Painting Modernism by Ivan A. Schulman (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Painting Modernism by Ivan A. Schulman Marián Ortuño Schulman, Ivan A. Painting Modernism. Albany: SUNY P, 2014. Pp. 114. ISBN 978-1-4384-4951-7. Painting Modernism, foundational scholar Ivan A. Schulman’s latest volume on Latin American literature of the late nineteenth century, focuses on a dimension of study heretofore neglected by traditional criticism: the interart dialogue between the verbal and plastic arts, a ubiquitous feature in so many works of the period. The author contends that modernist literary texts, rife with imagistic language that stretches conventional boundaries of expression, can no longer be examined apart from other artistic discourses. Moreover, writers of the modernist period, acutely aware of the connections between the sister arts of painting and literature, repeatedly refer to themselves as painters of the written word. In another departure from established critical discourse, the author argues that modernist texts have a distinctive sociopolitical slant, part of an emancipatory message for Latin America, and are not simply the self-referential enunciations of elitist, escapist aesthetes. The author suggests, rather, that the personal angst expressed by the modernists be viewed within a historical context as counterhegemonic, often paradoxical responses to radical social change brought about by incipient capitalism, the loss of the colonial patronage system, and the consequent commodification of the writer. The modernist writer, then, sought a new literary voice and spiritual meaning by internalizing and “retextualizing” appropriations from the past with techniques borrowed from paintings of European impressionists, expressionists, and Japanese colorists. The author challenges critical consensus once again with another key premise—that modernism is not just a “style” with proscribed limits 1888–1916, but rather a broad revolutionary and evolutionary cultural manifestation characterized by a multiplicity of syncretistic styles reaching as far back as 1875, and projecting forward to leave its mark on the post-postmodern era. The volume consists of six chapters that explore the iconic verbalizations best expressed in poetry and prose from Martí to Huidobro, and the connection these works have to Western European and Asian painters. In the first two chapters, observant and persuasive analyses evince visuality in description that stimulates the reader’s graphic imagination, providing compelling evidence of authorial intent to conjoin the arts. The classical trope of ekphrasis, along with Horace’s ut pictora poesis, forms the theoretical foundations of the study. Chapter 3 gives readers an [End Page 364] appreciation of how ekphrasis functions, and through a remarkably detailed and focused reading of a prototypical modernist poem, Pollice verso (Thumbs Down—after French artist Jean-Léon Gérome’s painting of a triumphant gladiator in the Roman arena), we see the multiple dimensions of Martí, artist, art critic, and revolutionary hero, and how a painting is turned into a poem. By reinscribing the past with the present through ekphrasis, Martí issues a call to arms to those who are reluctant to fight for Cuba’s freedom. Chapter 4 urges a “revisioning” of modernism’s Orientalism, while chapter 5 showcases modernist writers as art critics. In chapter 6 the author shows how modernism’s experimental nature and ongoing search for new forms find expression in Huidobro’s calligrams, where verbal art takes actual visual form to produce recognizable objects—line drawings, painting, sculpture. Based on comprehensive research, with points tightly argued and supported with ample citation of primary sources along with enlightening end notes, the volume enables readers to see modernist texts in a new way by reappraising traditional criticism on a variety of issues. The author ably demonstrates how understanding the role of the plastic arts in creating a new optical lexicon for modernism is essential in grasping the movement’s significance within a historical continuum. The author’s acquaintance with works of art spanning centuries, transatlantic and East-West, is impressive, and the English translation of all text in Spanish enables the book to reach out to a broad audience of scholars in several fields. The greatest limitation of this volume, however, is the total absence of reproductions of artwork to illustrate style, technique, or to complement any of the actual pieces referred to in the text. This holds true particularly in the case of Gérome’s Pollice verso...