to see the worlddifferently was the motivation behind avant-gardeinnovations in the

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Latin American ResearchReviewvisual arts (6:62), and he suggested that synthetic principles had en-riched verbal art as well. For example, the dramaticwork of Pirandelloand the futurist sintesi had eliminated traditionally "literary"and"wordy" theater and created a more faithful apprehension of reality(3:71). Similarly, the best silent films were those that almost totallyeliminated the verbiage of captions and relied instead on the immedi-acy of the image, like CharlieChaplin'sTheCircus,a work that Maria-tegui awarded his highest praise. He also commended the interactionofthe visual and the verbal in the poetic art of PeruvianJose MariaEgu-ren, in the synthetic poems of Argentine ultraistaOliverio Girondo,andin the overpowering of words by image in the cinematographictech-niques of Cendrars'sL'Or 6:114).It must be kept in mind, however, that in Mariategui'sworld-view, restoring experiential immediacy to art and achieving a produc-tive interaction between the real and the fictitious were desirable be-cause of their implications for pragmatic and metaphysical humanneeds. He affirmed humanity's need for a metaphysical conception oflife (3:24)and manifested his intellectual kinship with the surrealistswho sought in their pursuit of the marvelous an intensification of hu-man experience. Accordingly,Mariategui suggested that a new art, di-vested of the rationalizationsof realism and the pretensions of aestheti-cism, ought to satisfy "man'sneed for the infinite"(3:23)and encouragethe development of a myth that might serve as an ideal, "una granficcion que pueda ser su mito y su estrella" (6:24-25). This Sorelianconcept of the contemporaryworld's need for a "greatfiction" to over-come postwar skepticism is fundamental to Mariategui'sidea of art.Furthermore,because he viewed his own eraas revolutionaryand quix-otic, it was the activistimpulse of this search fora new faith that linkedhis artisticagenda with that of the vanguardistswho saw poetry as a"fabulousform of action."26Mariateguiwrote, "Lavida, mas que pen-samiento, quiere ser hoy accion, esto es combate"(3:17).Thus the ac-tivity of art was inextricablyintertwined with the conduct of humanaffairs,and for this reason, Mariategui'sassessment of the avant-gardesreturned repeatedly to his conception of art's engagement with sociallife.TheArtistandthe Public:Bridginghe "GreatDivide"

Although the relationshipof artists and intellectuals to the publicthey were addressing was called into question by the European avant-gardes, the tone of this inquirywas often equivocal. The avant-gardes'ideal of the new artist attackedthe academic spirit of intellectual life aswell as the often megalomaniacalaestheticismof the poete maudit, thevisionary artist who had "often seen God face to face."27But the new54


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model of the critically engaged artist was as ambiguous as the avant-gardes' attitude toward the public, which it simultaneously assaultedwith invectives and unintelligible works and courted in attempting toforge a new alliance. Andreas Huyssens, a contemporary theorist ofinternationalvanguardism, recentlycoined the term "the great divide"to describe the "volatile"qualitythat has characterized he relationshipbetween high art and mass culture since the mid-nineteenth century,and more specifically, to designate the kind of critical discourse thatdistinguishes between the two.28The avant-gardes'critique of aestheti-cism unquestionablyattacked such dichotomies, but their attempts tobridge the great divide often exacerbated the breach. For example, al-though the futurists provoked riots at their serate evening demonstra-tions), they declared that theirobjective was to instill a "currentof con-fidence" in the audience.29"We spit on humanity," the dadaists de-clared,30yet Tzara ater envisioned a messianic, transformationalunionbetween artists and their knowledgeablepublic: "the wisdom of crowds... joined with the occasional madness of a few delicious beings."31Although the surrealists inherited the mystical legacy of the poetemaudit, they called for an art "capable of facing the breadth of thestreet"32 nd affirmed that "poetrymust be understood by everyone."

As an incisive reader of the avant-gardes,Mariateguioften per-ceived these contradictions.He shared the rejection of the aestheticistartistand the disengaged intellectual,however, and he spoke disparag-ingly of the secessionist spiritof the "morbidart of turn-of-the-centuryliteratiin whom a worn-out epoch is in decline" (3:160).In its overesti-mation of art and its "fondness for reclusion," the aestheticist ivorytower had removed art from effective social engagement. Despite thefact that aestheticism persisted in some postwar art, Mariateguibe-lieved that the attackupon culturalconservativismwas the most salu-brious feature of the avant-gardes. As alternatives to the traditional"hierophants"and "priests"of high art, modem movements like ex-pressionism and dada had promoted artists as latter-day jesters andminstrels in an attempt to level hierarchiesbetween artist and public(6:65). Mariateguialso praised futurism for having contributedto thedemolition of "the tedium of the academic, the old, and the known,"which had isolated artists and intellectualsfromthe mainstreamof Ital-ian life (15:221).But he concluded that the movement's mistake wasreinstituting the "artocracy,"r what Marinetticalled "theproletariatofthe gifted men in power."According to Mariategui, the most isolating feature of the aes-theticist worldview was its overestimationof the individual poetic sub-ject, whose intimatepsychologicalupheavals had provided art with itscenter and its shape. He sometimes classified such art as "decadent,"although he admiredthe subjectivityof writerslike Andre Gide, Marcel

