Art and natire in César Manrique´s aesthetic concept

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ID NATURE IN CÉSAR
JQUE'S AESTHETIC
CONCEPT
BY FERNANDO GÓMEZ AGUILERA
1. ANIMA TEDNATURE
The history of the logos can be reacl as
a fragmeiilaiy ilinerary, In (hal process
üf iioiicoincidences, thal is responsible
for coiilemporai'v man's interior and
extei'ior divide, a connnonplace in llie
Aesllietics and artislic nianif'esTalions of
our centurv. llie ruplin'e of Pliysis
bcconies ílie axis of división, its
foundalional centre.
Reason lias been a Ivranl and lias
disorganized natnre.
lis cultin-al wHI llial lias tended lo
absolutisin can be blamed for liaving
iinpaired tlie fluid dialogue between
Man and Nature.
Time thal has these cliaracteristics is
merciless and perturlied, a loiig
succession of conflict. Üial disnienibers
I he originary networks of
corninunication and e(|inl¡l)i¡iün,
In ihe beginnine shone the s()lidarit\' of
nature and its organism was portrayed
as the organic clockwork of a greal
animal. (Pialo), whose breath animated
the immense common space of life: the
world interpreled as a living being, a
concept that we can still trace in the
cosmogonies and figurations of
prirnitive coininunities. l l i e n the earth
was a sacred territory where the Gods
deemed il fit lo live, (Thales). The
arrogant career of the logos ineant ihe
dissolution of the essenlialist creed: ihe
ru|;ilnie of the Greal Chain of Being. Its
crystallizalion in carlesian ralionalism
and newtonian phvsics instills in
modern consciousness the dealh of
nature, its inanimale and inechanistic
condilion, subsidiary and disposable,
the liiuinph of ihe lolalitarian and
hegemonic human eye. The universe is
desacralized, and in its subrnissiveness,
il is eniplied l)olh of its spirilual content
and of its paradigmatic condilion. In
such territory, man can onl\ biiild iip a
self-satisfving exile in ihe Fortress of
Reason, a building inside which
excessive exclusions and imiformities
have been elaborated, his essential
solilude and the risk of stepping up the
tensión near his limits, as individual
and as species, coerced bv the hostile
pressure that is exercised against the
boundaries of nalure.
In this context, both Manriqtie's creative
attitude and his language are decidedly
¡iiiujvative. His initial concepl is that of
natura mater. generator of vital forcé
and of life-re|)resenlational models. The
artist sets out to align his bi'eathing
with the breathing of the universe and
to sacralize it anew. It is a prograrnme
of Génesis: to promote an active
intcgrating will thal gives nature back
its soul, its organic condition, and
reinstales the Great Chain of Being. The
creative syllabtis of his work is
determined bv implicit rules thal
pretend to reveal the sacred siructuriiig
of the universe, its essential order,
recovering ihe laws of the internipted
original consonance.
The direction of his concepl ¡sn'i
marginal to the history of ideas,
allhoiigh .Mani'icjue doesn't use ihem in
a litei-ary sense. It is sufficient to
remember and trace, duiing dilTerenl
slages of thought, ihe line of continuitv
described bv ihe neo-platonisls of the
Renaissance, or more cioser to us, the
gernian .Nalurphilosophen. Their
inlellectiial context provides a
iheoi-etical fraine wliere we can sitúate
C¡Nl(Oaii*NTiCOK ARTl ^*OD((^
the work of Manrique, who despite
doininant tendencies, has wanted to
overeóme the confrontation between
nature and cukure in the second half of
the twentieth century. The proximity
with similar aesthetic tenets isn't due to
intellectual strategies but to intuitive
factors, in accord with the words that
Poe attributed to Kepler in Eureka: "I
know nothing about roads, but I know
the world's machinery. That is all. I
seized it with my soul, I reached it by
the sheer strength of intuition".
However his artistic concepts can be
likened to historical categories and
epochs when similar ideas enjoyed
acceptance, philosophical foundation
and appropiate aesthetic form.
II. THE ARTIST AS NATURA
NATURANS
"The instinctive artist isn't satisfied
with merely contemplating nature; he
must imítate it, foUowing its example,
and créate and genérate as it does".
