Sculptor Manolo Pascual
slowly worked his way through the main square in Santo Domingo’s
downtown district, the place where most of the city’s cultural events
take place. This figure – an aging man, small and fragile, grasping a
walking cane – contrasted with the powerful and lively sculptures we
had just seen viewed in the spacious rooms at the Museum of Modern
Art. The energy and vibrancy imbued in each of these pieces led us
into contemplation and reflection. Moreover, we were intrigued.
What lies behind this impression of the man
capable of creating forms and images of such impact? He was surrounded
by his friends, admirers, and former students, who were ambushing him
with questions that he knowingly answered, each with a short phrase.
His answers were short but full of meaning. Or he would decline to
answer with a gesture of indifference that would only increase our
curiosity. He had just now returned to the Dominican Republic for a
1982 retrospective exhibition organized by museum director Rosa
Melendez de Pena Gomez.
We had not always remembered this image of the
artist. Moreover, Santo Domingo was not the same city that had
welcomed him 45 years before. It was then called Ciudad Trujillo,
named after the ruling dictator. It was a city he would always
remember with a mixture of delight and uneasiness. When Manolo
Pascual stepped upon Dominican soil for the first time in 1939, Ciudad
Trujillo was a slow-moving town, just a handful of houses and
buildings, that one could explore on foot in a couple of hours. In
those days, one could easily view the eight hills of the town. Upon
one of these Pascual had his study.
Few artists of those days possessed the creative
qualities and experience of Pascual, the Spanish sculptor, who in 1942
co-founded and became the first director of the National School of
Fine Arts in Santo Domingo. Thus, he became the founding figure for
an important generation of Dominican artists. If we were to list the
qualities they learned from him, one would have a long, unruly list.
And yet, one must mention some of them--such as courage.
Manolo Pascual had participated passionately in
the Spanish Civil War. When the Republicans lost, he left
Barcelona. He was to reach the French border by wearing a woman’s
disguise, driving over a dangerous precipice. Daringly, without a
cent in his pockets, he emigrated to American shores, along with
other well-known European artists and intellectuals.
It is in the Dominican Republic, from 1939 to
1951, where his art fully develops and matures. Such work is
another proof of his courage and daring. Working under dictatorial
rule, he created forms unknown to the cultural milieu of the
times; he restored ancient symbols of Taino culture, interpreted our
racial characteristics, and utilized previously unknown materials in
order to integrate indigenous elements into his works.
But Manolo Pascual’s greatest accomplishment
lies in his adventurous use of forms, where he successfully
captures – with an enlightened anatomical conscience – the elusive
concept of non-space, or sculptural anti-matter. One can thus
imagine the barely noticeable muscles and bones by the lines of a
femur, or by a figure’s thorax. Pascual sculpts the air itself
and participates, through lineal games, in the ancient dialectic
between being and not being.
Even in the most recurrent and clichéd
themes, Pascual discovers elements of surprise—new ways to
establish and to remold an old story. When he thrusts his
personal and unique character upon a sculpture, the artist
confronts us with new perceptions of reality itself.
The following texts by critics reveal to us
the seemingly infinite profiles of the reality that this sculptor
will create. Here we will add another layer to that image shaped
by the hands and the vision of the artist—interpretations written
in newspapers and magazines by well-known critics of Madrid before
Manolo left Europe.
For instance, José Prados Lopez wrote, even
before Manolo Pascual stepped on Dominican soil:
In sculpture, Manolo
Pascual is a primitive. He is a primitive who purifies his vision –
not a lone or innocent vision – through the intimate interpretations
he makes visible. His soul feels joy in choosing controversial
motifs and themes in order to imbue the discussion – violent or
otherwise – with a sense of his own haughtiness. A primitive of
admirable patience, he has renewed his uniform and disciplined
beginnings to adapt them, with the love of a hermit, to his sifted
and vigilant hour.
And later, again in Madrid, we find this
writing by Manuel Abril:
Manolo Pascual, his
travels over, exhibits for the very first time in Madrid. The works
here are extremely different; all have sensibility and a delicate
grace, one that expresses itself through their movement, or through
the always adequate effects that the sculptor knows how to imbue into
his materials.
Emiliano M. Aguilera
Manolo Pascual is a
present-day sculptor in every sense of the word. But some
clarification is needed. He is one of the most cautious among the
sculptors one finds today. He does not want to go so far that he will
become a set personality, and he will not take any steps to become
extravagant. The human figure is for him the essence, the very center
of art interpretation. He attends to its movement and to its
gracefulness, a value he captures. Generally, Pascual is preoccupied
with embracing the definitions of gracefulness, and he rarely fails.
In his works, one finds that limbs are separated from the trunk. Even
if they are interrelated, or they rub against each other, the open
space is delineated. And what is most important to say about this
artist is his concern with movement.
On the other hand, Manuel Valdeperez thought
Pascual’s figures were imposing, and they reminded him of the
Spanish sculptor Pablo Gargallo: “The ‘Dancer’ sculpture by
Pascual, exhibited at the National Gallery of Fine Arts, has evoked
the memory of Gargallo, a great artist; he was Pascual’s good
friend.” Valdeperez, writing about the similarity between the two
artists, concludes: Pablo Gargallo died unexpectedly in Reus,
France, at the peak of his career, and we did not see him again. He
did not return to Paris, where, among other friends waiting for him,
was Manolo Pascual. The ‘Dancer’ was intended to pay homage to the
master who died without fully perceiving the triumph of his work .
On the subject of the “Dancer,” the following
words appear in the Dominican newspaper La Nacion:
Of all the sculptures
that appear in the exhibit, this piece has produced the greatest
curiosity. It accentuates the extraordinary interest in his work that
up to now has been represented by his woodcarvings, such as the
“Indian Head,” which exemplifies the artist’s originality and
expressiveness. Pascual loves all kinds of materials and always finds
in them the way to transform their inertia into the very breath of
life. Thus, he creates a work of art. In addition to iron and wood,
to his delicate terra cottas, and to marble--which he works with great
skill--Pascual has always excelled in creating delightful tin
sculptures. In the “Dancer,” shown here, we can see the wonderful
impulse given to all the arts by what is called the ‘School of
Paris.’ He lived, worked and studied intensely in such an
environment, and the modernity of his works places him among the
world-famous group of sculptors shaped by such a potent force.[iv]
The nature of the quote above exemplifies the
vitality and effervescence brewing in the Santo Domingo of those
days. Art exhibits produced great expectations. The newspaper El
Listin Diario of May 27, 1940, points out the prevailing cultural
restlessness, and had something to say about a collective exhibit in
which Manolo Pascual and other Dominican and Spanish artists
participated:
Lately, and thanks to
the third annual show of the Ateneo Dominicano, the public has had the
opportunity to see a veritable kaleidoscope of individual exhibits of
paintings and drawings. The exhibit at the Ateneo, will make it
possible for the general public to see, for the very first time, such
high-quality artists as painter Joan Yunyer, sculptor Manolo Pascual
and the draftsman Rivero Gil, whom we predict will be very
successful….
FERNANDO UREÑA RIB
|