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LatinAmericanResearch eviewProust, and Sergei Eissenin and suggested their work was a key tounderstanding their times. Mariateguialso admired Freud, whom hecredited with having articulated n scientific discourse what poets hadintuited through their art, and he agreed with the surrealiststhat ex-ploring the unconscious might transformhuman experience. His objec-tion to psychologism concerned its obsession with the isolated "case"ofthe individual artist, a cloistering, self-reflexivetendency in contempo-raryart that he characterizedas "morbid,""sickly,"a "voluptuous lax-ity," "neurosis,"or "lassitude."In Mariategui'sopinion, such exagger-ated subjectivity contributed to overestimationof the artist and an in-flated judgment of art'splace in society (1:198)and absorbed creativeenergy that might otherwise be directed towarda positive engagementwith life.On the face of it, Mariategui's eactionagainstsubjectivityconsti-tutes an essential point of contact with the avant-gardesin that thedecentering of the individual consciousness was a significant elementof the avant-gardeattack on both turn-of-the-centuryaestheticism andthe romantictradition. TheTechnicalManifesto f Futurism nd Literatureurged artiststo "destroythe I in literature,"35nd dada linked the cultof the individual to the decline of Western civilization.Similarly,Berlindadaist Hans Arp declared that man was "no longer to be the measureof all things,"36 nd the surrealistscampaignedagainst "the narcissisticindividual, the one who has ... eaten up the universe..."37 But inMariaitegui's iew, the avant-gardes'censure of subjectivismwas proneto "relapses" nto aestheticism: "Es frecuente la presencia de relajosdedecadenciaen el arte de vanguardiahasta cuando superando el subje-tivismo, que a veces lo enferma, se propone metasrealmente revolucio-narias"(6:21).The possibilityof such revolutionarygoals implicitin theavant-gardeproject was precisely what sustained Mariaitegui'snterest,particularly he potential role for a new breed of artists or intellectualsin bringing about change in Latin America. He often grouped tradi-tional artistsand intellectuals into a single category,disdaining the "ba-cillus of skepticism"that both groups had recently suffered and theirstatus as malcontents in conflict with life and history (3:35).Yet evenwhile Mariaitegui imed his most acerbic barbs at intellectualsand art-ists, he highly esteemed them, particularly hose whose divergent aes-thetics or ideology made them impossible to categorize. He often wroteof the emergence in a modern revolutionaryera of "new men" whowould assume a more engaged role in contemporary events whilemaintaininga criticalstance.In his search for models for these "new men," Mariateguiwasintrigued by the avant-gardes' explorationof the relationshipof art topolitics. He insisted that no great artisthad been apoliticalin his pas-

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sions and that man's indivisible spirit inevitably brought moral, politi-cal, and religious issues to bear on aesthetic, intellectual, and criticalactivity, just as it had in Mariategui's own development. But in thepracticalworld, he affirmed, cultural life and politics often operatedinseparate domains. The futurists' error had occurred not in exploitingthe political ideals of art but ratherin imagining that a committee ofartistscould createa political doctrine (15:222).Similarly, ntellectuals asintellectuals could not engage in formulatinga doctrinal line, whichwas the function of political parties; the proper role of intellectualsinsuch ventures was to contributeelements of "criticism,investigation,and debate" (7:46). Mariategui'smodel for engaged intellectual critiquewas Henri Barbusse'speriodical Monde,which was similarin intent toAmauta.Among artists of the avant-gardes, the surrealist followersofAndre Breton (who had neither fallen into the futurist trap of submit-ting politics to the "rulesand the tastes of art"nor confined their activi-ties to "pure artistic speculation") exemplified the desired balance be-tween aesthetic ideals and political commitment (6:47). According toMariategui,this connection between intellectualor culturalactivityandpolitics would naturallybe strengthened in revolutionary periods. Hewrote of art'srelationshipto the Mexican revolution, "Elpoder de crea-cion es uno solo" (12:85).But he also emphasized that revolution wasnot merely a material enterprise: "La Revolucion . . . sera para los po-bres no solo la conquista del pan, sino tambien la conquista de la be-lleza, del arte, del pensamiento y de todas las complacencias del espi-ritu"(1:172).But even in service of the revolution,artwould necessarilyfunction within its own domain:"a la revolucion, los artistasy tecnicosle son mas uitiles y preciosos cuando mas artistas y tecnicos se man-tienen" (3:336).Mariateguibelieved that during eras of greatsocialupheavallikehis own, the true vanguardists or "new men" were those who not onlysharpened the critical tools of their own disciplines through contactwith the most innovative trends but also sought to overcome the dis-tance those disciplines often imposed from ordinaryhuman affairs. Thebest artisticvanguardists (like Grosz, Girondo, Vallejo,and Diego Ri-vera) were those who synthesized the technical virtuosity of a rangeofavant-garde styles while staying in touch with everyday experience.Intellectual vanguardists were those who could somehow expose thefictivestatus of human myths and at the same time overcometheirownskepticism and mitigate oppositions between mind and heart, critiqueand commitment. For Mariategui, these passionate rationalists andfaithfulskeptics included such figuresas Der Sturm'sWalden,Barbusse,WaldoFrank, Jose Ingenieros, Miguel de Unamuno, and Pedro Henri-quez Urefia. The political impact of art and intellectualactivitywas to

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LatinAmericanResearch eviewbe founded not on theirpractitioners'participationn politicalpartiesorelaborationsof political doctrinebut on their capacityto keep in touchthrough their work with ordinarylife.The need to be in touch with popular culture lay at the heart ofMariaitegui'sonception of the new intellectualand artist. But it is im-portantto note that he held qualified views about the abilityof the masspublicto comprehend artisticcreation or criteria,and his own discourse(like that of the avant-gardes)sometimes reinforced the idea of a mod-erate, if not great, divide. He suggested that the "common taste" hadalways rejected the work of great artists initiallyand that the generalpublic, which possessed essentiallyclassicaltastes, denied the status ofart to the radicallydifferent spirit of modern works (6:64).Mariateguialso rejectedas illusion the underlying premise of the more politicizedavant-gardes that an empowered proletariatcould immediately createits own art. He praised Lunatcharsky or preserving the "artisticpatri-mony" of prerevolutionaryaristocraticand bourgeois culture as well asfor his efforts to educate the general public about art, and he affirmedthat art was a symptom of the plentitude of a social order (1:113-14).Progress had always been achieved by the imaginativefew (3:45), andtransformationalepochs requireda creative and engaged elite, a teamof "heroicand superiormen" (3:52)chargedwith increasingthe public'scultural awareness and encouraging the development of its aesthetictalents. Lunatcharsky,as both a culturalguardian of tradition and anardentpromoterof the artisticavant-gardes, was an exemplary memberof such an elite, whose function was both educational and creative andwhose ability to effect change depended upon a healthy relationshipwith "the people."But in Mariaitegui'swritings, "the people" constituted a multi-form entity, reflecting his mixed views on this subject. On the onehand, he saw the "unlettered man" as a "nonreflexive"believer, onegenerally ill-equipped to discern the relativityof his own truths andunder some circumstancesprey to fascist demagoguery. On the otherhand, Mariateguioften spoke enviously of the ordinary person's ca-pacityfor commitment and action:El hombre iletrado no se preocupa de la relatividadde su mito. No le seriadable siquieracomprenderla.Pero generalmente encuentra, mejor que el lite-ratoy que el filosofo, su propio camino. Puesto que debe actuar,act&ia. uestoque debe creer, cree. Puesto que debe combatir, combate. Nada sabe de larelativa nsignificanciade su esfuerzo en el tiempo y en el espacio. Su instinto lodesvia de la duda esteril. No ambiciona mas que lo que puede y debe ambi-cionar todo hombre:cumplirbien su jornada(3:33).