These words of K.Philip Moritz,
Goethe's protege and one of the most
significant members of the Sturm und
Drang, carefuUy nótate the creative
paradigm of the cañarían artist.
Manrique attributed creative energy and
disposition to an unknown díctate, alien
to his conscience, that govemed artistic
activity. Thus, the painter, the architect,
the urbanist become the continuation of
nature's productive forces, of its
generating Ímpetus. Imitatlon is not
therefore either mechanlcal or formal,
but strictly onthological. Nature's model
behaves llke this in terms of creative
energy, and this synchronic attitude
assimilates the artist to nature in its
most essential condition: that of Natura
naturans.
Manrique referred on many occasions to
the fuslons of the irmer forces of the
universe with the artistic impulse. The
coincidence depended, in his opinión,
on the artist's attitude towards nature,
of his acceptance by nature, on his
ablllty to connect, recognlze and cohablt
with the generativa essence of reallty.
The mystical undertone Is very evident.
It also certlfies a conduct that is gently
reflected in his oeuvre.
How can we trace the origln of
Manrlque's insistence on tagging the
label of Art-Nature/Nature-Art onto his
art, which he defined as novel and
advanced? In fact, he didn't only refer
to total art, in symbiosis with nature,
but to the inspiration that guided his
aesthetic process: the liking of creative
experience to that of Nature and the
subsequent organicism of the artist:
"something in me creates", as Mozart
once wrote down. The artist as natura
naturans in consonance with the
creative breath of the universe.
III ARTISTIC UTOPIA
The island symbollzes utopias natural
territory. Plato, in his Crytias and
Timaeus, locates his ideal dwelling on
the island of Atlantis, Thomas More also
situates his particular Utopia on an
island and Francis Bacon raises up the
New Atlantis. Archbishop Benedeit
chronlcles the legendary voyage of Saint
Brandan to the paradisial island of San
Borondón, that until the 18th century
cartographers duly represented as the
eighth of the canary islands. Virgil and
Ovid, respectively set the myth of the
Golden Age in the Carden of Edén in
the paradisial islands.
Manrique dlscovers and choses the
island as ideal scenery for erecting his
prívate utopy, an impulse that shapes
his long term artistic project, since his
retum from New York in 1968 and his
deflnite residence in Lanzarote. On his
island, a virgin land, llmited and
visually powerful, he wants to establish
his utopy. The confluence of beauty,
culture and nature would naturally
origínate the harmony that inspires any
happy place; not only did he créate
spaces where art and nature were
Integrated, but he promoted on several
occasions an International Art Museum
(1974), a dynamic Cultural Centre, El
Almacén (1974), his own Foundation
(1992) and, though he failed in the
enterprise, he attempted to attract the
presence of artists and leadlng cultural
personalities to his selected milleus.
The contextual landscape of the
utopla/paradlse myth seems an
adequate literary space to inscribe
Manrlque's modemist attempt, that
M7
(irsar Manrique. House in I laría.
Photo Coiirtesv Manrique
FouiKlation. Lanzarote (Canary
UKI:
aloiigside the sigualliuu oí ihe insular
iinaginarv, carnes the express iuvitation
to socialize its contení, to coliahil willi
il. Aesllietic iitopv appears and swells in
llie liniils ol'e.xpi'rience. Imilator üf tlie
piíctic ideáis oí Arcadia, llic KKsian
Fields or the Gardejí oC ihc Hesperides,
classical locii of unity, iie strives Cor a
benevolent arl, l'ounded on nature as
prime reí'erence, ihat leads to the
reconcihalion of those confrontations
between niind and hearl, physis and
logos. Mis nl()|3ian aesthetic conceives
the iimer harnionv oí man, ihe creation
of a Imiiio feli.v ucilheticus That either
throngh tlie contemplatioii of the
sublime, (ílie ".Miradores' or belvederes
of FJ Río. (Fanzarole 1973). La Peila
(El Hierro 1989), El Pahnarejo (Ea
Gomera 1994) and .lámeos del Agua
(Eanzarote 1968), or in the harmonv
of the gardeii, (C^osta Martiunez,
Tenerife, begtm 1990), the Jardín de
Cactus (Lanzarote 1990). Playa Jardín
(Tenerife , begiui 1991) and Par(|ue
Marítimo de Santa Gruz (Tenerife,
begun 1991) can beconie reconciliatcd
to joy and iransform behaviour into
aestiietic experience.
