Constructive Ship and Train - Bilbao Fine Arts Museum

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Constructive Ship and Train

Torres García, Joaquín

Montevideo, 28/07/1874-Montevideo, 08/08/1949

Oil on paper stuck to canvas

46 x 56.2 cm

J. T. G. (bottom left hand corner)

1940

Second quarter of 20th century

82/361

Acquired in 1982

Made in Montevideo during the latter stages of his artistic career, as a compositional condensation Constructive Ship and Train represents an accumulation of typical motifs in the oeuvre of Torres García: the locomotive, industrial pulleys, the symbol of the cardinal direction (N), the cart being pulled by horses, the wheel with its golden ratio, the window and especially the ship, a monumental vessel which is at once a building, a vertical plane, a wall structure and a concrete checkerboard with neo-plasticist reminiscences. The dull, earthy tones of ochre and grey reflect the melancholy palette of the old master who, after having travelled the Atlantic back and forth several times, and after having been the most cosmopolitan of the avant-gardes of the Americas, had finally reached the harbour to remain, start a school and leave his mark in the stone of his birthplace: Montevideo.

In 1935, Torres had founded the Association of Constructive Art; in 1943, the Torres García Atelier. Between these two bookends, this former Novecentist, with his mature ways, grafted the most direct ties with the avant-garde sources of Concrete Art onto the corpus of American art. But they were also apocalyptic years, when World War II managed to obscure any hopes, especially during the
horrible year of 1940. We know that Torres García closely tracked the events, and that they filtered into his works: in 1945, when depicting a ship similar to the one that appears in Constructive Ship and Train, he made direct reference to the atomic bomb, and part of his output in 1940 is expressed in a series of portraits in which Chamberlain or Hitler appear next to figures like Goya, Unamuno, Rafael, Titian, Napoleon, Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, Velázquez, Wagner, Cézanne, Leonardo da Vinci, a possessed man, a bullfighter, a priest, etc. Perhaps by doing this Torres wanted his works to reflect the density of time, both present and historical.

However, the recourse to compositional condensation which translates into the concrete verticality of Constructive Ship and Train is a clear indication of Torres's sensitivity to an intensive, stratified conception of time more than one that is successive and progressive. Therefore, different times are superimposed upon each other like strata and expressed as immediate thickness in the juxtaposed figures of the cart, the locomotive and the ship. This collision of times in which the diachronic merges with the synchronic, the abstract coexists with the concrete, the sign is juxtaposed with the icon, the past seeps into the present, and the indications of orientation and space (the N) dovetail with symbols of temporality and succession (40, 56, AP ["Before Present" in Spanish], J.T.G.) is essentially the signature of Torres García's oeuvre. It is the machine of the world, heterogeneous and in perpetual motion, presented here as ship and architecture. [Luis Pérez-Oramas]

Selected bibliography

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  • Lucie-Smith, Edward ; Lazkano, Jesus Mari. Lazkano : de la arquitectura a la naturaleza [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2010. pp. 28-29.
  • Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2011. p. 164, n° cat. 115.
  • Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa : gida. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2012. p. 164, n° cat. 115.
  • The Ages of the Sea [Cat. exp.]. Lisboa, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundatión, 2012. p. 128..
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  • Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 164.
  • 110 Años 110 Obras [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 258-259, sin n° cat.
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  • 110 Urte 110 Artelan [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 258-259, sin n° cat.
  • 110 Years 110 Works [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 258-259, sin n° cat.
  • Después del 68 : arte y prácticas artísticas en el País Vasco, 1968-2018 [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. p. 340.