The connection between artists or intellectuals and the ordinarypublic, however, could neither be forged through the political agendaof an assemblageof aesthetes (15:222)nor be founded on a naive return58


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to the mimetic recipe directing artists to "depict the people" (6:33).France'spopulist literary movement in the Zola traditionoffered noth-ing for the revolutionary artist or critic: "Sobre la mesa de trabajodelcritico revolucionario ... un libro de Joyce sera en todo instante undocumento mas valioso que el de cualquierneo-Zola"(6:35).Mariateguinevertheless considered a healthy connection with ordinary people tobe the source for art'sorganicityand its link with life, as evidenced byhis frequentemployment of organicistmetaphorsin characterizing hisrelationship: "Ninguna literaturapuede vivir y crecer sin raices en unasociedad y en un pueblo vivientes" (6:159).The common sources wereto be found in the artist's ntuition of people's deeper concerns, in the"awareness of humanity"or the "experienceor emotion of the world"(3:120)."El artista,"Mariategui wrote, "que no siente las agitaciones,las inquietudes, las ansias de su pueblo y de su epoca, es un artista desensibilidadmediocre, de comprension anemica"(15:222).In these dec-larations, his wording favored the collective over the individual dimen-sion of such constructs as "thepeople" or "humanity."While the workof a poet might express the emotions of a single person, the spiritof therevolutionaryepoch made the expression of shared pain more pertinentthan the isolated emotional "case."Mariaitegui bserved that CesarVa-llejo "siente todo el dolor humano. Su pena no es personal" (2:313).Mayakovsky'spoetry expressed a "multitudinous faith"comparabletoan epic narrative(1:176),while the greatnessof Pirandello'swork restedin part on its having appropriatedthe life of the street: "Lacalle, o seael vulgo; o sea, la muchedumbre. La calle, cauce proceloso de la vida,del dolor, del placer,del bien y del mal" (6:29).Mariategui'sbelief in the organicity of art and in the need for acreative elite suggests that he saw a more privileged role for artisticactivitythan did the more iconoclasticavant-gardes.Yet his support forart that had descended from the ivory towerto the pains and pleasuresof the street manifested the more egalitariandimension of the avant-gardephenomenon. In his view, artcould best serve its "hedonisticandliberatingfunction"by incorporatingthe great divide's polarities. Thiskind of art would be simultaneously "rigorouslyaristocraticand demo-cratic," qualities he found in Chaplin's work. Mariaiteguiwrote that"Chaplinalivia,con su sonrisay su trazadolidas, la tristezadel mundo.Y concurre a la miserablefelicidadde los hombres, mas que ningunosde sus estadistas, filosofos, industriales y artistas"(3:74).But even ifChaplin'supheavalsand anticsmight alleviatethe sadness of the world,Mariategui's goals were more focused and less global, although cer-tainly no less challenging, and they ultimately brought him (and hisanalyses of the avant-gardes)much closer to home.

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LatinAmericanResearch eviewAn IndigenousAvant-Garde genda:Creating New Peru

The bold objective of Mariategui'sntellectual and political proj-ect was to createa new Peru,and the material and ideological terms ofthis enterprisewere, in his view, both autonomouslydiscrete and inex-tricably inked. Realizingthis goal would requirenot only a new Peru-vian economy and social structure but also a new idea of Peru andperuanidad. onsideringthe subjectmatterof the other sixessays in thecollection that includes "El proceso de la literatura"(economics, theIndian, the land, public instruction, regionalism, and centralism),crit-ics have understandably wondered what possible connection Mariate-gui might have perceived between the experimentsof the avant-gardesand the urgent materialneeds of Peru'sIndians, peasants, and workers.CriticGerardo Goloboff and others have correctlysuggested that theavant-gardes provided a necessary link between Mariategui'ssocialthought and his aesthetic ideas.38This connection has been exploredhere thus far by analyzinghis criticalexegesis of avant-gardediscourse,particularly ts call for a more vital relationshipbetween art and realityand for more engagement by artists or intellectualsin the tribulationsofthe ordinary public. To discern the relationship of these ideas to thespecifics of the Peruviansituation, however, it is necessary to under-stand thatMariateguiviewed the ideologicaldimension of the projectofa new peruanidad as a creative, criticalundertaking in the hands ofPeru's "new men"-its engaged artists and intellectuals. It was pri-marily these people that he was addressing (those he knew as well asthose he hoped would emerge) in the title of his column "Peruanicemosal Peru,"which appearedin Mundial rom 1925 to 1929.In Mariaitegui's pinion, the new peruanidad was to be createdout of the interaction of the internationaland the modern with theautochthonous and the traditional.This stance earned him harsh criti-cism from some contemporaries,particularlyAPRA founder VictorRautlHaya de la Torreand his followers. During an era of intense nationalistrhetoric,Mariateguiwas insisting on the importanceof European intel-lectual and aesthetic trends for developing Latin American art andthought. "No hay salvacionparaIndo-Americasin la ciencia y el pensa-miento europeos u occidentales,"he wrote in the preface to his Sieteensayos 2:12).Mariaitegui epeatedlyaffirmed that for the postwar gen-eration, the European experience had provided the means for LatinAmerica'sself-understandingand the stimulus for its best forms of ar-tistic expression, as exemplified in the works of Vallejo, Rivera,Giron-do, Borges, JoseSabogal,and RicardoGuiraldes.Furthermore,one ma-jor path by which American and Peruvian artists were discoveringtheirown worlds was through avant-garde experiments. Mariategui sug-gested that the accusationthatvanguardismwas not Peruvianwas sim-60


