Latin American Avant-Garde: A Break with Tradition
Latin American Avant-Garde
A Break with Tradition
The avant-garde in Latin America represented a break from the harmonious and formal rhetoric of the movement initiated by Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío. These vanguards expressed a need to represent national cultures by returning to their own traditions.
Europe and Latin America: Identity and Difference
Various “isms” originated in different countries: Futurism in Italy, Dadaism in Switzerland, Expressionism in Germany, Surrealism in France, and Imagism in the US.
The Avant-Garde in South America
Art was forged through experimentation in poetry, and its principles were disseminated through manifestos, programs, and magazines.
Argentina
Both Ultraism and Martinfierrismo emphasized striking and original imagery and metaphors in poetry.
Chile
Its main tenet was poetry independent of reality.
Brazil
Brazil’s avant-garde highlighted the capacity to adapt foreign influences to its own cultural needs.
Peru
Peruvian avant-garde poetry was often abstract and hermetic, with language and meaning disintegrating and renewing.
Cuba: Black Poetry
Cuban avant-garde was characterized by two types of poetry: pure lyricism and Afro-Cuban poetry. Black poetry harnessed elements of black folklore, songs, rhythms, and the roots of Cuban identity.
Stridentism: From Universal to National
Stridentism was linked to Italian Futurism in its focus on the present and future, fascination with movement and machines, and exaltation of the urban landscape. Initially a reaction against the prevailing traditional canon, it gradually became a political program.
Stridentism: Ideological Literature
Stridentism disdained sentimental poetry and, aligned with Mexican political events, demanded ideological content in poetry.
Features of the Avant-Garde
- Break with Academic Requirements and Standards: The avant-garde sought to create a new art, free from constraining creative standards.
- Value of the Irrational: Several movements devalued conscious thought as ideal for creation, favoring semi-conscious states close to sleep.
- Ugliness: Avant-garde art aimed to provoke reactions in the recipient, even through unpleasantness.
- Non-Figurative Art: Avant-garde artists rejected imitative art, finding immense value in words to create self-sufficient worlds.
- Literary Journals: Literary journals were essential for expressing artistic ideals and worldviews.
- Combination of Arts: The avant-garde sought to combine literature, painting, music, etc. This led to concrete poetry or ideograms, where the arrangement of words created visual shapes.