Manr¡(|ne liad only a slighllv soí'ialized
conscience, thal projected itself
innocently to the whole of reality,
wiilionl apparent divisions,
participaling in the sponlaneilv of ihe
nnivcrse. l ie didn'l express himself as
an alienaled artist being; lodged in the
idenlity of the cosmos, he tried lo effect
conciliation throngh liis works.
lii this sense. the contenls of Ihs project
are resloralive and charismatic. I lis
utopic direction is based upon an
integrational humanism that derives
froiti a unitarv world visión, where
drama is excluded. His cosmovisiojí can
he simimed np bv ihe poelics of the
garden, as a symbol of his utopian
project.
IV. AESTI lETIC: EDUGATION
The formative ideal is fnndameinal to
the woik and llie altitudes of César
Manri(|ne. "Ule artist considers thal ail
iiivolves an e(lu<'alional fnnclion. llial
togelher with the aesthetic theory that
Enlighlenment ascribed lo it. and wliich
it tnrned into a defniing qualitw His
ideas are therefore linked lo the
eighteenth cenlury iríulilinn ihat
enlrusts to aesthetic education the
resloralion of man s nalm'al harinony,
lliercl)\ leatÜng to a religions
connolalion of arl.
As Schiller. who al ihe cióse of the
eighteenth century defended the
aesthetic education of man, the
lanzarotian artisi has confidence that
cuhure and aesthetic sensibiUty will
propel social progress. Manrique's utopy
is simuhaneously an enlightened dream,
that includes fomiative programmes:
the MIAC , the Museum of the Peasant,
the project for a Museum of the Popular
Arts in Arrecife, cultural centres like the
Almacén or the César Manrique
Foundation, or the awareness of art and
its sensibility: Art, Culture and Tourist
Centres, installation of sculptures in
different parts of the island, public
gardening schemes, control and
homogeneity of lanzarotian architecture,
popular respect for insular valúes.
Manrique always conceived Lanzarote
as a space for artistic and cultural
integration with an educational
potential. The acceptance by a large
part of the islanders of his aesthetic
ideáis, that can be appreciated in the
island's new appearance, and the voting
of an innovative Insular Plan for
Territorial Organization, that controls
urban development and protects the
land, all stem from the artist's
enlightened attitude and behaviour.
His interventions in the island's
territory mark a symbolic itinerary that
can be interpreted as an educational
joumey, a journey that sets out to
kindle interest for aesthetic experience,
as indeed occurred during the
enlightenment through the activity of
the promenade. A strategy that not only
can be applied generally to insular
geography, but also individually for
each specific space. His works are true
living natures, where the integration of
different artistic elements, sculpture,
painting, muráis, gardens and
architecture, provoke constant
inspiration. The spectator, who is never
passive, is forced to particípate in these
structures and their dynamic condition
through a gradual journey that enables
him to discover new perspectives and
simultaneously makes him a visual
agent. Somehow he is obliged to
contémplate, to learn through active
observation, from within the work: man
the observer is lodged inside and walks
through these spaces compelled by
centripetal energy.
The ampie spaces, their labyrinthine
organization, their spiritual empathy,
(modem natural cathedrals), or their
varied possibilities genérate
communion. These naturalistic creations
are not only living but brought to iife bv
the creative movement of every
observer; infinite natures that are
Instruments of sensibility. Manrique
attached a transforming power to this
faculty of sight, that educated our
perspective: "h is necessary that we
teach how to see.', he would insist,
appealing to the artist's moral
obligation to take on that task.
Thus, aesthetic education could lead to
ethical transformation: man as
consequence of art, man that could
become superior through art. As a
polemical thinker and social activist, he
frequently resorted to moral categories,
derived from the fundamental ideas of
his work. His public cause for the
defence of the much deteriorated
landscape of his islands stems from an
aesthetic compromiso that became
moralizing attitudes expressed as
educational ideáis, which were
manifested in his art works and in a
language of radical denunciation that
soon became familiar in the media. Like
Kant, Manrique always believed that
beauty was the symbol of morality.
It is evident that establishing utopia
without adapting the ethical and
aesthetic sensibility of the individuáis
who live in the happy isle is quite
impossible. It foUows Úiat paideia is
obligatory for the artist, in order to
avoid the sterility of the felix aestheticus
and to extend art's liberating power.