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MARIATEGUITS AESTHETIC THOUGHTply a reactionaryresponse to its critical spirit. He cautioned neverthe-less that the ideas and techniques of the European avant-gardesmustbe appropriatedselectively;they should neither be aped uncriticallynorbe naively pressed into the service of "superamericanist" emagogueryby those "provinciallypersuaded" of the originalityand cultural au-thenticity of their "most mediocre rhapsodies" of European "isms"(12:75).Mariategui's onception of the relationship between internationalvanguardism and the creation of the new peruanidad was shaped byhis view of nationalism. The nation, he affirmed, was itself a variety offiction whose relationship to reality was not fixed: "una abstraccion,una alegoria, un mito, que no corresponde a una realidadconstante yprecisa, cientificamente determinable"(2:235). By extension, the con-cept of a national art or literaturewas still not "excessivelyconcrete"(2:235). It was neither something fixed waiting to be discovered by Pe-ruvian artists nor an autonomous essence independent of historicalcontingencies. Instead, the new peruanidad was a "laborof creation"(2:254),a criticaland creative enterpriseto be shaped by a healthy inter-action with reality using tools selectively appropriatedfrom the Euro-pean avant-gardes."Lo mas peruano, lo mas nacional del Peru contem-poraneo es el sentimiento de la nueva generacion" (11:72).Yetnationalfeeling ought to be a fundamentalelement of any "positiveand authen-tic vanguardism"(11:72).Creating the new peruanidad would first require a break withthe literary models of the immediate past, and the iconoclasticspirit ofinternational vanguardism could provide a model for this step. Theaestheticistconcept of an autonomous artist was a fairlyrecent idea inPeru and LatinAmerica. It had emerged with turn-of-the-centurypoeticmovements (modernism in Spanish America and symbolism in Brazil)and had been superimposed on a long-standing great divide betweenlearned and popular culture. This tension in Latin America betweenwhat Mikhail Bakhtin would call centripetal (or normative)and centri-fugal (or divergent) linguistic forces39was at one time characterizedbyAngel Rama as a continuing struggle persisting into modern times be-tween the colonialist-shaped "lettered city" and the democratizingforceswithin it.40Mariateguiaffirmed that, with a few notable exceptions, Peru-vian artisticand intellectual life was still tied to Spain by a "sickly um-bilical cord" (2:24)and had extended colonialist relationships into theearly twentieth century. He posited three stages in a nation's culturaldevelopment-the colonial, the cosmopolitan (allowing the influx of avarietyof internationaltrends), and the national-and he characterizedhis own era as the beginning of Peru'scosmopolitan period. Yet hebelieved thatManuel Gonzalez Prada,whose most importantwork had

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LatinAmericanResearch eviewpredated World War I by two decades, had been the first to initiatechange in recommending that Peruvianart break with Spain and theconservativeLimaspirit, explore Peru's ndigenous traditions, seek lin-guistic renewal through popular sources, and search for new forms inother literarytraditions.41Mariateguiand most of Peru'sself-designatedvanguardists therefore claimed Gonzalez Prada as a mentor for theirattackon the attemptto reinstatecolonialist cultural ideals representedby Lima's "futurist"generation.42An importantmember of this groupwas Jose de la RivaAguero, whose Caractere la literatura elPeru nde-pendiente1905)occasioned Mariategui'sessay on literatureas a directresponse. Accordingto Mariaitegui,RivaAgiueroand his contemporar-ies had helped to institutionalizePeruvian culture and literatureby es-tablishingthe InstitutoHistoricodel Peru, the RevistaHistorica, nd theAcademia Peruana de la Lengua, the Peruviancounterpartof Spain'sAcademia Real de la Lengua. According to Mariategui,this approachand much of the content of these efforts represented a restoration ofcolonialistthinking, particularlyRivaAgiiero'sthesis thatadvocated ad-hering to peninsular models, accepting the culturalhegemony of Eu-rope and North America,and abandoningthe concept of literaryAmer-*- 43icanism as mere exoticism.

The first task before Peru'sand Spanish America'savant-gardes,therefore,was to complete the "rupturewith the metropolis,"to divestthemselves of the colonialist aristocracy,and to refuse at all costs to"makeourselves fiefs to Spain again"(12:117).Eliminatingcultural de-pendence would also requireabandoningthe reactionaryarielistanotionof Spanish America's Latin roots (3:148).Mariaiteguimore than oncecompared the initial role of Peruvianvanguardismto that of early Ital-ian futurism, before its avant-gardeshad become domesticatedand hadsought to restore aestheticistgoals.The value of the avant-gardesfor creating a new peruanidad,however, went beyond the model they presented for ending culturaldependence. Mariaitegui hared his contemporaries'attraction to Os-wald Spengler'sNew World dealism and peppered his own assessmentof postwar Europeanculture with Spenglerian metaphors:a decadentcivilizationof "decrepitude"was facing its "twilight"and its "sunset."Yet Mariateguioften criticized his generation'sutopian Americanism.He insisted instead that there were no indications that whateveremerged from a declining Westernbourgeois culture would exclude Eu-

rope or spring forth spontaneously from New World soil. He believedthatJoseVasconcelos'sprophecyof an emergingLatinAmericancosmicrace was too utopian and that the concept of Spanish America was afashionablephantasm of intellectual and politicalrhetoricthat had yetto assume a coherent shape. In the case of Peru, the New Worldseemed at times even more weary than the Old, laboringunder a lassi-62


