VERSIÓN INGLESA ENGLISH VERSION - Fundación César Manrique

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essentially, volcanology and geology” 2 . Nonetheless, I propose that an effort should be made to reach
beyond the most banal aspects of that interpretation, without forfeiting the symbolic wealth it affords.
The magmatic state is preformative. César Manrique saw it that way: “Immersed in the calcinated
magmas of Timanfaya, direct contact with the volcano kindles an urge for absolute freedom and a
strange premonitory feeling, a clear insight into space and time” 3 . There is, in that statement, an
irrepressible sensation of symbolic empathy. The artist feels that he forms a part of the original magma
and that sensation, far from oppressive, “releases” him not only from the artificial bonds created by
humanity for the sake of social organisation (laws, rules, etc.), which are necessarily coercive and
restrictive, an obstacle to happiness, but from spatial and temporal relationships as well. It should be
noted that the isomorphism in César Manrique’s paintings cancel out spatial and temporal
relationships (there is no depth, no before or after).
This intuition extends beyond the level of aesthetics, which is sensory experience, to reach a
higher rung of cognition; that is why, in his aphorisms, he sustains that “there is still room for truth in
art and life” 4 . These two concepts, truth and life, can be reconciled through art, not through reason.
Painting represents this link. It arises where a concealed, unobvious truth is revealed. “In nature’s
organic system, in its powerful hidden reason, I have found the most transcendent truth” 5 . César
Manrique’s naturalism, like that of other abstract painters, is clearly symbolistic and therefore
precludes any impressionistic interpretation. “I have always sought in nature its essential condition, its
hidden sense: the meaning of my life. The wonder and mystery which I have found on that long
exploratory trail are as real, as apparent, as tangible reality” 6 .
Confronted with the ambivalence of fire, which is both destructive and formative, César Manrique
proposes a magical neutralisation of these forces in his pictorial work. Painting is where opposites are
reconciled. As in volcanic eruptions, the artist proceeds by controlling the transition of liquid to solid.
The lava solidifies due to the cooling of the incandescent mass, which forfeits its liquidity to become a
solid and stable body, subject only to the laws of material erosion or wear. Like any natural process, it
cannot be regulated; there is no subject or will to whom it may be attributed (although César Manrique
often expressed himself as though everything existing responded to a preconceived plan). But there are
aspects of the pictorial process that can be neither controlled nor explained; so that when the paint
2. Fernando Gómez Aguilera: César Manrique en sus palabras,
Fundación César Manrique, 1995, No. 78, p. 88.
3. Translated from the Spanish original in Fernando Gómez
Aguilera: César Manrique en sus palabras, Fundación César
Manrique, 1995, No. 115, p. 114.
4. Fernando Gómez Aguilera: César Manrique en sus palabras,
Fundación César Manrique, 1995, No. 80, p. 88.
5. Ibídem, No. 103, p. 105.
6. Ibídem, No. 127, p. 122.