José Carlos Mariátegui on Art, Revolution, and Decay

Art, Revolution, and Decay by José Carlos Mariátegui

José Carlos Mariátegui's seminal work addresses the intersection of artistic expression, social crisis, and revolutionary spirit.

What is the Central Issue in This Text?

In this essay, the author expresses the need to end the mistaken idea that misleads some young artists. Mariátegui states that we need to establish that not all new art is revolutionary, nor is it truly new. We cannot accept as new art something that brings us nothing but a new technique; that would be merely recreating art in one of many current mirrors. No aesthetic can reduce the artwork to a technical issue. The new technique should correspond to a new spirit as well. If not, the only thing that changes is the facade, the scenery.

Two Coexisting Souls in Contemporary Art

According to Mariátegui, the two souls coexisting in the contemporary art world are decadence and revolution. Only the presence of the latter gives a poem or a painting new artistic value.

Distinguishing Revolutionary Art from Decay

The artist is the agonal arena of a struggle between these two spirits. The understanding of this struggle often goes beyond the artist himself, but finally, one of the two spirits prevails while the other becomes trapped in the sand.

The decay of capitalist civilization is reflected in the fragmentation and breakup of its art. Art, in this crisis, has lost all its essential unity. Each of its principles and elements has claimed its independence. Secession is the most characteristic term. Schools are multiplied to infinity because only centrifugal forces operate.

Mariátegui's View on the Avant-Garde

This suggests that in this crisis, the artistic elements of the future are being developed. Cubism, Dadaism, Expressionism, and other avant-garde movements, while reflecting a crisis, also announced a reconstruction. Each movement in isolation does not bring a complete formula, but all concur by providing an element, a value, and a principle to its development.

Critique of Ortega y Gasset's Perspective

Ortega y Gasset is responsible, in the Hispanic world, for a part of this misunderstanding of the new art. His eyes did not distinguish schools or trends; he made no distinction, at least in modern art, between the elements of revolution and the elements of decay. The author of The Dehumanization of Art did not give us a definition of new art, but took as features of a revolution those which typically correspond to decline. This led him to assert, among other things, that "the new inspiration is always, unfailingly, cosmic." His symptomatic depiction is generally fair, but the diagnosis is incomplete and wrong.

Mariátegui's Intention Behind the 1926 Essay

This was intended to guide new artists, who according to his criteria were following a wrong idea of contemporary art. He argued that it was necessary to establish certain rectifying definitions, showing that not all new art is revolutionary, nor is it truly new. He wanted to make it clear to artists that only the presence of the revolution gives a poem or a painting its value as new art.