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tude that differed in kind from the self-reflexive skepticism of a declin-ing West: "la pobreza, la anemia, la limitacion, el provincialismo delambiente, . . . el cansancio de los que no han hecho nada" (11:17-18).Mariategui'shope was that such an enervated environment could drawenergy from the vitalist and liberationist metaphors of vanguardism,which encouraged artists to be "superiorto all limitations" (11:79).Mariategui suggested that, to some extent, the liberating powerof art could be tapped by deploying technical innovations of the avant-gardes, as demonstratedby the work of Sabogal, Girondo,and Vallejo.But Mariategui also insisted on the need for an original spirit. As artcritic RosalindKrauss has pointed out, within international vanguard-ism, "originality"was a fiction of a special kind, "conceived as a literalorigin, a beginning from ground zero, a birth."In this process, "origi-nality becomes an organicist metaphor referringnot so much to inven-tion as to sources of life."44Interestingly, Mariaitegui ecognized thefictive quality of vanguardism's metaphors of origin, as when he re-ferred to futurism's "verbal llusion of inauguratingall things" (11:118).He insisted thatrevolutionaries n both politics and art must realize thathistory did not begin with them. At the same time, Mariateguivolun-tarily subscribed to the illusion of inauguration, which he seemed tobelieve had a salutarycreativepower. His own characterizationsof hisera, the new art, and the new peruanidadwere cast in originist terms:his was the age of the "dawning spirit";his generationwas witnessing"'theworld in gestation" and the "germinationof the New World"andbringing about the "dawn" of Peruvian literature.By casting off theskepticism of the Old World and eliminatingall the "refuse" of bour-geois literature,artists could create works in which "art and the worldrecover their innocence" (12:107).In Peru, the originating space that could help create a new pe-ruanidad was to be found in part by recoveringthe culturalorigins thathad been obscured by the colonialist experience. But while Mariateguiwas unequivocally committed to creatinga more equitable material ifeand a more just environment for Peru'sIndian population, his supportof aesthetic indigenismowas circumspect.As has been shown here, inthe aesthetic domain, he favored the intuitive, the unconscious, andthe metaphysical over the scientific and the rational. This preferencedrew him toward the avant-gardes'antirationalistdimension, a featureof European vanguardism sometimes manifested in the cultivation ofprimitivistart forms. But Mariateguisuggested that this primitivist m-pulse was often merelya form of exoticism,an extension of the roman-tic tradition, and one more manifestation of cultural decadence. Suchexoticist views of Latin America had led to ridiculous demands thatPeru's Parisian-based surrealist poet Cesar Moro produce work withindigenous themes. While distinguishing indigenist art from indige-

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LatinAmericanResearch eviewnous art (which would be produced only when Indians themselves cre-ated it), Mariategui proposed that Peru'snew artists could acquireanoriginalcreativespirit from mestizo and indigenous cultures.In keeping with his rejectionof conventional realism, Mariateguicautioned that this approachdid not mean merely using the Indian as apicturesque type, motif, or character.Instead, a creative myth for thenew peruanidad,an originating"mood"could be gleaned by intuitivelyapprehending indigenous life and thought (2:328)."Siel indio ocupa elprimer plano en la literaturay el arte peruanos," he wrote, "no sera'seguramente por su interes literario o plastico, sino porque las fuerzasnuevas y el impulso vital de la nacion tienden a reivindicarlo. El feno-meno es mas instintivoy biologico que intelectualy teorico" (2:333).Byapprehendingthe "intimate ndigenous truth,"artistswould communi-cate the poetic and the metaphysical (not the historical)truths of thatworld, as well as its more universal "cosmic sentiment"(11:63-64).Butthe purpose of artisticindigenismo, Mariateguicautioned, was not forartists to bury themselves in tradition to extract lost emotions fromsome "obscure substratum"(2:310),and he parted company with indi-genist writers like Luis Valcaircelwho suggested a total rejection ofWesternthought and a return to indigenous life. Rather,the "nativeenergy" of indigenous cultures could help artists elaborate the greatmyths of a new peruanidad (as Riverahad done with postrevolutionaryMexican art)and thus create an artmore organicallyjoined to the reali-ties of life in Peru."El literato peruano," Mariategui wrote, "no ha sabido nuncasentirse vinculado al pueblo. No ha podido ni ha deseado traducir elpenoso trabajode formacionde un Peru integral, de un Peru nuevo"(2:242). Connections between Peruvian art and Peruvian experiencewere to be createdby Peru's"new men" not only throughthe pursuitofmyths linking artistic originalityto origins but also through forms di-vested of literaryartificiality. n keeping with the preference for "natu-ral"language over verbal artificeand the belief that the art of his erashould express a "multitudinous"experience, Mariateguiproposed thatSpanish America and Peru'sliterary vanguardistscould bridge the di-vide that had traditionallyseparatedthem fromeveryday experience byemploying vernacular anguage. All classicalnationalliteratures,he af-firmed, had originated with the language of the street. The Peruvianwriters who had contributedmost to the creation of a national literaturewere those who, irrespective of the quality of their art, had kept intouch with its popular linguistic sources: Abelardo Gamarra (el Tu-nante) through his use of street language, Ricardo Palmathrough hispopular tone, and MarianoMelgarfor his "plebeianturns of phrase"and his "streetlikesyntax."Thus popular language both originatedna-tional literaturesand provided the perpetual source of literaryinnova-64


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MARIATEGUITSAESTHETIC THOUGHTtion. Consequently, Gonzalez Pradashould be regarded as the initiatorof Peruvian modernity both because he had sought formal innovationsin a range of international currentsand because he had supported lin-guistic renewal through popular sources. The innovative potential ofpopular language had been exploited by even the most cosmopolitanofSpanish America'svanguardistpoets, among them Borges, one of thosemost "saturated by Occidentalism and modernity" who frequentlyadopted the "prosody of the people" (2:244). But because Mariaiteguipreferredart that maintained an aura of authenticity,he believed thatpopular language was most effective when it emerged from an organicconnection with its sources. Thus Vallejo'suse of the "vernacular urn"was considered the most authenticbecause it was neither deliberatenorstudied: "su poesia y su lenguaje emanan de su carne y su anima"(2:310).Through more direct contactwith indigenous and popularlan-guages and cultures, contemporaryartists could draw closer to the so-cial realitiesof Peru and createa "morefertile"human art.CONCLUSION

Mariategui'sassiduous analyses of the avant-gardeswere ger-mane to the development of his ideas about artand to his interrogationof art'sstatusas a cultural nstitution. These investigationsof vanguard-ism shaped his approach to several problems: first, the relationship ofartisticrepresentationto human experienceand this connection'simpli-cations for the aura and organicityof art; second, the relationshipbe-tween artisticor intellectual activityand the language, culture, and ex-perience of ordinary people; and third, the potential of the new art'smodes and spirit for revitalizingPeruvianand Latin American cultureand forging a new sense of peruanidadin building a new Peru.

