Severo Sarduy and the Neo-Baroque Image of Thought in the Visual Arts

by Rolando Pérez

Overview

Severo Sarduy never enjoyed the same level of notoriety as did other Latin American writers like García Márquez and Vargas-Llosa, and his compatriot, Cabrera-Infante. On the other hand, he never lacked for excellent critical interpretations of his work from critics like Roberto González Echevarría, René Prieto, Gustavo Guerrero, and other reputable scholars. Missing, however, from what is otherwise an impressive body of critical commentary, is a study of the importance of painting and architecture, firstly, to his theory, and secondly, to his creative work. In order to fill this lacuna in Sarduy studies, Rolando Pérez's book undertakes a critical approach to Sarduy's essays—Barroco, Escrito sobre un cuerpo, "Barroco y neobarroco," and La simulación—from the stand point of art history. Often overlooked in Sarduy studies is the fact that the twenty-three-year-old Sarduy left Cuba for Paris in 1961 to study not literature but art history, earning the equivalent of a Master's Degree from the École du Louvre with a thesis on Roman art. And yet it was the art of the Italian Renaissance (e.g., the paintings as well as the brilliant and numerous treatises on linear perspective produced from the 15th to the 16th century) and what Sarduy called the Italian, Spanish, and colonial Baroque or "neo-baroque" visually based aesthetic that interested him and to which he dedicated so many pages. In short, no book on Sarduy until now has traced the multifaceted art historical background that informed the work of this challenging and exciting writer. And though Severo Sarduy and the Neo-Baroque Image of Thought in the Visual Arts is far from being an introduction, it will be a book that many a critic of Sarduy and the Latin American "baroque" will consult in years to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557536044
Publisher:	Purdue University Press
Publication date:	10/15/2011
Series:	Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures , #53
Pages:	319
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.88(h) x (d)

About the Author

Rolando Pérez, Hunter College, CUNY, has published in a variety of disciplines, ranging from philosophy and literary criticism to poetry and fiction. Some of his books include Severo Sarduy and the Religion of the Text (1988), On An (archy) and Schizoanalysis (1990), and The Linings of Our Souls: Excursions into Selected Paintings of Edward Hopper (2003). He is also the author of numerous of essays on Severo Sarduy, José Asunción Silva, César Vallejo, Alejandra Pizarnik, Octavio Paz, and others. Selections from his creative work appear in The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2010).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Sarduy as Critic of the Baroque and the Neo-Baroque Figure in Science and Art 11

Figures of Scientific Rhetoric 13

Figure I The Perfect, Moral Circle of the High Renaissance 16

Figure II The Ellipse, or the Unnatural, "Perverted" Circle 23

Figure III Trompe l'Œill and the Anamorphic Image 30

Figure IV The Aberrant Image of Simulation 36

Figure V The Neo-Mannerism of the Spanish, Colonial, and Neo-Baroque Image 40

"Conclusion" by Way of the Retombée 54

Chapter 2 Sarduy's Figural Art/Writing: Writing/Art Body 59

The Architectural Body 62

The Painterly Body: Bronzino, Rubens, and Beyond 65

Biological Anamorphosis, Trompe l'Œil, and Body Painting 69

The Colonial and Monstrous Body 72

Fetishism and the Body That is Double... and More Than Double 78

Fijeza, Yin-Yang, and the Inscribed Body of Sadomasochism 82

The Eastern White Body of "Emptiness" 98

Chapter 3 Big Bang, Klang Klang, and Painting l109

The Pictorial/Rhetorical Figure of the Universe(Barroco and Big Bang) 111

White: Red and Black 118

From Mallarmé's Typography to Concrete Poetry and Galáxias 125

The New World Baroque Aesthetics of Big Bang vu

The Music in Painting/Writing: Lorca, Jazz, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Etc 143

The Figural Body of the Dance of Life and Death 149

Conclusion 155

Chapter 4 Colors, Bodies, Voices, and the Click-Clack of Theater 59

The Four Primary Colors 163

White, Black, and Red 165

The Erotic Body 169

Sound and Music 172

Funerary Baroque 179

Del Yin al Yang 186

Decolonization: The Circle of Los matadores de hormigas 190

Conclusion 200

Conclusions <> Continuities 201

Illustrations 207

Notes 213

Bibliography 277

Index 307