VERSIÓN INGLESA ENGLISH VERSION - Fundación César Manrique

188
academic orthodoxy. Strangely, some of the features of his art, such as a certain pantheistic vein, are,
I believe, concurrent with Manrique’s approach. According to Robert Rosenblum “The classical
Pollock of the late forties and early fifties thereby became a freak of nature, a reckless turbine of
pure energy able to carry us to the extremes of microscopic and telescopic vision, the flash of an
atomic or galactic explosion, or in more earthly terms, the crushing force of nature’s least tangible
elements, such as air, fire, water” 37 .
The successive layers are spread with sweeping or dragging movements, divided into two large
zones made to clash due to centripetal or centrifugal forces, piled up from the lower to the upper
edge of the painting, bored into without tearing the canvas, accumulated to form a false figure or
scattered like vertical rivers or clawed fingers. The descriptions can be as extensive, numerous and
prolific as we want, but actually, the conceptual substance with which Manrique composed these
works appears to be homogeneous and unitary, in my view. I would stress, however, the modulation
of the chromatic variations and an undeniable monotony which, I suppose, Manrique would liken to
the monotony of the forces of nature.
“Let’s have a look” wrote Eduardo Westerdahl, “at his palette in the works sent to the 1960
Biennial: black, grey, brown, earthy Seville red, orange-brown and an occasional very sober red
highlight. His oeuvre in these periods, generally speaking, was based on a very sober palette, where
bluish greys and light ochres contrasted with an occasional orange touch.
“In the crossroads year, 1958, the major variation was not only colour, but the structure of the
painting, with orthogonal lines, enlivened by the freedom of execution and vibration of the material.
But it was in 1960 when this freedom and vibration confronted the work with its author, giving rise
to a vital and indeterminate style of painting, an adventure in material and what we have [...] described
as the encounter with the parched earth and the virginity of geology” 38 .
“In Manrique” - writes Lázaro Santana in turn - “material is everything, its tridimensional
aggressiveness constitutes the expressive core of the painting. Colour emanates from it as a part of
its very nature and no other element is added to the painter’s exploration of the universe: it is only
enlivened by the original fire; some accident, perhaps not so distant, may provoke the appearance of
37. Robert Rosenblum, Modern painting and the northern
Romantic tradition, London, 1975.
38. Eduardo Westerdahl, Manrique, Colección del Arte de
Hoy, Madrid, June 1960.