What is most interesting about Mariaitegui's rtistic criticism ishis resistance to the facile or doctrinaire response to the global ques-tions that he posed. Although an intensely political person concernedwith the material sources of social problems, he was also a great loverof art, fascinated by the hedonistic and liberating potential of humancreativeenergy, its capacity to express and alleviate "the sorrow of theworld,"and its possible impact on social life. In the spirit of the avant-gardes, Mariaitegui's riticalproject placed art itself on trial but insistedon maintaining for art, artists, and intellectuals a privileged, but lessself-isolating, space. Although Mariaitegui alued the satirical and theparodic, he preferred works of art that, notwithstanding technical ex-periment, maintained an illusion of organicity,an aura of presence, andan autonomy of domain. He suggested that the best art, like the workof Chaplin, was simultaneously aristocraticin its vanguardism anddemocratic n its human spirit. Art'srelationshipto social reality ought

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LatinAmericanResearch eviewto be one of engaged autonomy: "Autonomia del arte, si, pero, noclausuradel arte"(6:47-48).Butif artists and intellectualsin the revolu-tionary era of the 1920swere to abandontheir aestheticist towers to facethe demands of the times, specificallythe ideological projectof creatinga new Peru, their attitudeshould nevertheless remain critical. Art, Ma-riaiteguiaffirmed, was "substantiallyand eternally heterodox" (6:64),and the role of the most engaged artists or intellectuals in any socialcause would always be to provoke debate and critique.Writing from the perspective of the third decade, Mariaiteguiviewed the twentieth century as one of cataclysmicchange, shaken by"strongcurrents of the irrationaland the unconscious"(7:39).Ironically,his premature death spared him many events that would have contin-ued to test his ideas and ideals. It is difficult for the contemporaryreadernot to speculate about how Mariateguimight have responded tothe problems of literatureand engagement in Latin Americaposed bysubsequent developments in both history and art. His views mighthave undergone change, as did those of other politically committedintellectuals of his time. But the legacy of Mariategui'swriting suggeststhat, in keeping with his own idea of Peru's"new men," he would havecontinued to eschew easy answers to hard questions, remaining stead-fastly passionate in his reasonings and critical n his faith.NOTES1. The last three issues of Amauta numbers 30-32) appeared after Mariategui'sdeath,under the editorshipof RicardoMartinezde la Torre.2. Significantextensive studies of Mariategui'siterarywork and views includeEugenioChang-Rodrfguez,Poetica ideologia n JoseCarlosMaridtegui Madrid:Jose PorruaTuranzas,1983);and the collection of criticalessays entitledMariategui la literatura(Lima:BibliotecaAmauta, 1980),edited by the Centro de Documentaci6ny Estudios"JoseCarlos Mariategui"under the direction of RicardoLunaVegas.Seminal work

has been done by Antonio Melis, whose "Medio siglo de vida de Jose CarlosMariategui"appears in Mariategui la literatura 125-35); other important piecesinclude his excellent introductory essay to the anthology of Mariategui's iterarywritings, Critica iteraria:oseCarlosMaridteguiBuenos Aires: Editorial orgeAlvarez,1969), 7-45; his introduction to Mariategui'sCorrespondencia1915-1930)(Lima:Bi-bliotecaAmauta, 1984);and "Estetica, ritica iterariay politicaculturalen la obra deJose Carlos Mariategui:apuntes," Textual,no. 7 (June 1973):66-69.Other studiesdealing with selected elements of Mariategui's iterary thought include EugenioChang-Rodriguez,"Poeticay marxismo en Mariategui,"Hispamerica2, nos. 34-35(Apr.-Aug. 1983):51-67;G. M. Aguirre Cardenas, "Laestetica de Jose Carlos Maria-tegui," TEQSEFundamento:evista e Filosofia, sicologia Arte(1970):53-65;PeterG.Earle, "Ortegay Gasset y Mariategui rente al arte nuevo," in Homenaje LuisLeal:estudios obre iteratura ispanoamericana,dited by Donald W. Bleznick and Juan0.Valencia Madrid: nsula, 1978), 115-27; ElizabethGarrels,"Mariategui, a edad depiedra y el nacionalismo iterario,"Escritura , no. 1 (1976):115-28;Diego MeseguerIllan,"JoseCarlosMariategui el realismo iterariomarxista,"Textual, os. 5-6 (Dec.1972):9-12;YerkoMoretic, JoseCarlosMaridtegui:u vida e ideario, u concepci6n elrealismoSantiago,Chile: Ediciones de la UniversidadTecnicadel Estado, 1970);andAntonio Pages Larraya,"Mariategui el realismomagico,"Cuadernos ispanoamerica-nos, no. 325 (July 1977):149-54.