V. A PRACTICAL AESTHETICS
Manrique's environmental interventions,
adapted to the characteristics of natural
space, are equally distant from
conservationist principies and from
gratuitous excess. This is evidenced by
the relationship they maintain both with
the environment and the architectural
tradition of the island. Konrad Lorenz
said that a succession of different
mutations without preserving the
necessary dosis of archaic information
engenders monsters, due either to a loss
149
150
of data or a loss nf iradilion.
César Manrique was carefiíl not to
contribute to thal del'ormitv. Mis style
incorporates a reserve of traditional
elenients to a niodern reinterpretation of
the environnient where the\' will figure,
coriscious of llie iinpossiljjlitv of cultural
evoliilion w'itlioul tlie conservation of
original concepts, vel ec]uallv impossible
withoul the rcnovation of the oíd
through a process of interculluralisni.
The spalial works that he lias created,
expression of a dialogue belween
tradition and modernity and die
presence of diverse elemeiits assembled
wilh svTiclirelic intent, aren 1 Uie
product of an artist wlio is siniply born
wilh a vocation that shps into canonical
uniforniity. His natural beauties try to
intervene in reality bv iTansforining i).
In fací, his interventions have led to an
econoniic niodel of developinent for
I^anzarote ihat is quite luiprecedented
and that has been recently recognized
by L'NlvSCO who has declai-ed die
island World Biosplierical Reserve.
Interveniug in diflcrcnl zones of llie
island he proyoked the transforniatioii
of economic activities and of Laiizarole
itself as an aesthetic entity, while also
rnodifying the relationsbij) between man
and landscape, educating his sensibility,
giving h social shape, and so lurned diis
new conleinplalive itinei-aiy iiuo a
potential svrnbolic message ihat
interrelates with myth, Iransforniing
consciences and slreiigthening ihe
cominunity's identily. The cañarían
artistas concepts, as we have described
theni, are not ptu'ist in uature; they
correspond to a practical aesthetic, that
can be iiUerpreted as a niodel of the
econoinic, ecological and social that
offers the best guarantees for the future.
César Manrii|Me. Tobcix. 1')()(). MlVcanvas.
150 X 1,'33 dii. Cholo ('oiirIcsN Maiiri(|U('
l'ouiKlalioii.
VI. LU13IC ALI.EGORY
In -\1ani¡(|ue s sculpture the pointed
eiids tend lo be bliint. His natural
itineraries are disperse and fiill of
pos.sibilit:y, sonietimes like a niaze.
Colour is intense and provocative.
Fornis are niobile, cuuiulalive and
frequently l:)aro(|iie. The work always
0]jen to the spectator's partici]iation.
This liidic aiid pla\ ful spiril is one of
llie defining eleinents of his artistic
creation, fiinctioning not only as a
visual strategy, but as a concepiiial
instriniienl al the service of the
restoi'ation of nature s harinonv. to the
point of becoming a fundainenlal
resource in his representation of
existential nieanings. Schiller ihought
that in the l'ield of lutlisin he liad íound
an arena for inlegration and ihe
triumph over the antagonisin of reason
and sensibility. Thereon, firsi Nieztsche
and I lien Heidegger suggested the idea
of llie world as a ganie, thal fouiid so
inuch favour in inodernist art's
concepts, including tliose that cali for
the idea of the opera apeiia and adopt
Interactive expression. .A 11 of diese
concerns are present in Manriques
nalui'al works. The S|)ii'il of play, as
])art of a general conlext of hedoni.st
exaltalion thal reciirs in the work of the
cañarían artist and can be considered as
an allegorv of life.
His artistic proposals avoid conflicl: his
representation of the world is not
problenialic. The liidic elenients ihat he
inti'odiices are svrnptoms of a visión
fotinded on valúes of happiness and
benevolence. The ganie thus becomes a
further contribulion to that utopia that
can be conceived as /lagiiopo/is, an
innocent, puré city, where the child-man
synibolizes the capacit\' for
wonder, for a receptive disposition and
of a non-socialized conscience that
gtiarantees the fruition of beaiity,
liarmony and happiness, the final
desliny of total art that César Maiirie[ue
never ceased to seek throughout his
ai'tistic career.