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3. See, for example, Luis Mongui6'sLapoesiapostmodernistaeruana Berkeley:Univer-sity of CaliforniaPress, 1954):"la influencia que, sin llegara esos extremos de exitoen el proselitismo, ejercieronMariateguiy Amauta n el vanguardismoperuano fuetal que esta etapa de la literaturaperuana bien pudiera llamarseel 'ciclo'o el 'clima'de Amauta"pp. 84-85).4. For examinations of Mariategui'sunorthodox approach to politicalideology, see Je-sus Chavarria, ose CarlosMaridteguind the Riseof ModernPeru(1890-1930)(Albu-querque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979); and HarryE. Vanden, NationalMarxism n LatinAmerica: oseCarlosMariategui's hought ndPolitics Boulder,Colo.:Lynne Rienner,1986).Forcommentaryon Mariategui'sackof orthodoxy n the arts,see Antonio Melis's and Eugenio Chang-Rodriguez'swork and Gerardo MarioGoloboff, "Mariategui el problemaestetico literario,"n LunaVegas,Maridtegui laliteratura, 09-23.5. PeterBurger,Theory f theAvant-Garde,ranslatedby MichaelShaw, vol. 4 of TheoryandHistory f LiteratureMinneapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1984), 56.6. The group and its aesthetic position were often identified eitherwith the name ofthe magazine (MartinFierro n Buenos Aires, Contempordneosn Mexico, Amauta nLima, Revista e Avancen Havana, Klaxon r Revista e Antropofagian Brazil),or witha specific ismo (agorismoand estridentismon Mexico, ultrafsmo n Argentina,euforismo,diepalismo,and atalayismo n Puerto Rico, verdeamarelismon Brazil,runrunismon Chile, and postumismon the Dominican Republic).In a few cases, theismowas the aesthetic projectof one individual, as with Huidobro'screacionismondPeruvianAlberto Hidalgo'ssimplismo.7. Comprehensivecharacterizations f LatinAmerica'savant-gardes nclude MerlinH.Forster, "LatinAmerican Vanguardismo:hronology and Terminology,"n TraditionandRenewalUrbana:Universityof Illinois Press, 1975), 12-50;Noe Jitrik,"Papelesdetrabajo:notas sobre la vanguardia latinoamericana,"Revista de CriticaLiterariaLatinoamericana, no. 15 (first semester 1982):13-24;KlausMuller-Bergh,"Elhombrey la tecnica:contribuci6nal conocimientode corrientesvanguardistashispanoameri-canas,"Revista beroamericana8, nos. 118-19 (Jan.-June 1982):149-76; ulio Ortega,"Laescriturade vanguardia,"Revista beroamericana5, nos. 106-7 (Jan.-June1979):187-98;Nelson Osorio, "Parauna caracterizaci6n ist6rica del vanguardismo itera-rio," Revista beroamericana8, nos. 118-19 (Jan.-June1982):227-54;Hugo Verani,Lasvanguardiasiterarias n HispanoamericaRome:BulzoniEditores, 1986), especiallytheintroductory tudy; and SauilYurkievich,"Losavataresde vanguardia,"Revistabero-americana8, nos. 118-19(Jan.-June1982):351-66, nd selectedessays in his A travesde la trama:obrevanguardiasiterarias otrasconcomitanciasBarcelona:Muchnik Edi-tores, 1984).8. Jose CarlosMariategui,Correspondencia1915-1930),edited by Antonio Melis,2 vols.(Lima:BibliotecaAmauta, 1984), 2:331. The translation was taken from Vanden'sNationalMarxism n LatinAmerica, 13.9. The primarysource on Mariategui'sEuropean experience is his own collectionofcr6nicas nd articlespublished in Lima'sEl Tiemporom 1920 to 1922, which havebeen reprintedas Cartas eItalia,volume 15 of the twenty-volumeObras ompletaseJose CarlosMariategui Lima:BibliotecaAmauta, first editions published between1957and 1970).Themost comprehensivestudies of his Europeanexperience ncludeEstuardoNuinez'sLaexperienciauropea e JoseCarlosMarittegui otrosensayos Lima:EmpresaEditoraAmauta, 1978)and BrunoPodesta'sMariateguin Italia(Lima:Bi-bliotecaAmauta, 1981).10. Obrascompletas e JoseCarlosMariategui, 0 vols., vol. 6 (9th ed.), 81. Subsequent

citationsfromMariategui'sworkwill be documenteddirectly n the textaccording ovolume and page numbers of the following editions of individual volumes of theObras ompletas:ol. 1, La escena ontempordnea12th ed.), 1983;vol. 2, 7 ensayosdeintepretaci6ne la realidaderuana22nd popular ed.), 1982;vol. 3, Elalmamatinal8thed.), 1983;vol. 6, El artistay la epoca 9th ed.), 1983;vol. 7, Signosy obras 6th ed.),1980; vol. 11, Peruanicemosl Peru (7th ed.), 1981;vol. 12, Temas e nuestraAmerica(7th ed.), 1980;and vol. 15, Cartasde Italia(5th ed.), 1980. Unless otherwise indi-cated, all Englishtranslationsare my own.

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LatinAmericanResearch eview11. In addition to Amauta,other Peruvianvanguardistmagazines include the eight is-sues of PoliedroAug.-Dec. 1926),edited by ArmandoBazan;the four-issue seriesTrampolin-Hangar-rascacielos-TimonelOct. 1926-Mar.1927), edited by Magda Portaland SerafinDelmar;the two issues of Guerrilla1926),edited by BlancaLuz BrumParradel Riego;the single issue of Hurra 1927),editedby CarlosOquendode Amat;the thirty-five ssues of the BoletinTitikaka1926-1930),edited in Puno by brothersAlejandroPeraltaand GamalielChurata;and the seven issues of ChirapuJan.-July1928),edited in Arequipaby AnteroPeraltaVasquez.12. For more detailed accounts of the literaryactivities, little magazines, and culturalpolitics of Peru'savant-gardeperiod, see WilfredoKapsoli, "Prospectodel grupo'Los Zurdos' de Arequipa,"Revistade CriticaLiteraria atinoamericana0, no. 20 (sec-ond semester1984):101-11;MirkoLauer,"Lapoesia vanguardista n el Peru,"Revistade CriticaLiteraria atinoamericana, no. 15 (first semester 1982):77-88; hap. 3 ofMongui6, El vanguardismon la poesiaperuana,60-86; chap. 2 of my dissertation,"TheAvant-Garde n Peru:LiteraryAesthetics and CulturalNationalism,"Univer-sityof Texas,1984;and DavidWise,"Vanguardismo 3800 metros:el caso del BoletfnTitikakaPuno, 1926-1920),"Revista e CriticaLiteraria atinoamericana0, no. 20 (sec-ond semester 1984):89-100.13. Peruvian writers who received Mariategui'ssupport were numerous: Jose MariaEguren, whom he regardedas a linkbetween modernismond vanguardism;Alejan-dro Peralta(Ande,1926);CarlosOquendo de Amat (Cincometrosde poemas,1927);surrealistsCesarMoro, XavierAbril, and EmilioWestphalen;MartinAdan (Lacasadecart6n,1928);and Cesar Vallejo.Foraccounts of Mariategui's r Amauta'supportof vanguardistactivities n Peru,see MirlaAlcibiades, "Mariategui,Amauta la van-guardialiteraria,"Revistade CriticaLiteraria atinoamericana, no. 15 (firstsemester,1982):123-39; s well as EstuardoNnfiez, "JoseCarlosMariateguiy la recepci6ndelsurrealismoen el Peru,"Revistade CriticaLiteraria atinoamericana, no. 5 (first se-mester 1977):57-66; nd the chapter "Amauta nd the Art of the 1920s" n DavidWise, "Amauta1926-1930):A CriticalExamination,"Ph.D. diss., University of Illi-nois, 1978.14. These writers ncludedSpain'sRam6nG6mez de la Sernaand Guillermode la Torre,Argentina'sOliverioGirondoand RicardoGuiraldes,Mexico'sManuelMaplesArceand the estridentistas,nd Mexico's Jaime TorresBodet and the Contemporaneosassociated with the review Contempordneo.15. Other"complete"vanguardists or Mariategui ncludedPhillippeSouppault, AndreBreton,BlaiseCendrars,and EmilioPetto Rutti.16. "Presentaci6nde 'Amauta,"'Amautano. 1 (Sept. 1926):1.17. Obras ompletas e VicenteHuidobro, vols., edited by BraulioArenas (Santiago:Zig-Zag, 1964), 1:653-54.18. Notesfroma DadaDiary,translatedby Eugene Jolas in TheDadaPainters nd Poets,edited by RobertMotherwell New York:Wittenborn,Schulz, 1951), 222.19. En AvantDada:A History f DadaismHanover,1920), translatedby RalphManheim,in DadaPainters ndPoets,36.20. "Note on Poetry," ranslatedby MaryAnn Caws in TristanTzara:Approximate anandOtherWritingsDetroit,Mich.:WayneStateUniversityPress, 1973), 169.21. Manifesto f Surrealism,ranslatedby RichardSeavarand Helen R. Lane, in Manifes-toesof SurrealismAnn Arbor:Universityof MichiganPress, 1969), 30.22. "The Workof Art in the Age of MechanicalReproduction," ranslated by HarryZohn, in Illuminations,dited by HannahArendt (New York:ShockenBooks, 1969),223-24.23. Foran analysisof the avant-gardes'attack on the notion of the organicwork of art,see the chapter "TheAvant-GardisteWorkof Art,"in Burger, Theory f the Avant-Garde, 5-82.24. "Manifesto of mr. aa. the anti-philosopher," rom the Seven DadaManifestoes,nMotherwell,DadaPainters ndPoets,84.25. See RobertoGonzalez Echevarria,TheVoiceof the Masters:Writing ndAuthoritynModernLatinAmerican iteratureAustin:University of TexasPress, 1985),34.

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MARIATEGUIIS AESTHETIC THOUGHT26. TristanTzara, "Note on Poetry," ranslatedby Mary Ann Caws, TristanTzara:Ap-proximateMan, 169.27. GuillaumeApollinaire,ThePoetAssassinated,ranslatedby RogerShattuck, n SelectedWritings f Guillaume pollinaireNew York:New Directions, 1971), 259.28. Andreas Huyssens, After the GreatDivide:Modernism,Mass Culture,Postmodernism(Bloomington: ndiana University Press, 1986), vii-viii.29. Fillippo Tommaso Marinetti, with Emilio Settimelli and Bruno Corra, The FuturistSyntheticTheatre,n Marinetti: electedWritings, ranslatedby R. W.Flintand ArthurA. Cappotelli, edited by R. W. Flint (New York:Farrar, trauss, and Giroux, 1972),128.30. Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes,Historyof Dada, translated by Ralph Manheim, inDadaPainters ndPoets,109.31. Seeds ndBran, ranslatedby MaryAnn Caws, in Tristan zara:Approximate an, 215.32. Andre Breton, "WhatIs Surrealism," ranslatedby David Gascoyne, in What s Sur-realism:Works f AndreBreton nd OtherDocuments f Surrealism,dited by FranklinRosemont (New York:PathfinderPress, 1978), 116.33. Breton, "The SurrealistSituation of the Object," n Seavarand Lane, ManifestoesfSurrealism,62.34. Marinetti,BeyondCommunism,ranslatedby Flint, in Marinetti: electedWritings, 55.35. Marinetti, TechnicalManifesto f FuturistLiterature,ranslatedby Flint, in Marinetti:SelectedWritings, 7.36. Hans Arp, "Dadaland,"n DadasonArt, edited by Lucy Lippard Englewood Cliffs,N.J.: Prentice-Hall,1971),27.37. Rene Crevel, "Resumed'une conference," rom Le Surrealismeu servicede la revolu-tion, translationby Ana Balakian, n Surrealism: heRoad o theAbsolute New York:E. P.Dutton, 1957), 139.38. See, for example, GerardoGoloboff, "Mariategui el problemaestetico literario,"nLunaVegas, Maridtegui la literatura, 10.39. MikhailBakhtin,"Discourse n the Novel," translatedby MichaelHolquistand CarylEmerson,in TheDialogic magination,dited by MichaelHolquist(Austin:Universityof TexasPress, 1981), 272-73.40. Angel Rama,Laciuidadetrada Hanover, N.H.: Ediciones del Norte, 1984), particu-larly 23-39.41. For Gonzalez Prada's deas on language and literature, see "Discurso en el TeatroOlimpo,""Conferencia n el Ateneo de Lima,"and "Notasacercadel idioma,"all inPdginasLibres Horasde Lucha, dited by Luis AlbertoSanchez (Caracas:BibliotecaAyacucho, 1976).42. Issue 16 of Amauta July 1928), dedicated to Gonzalez Prada, included essays on his

poetic work and his ideas.43. See Josede la RivaAgiuero,Cardcterela literatura elPera ndependienteLima, 1905),Volume 1 of the Obras ompletas e Josede la RivaAgiiero Lima:PublicacionesdelInstituto RivaAguaero, 956).44. See RosalindKrauss,"TheOriginalityof the Avant-Garde,"n TheOriginality f theAvant-GardendOtherModernistMyths(Cambridge,Mass.:MITPress, 1985),157.

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