Eugenio Cruz Vargas
Eugenio Cruz Vargas (born October 2, 1923 in Santiago de Chile , † January 18, 2014 in Olmué , V Región, Chile ) was a Chilean poet and painter . His painterly work begins with classic landscape painting and approaches abstract art towards the end of his work . His poems are shaped by the concept of surrealism .
biography
He was the son of the winemaker Pedro Nolasco Cruz Correa (1887-1939) and María Emilia Vargas Bello (1896-1978), the grandson of the literary critic Pedro Nolasco Cruz Vergara , great-grandson of the Chilean criminal lawyer Francisco Vargas Fontecilla and great-great-grandson of the American humanist Andrés Bello and the Chilean Governor Pedro Nolasco Vergara Albano . The third of six siblings, he grew up on a Las Cabras farm in Viña San Pedro and El Carmen.
During his school days at the Colegio San Ignacio in Santiago de Chile his artistic talent was shown. After the death of his father, he could no longer follow his artistic calling. He began working in advertising and real estate in the 1960s and founded Cruz y del Solar and Vía Publicidad y Publicidad Siete.
During the 1970s he traveled through America , Europe , Russia and the USA with the aim of participating in innovative stage art projects, mainly in film and theater productions. In Paris he attended open courses on art history at the École du Louvre , where he deepened and broadened his knowledge of classical art.
When he returned to Chile, he settled in the south and devoted himself to his art for the next forty years. 300 oil paintings were created and three collections of poetry were published.
The source of inspiration for his art was his wife, María de la Luz Vergara Errázuriz (1927–2014). He had nine children with her.
Artistic creation
Two creative periods can be recognized in his painterly work:
The first can be described as the figurative classicism of the masters of the 19th and 20th centuries, oil paintings on fabric in medium and large formats, in which the rural life and life on the coast of the central and southern area of his country are reflected and in those of the honest realism with naturalistic influence becomes recognizable.
The second period is marked by the abandonment of classical education and the beginning of the abstract objective / more expressive composition, recognizable elements can still be seen and the tendency towards nature can still be felt. This partial abstraction follows a whole abstraction, where no traces, reference elements of the landscapes or objects are clear, all that remains is the viewer's free perception; hence the title of his last exhibition From Landscape to Abstraction .
160 of his works were shown in his four painting exhibitions between 1986 and 2008. A large number of the paintings are in the possession of private collectors; another part is family-owned and is now in the foundation that bears his name.
His poetic work is shaped by surrealism. The first collection of poems, entitled The Only Time I Lie , was written in 1978. These poems are written in simple language, mixing strong feelings of love with reflections on nature and depictions of urban and rural life in the south of Chile. In 1980 he published his second collection of poems, Heaven . His writing style seems more solid and puristic, but the surrealist theme is the same. In 2011 his last collection of poems, From the earthly to the spherical , was published, for which the Chilean poet Emilio Antilef wrote the foreword.
In recent years, Cruz Vargas has focused on sculpture. He created three large-scale sculptures using recycled steel and copper materials that are now in his family's private park in Olmué, Quinta Región, Chile . His landscapes convey a message of love to nature; they convey respect for animals; an astonishment at humanity and the constant change in the world to which he adapted with flexibility and enthusiasm.
Quotes from Cruz Vargas
“There are many ways to practice and make art. There are also different ways of expressing art, through comedy, sculpture, music, painting, etc. The art can be practiced in huge or in the smallest of spaces ”.
"Silence is the space that every living being has and where it unfolds its dynamic of thinking and decision-making".
“The change in mankind is and will always be positive, for example, in order to overcome pollution of the water, the air and the environment, technological progress will be more and more important, it will respect and regain the nature that I love so much . "
reception
The daily El Mercurio de Santiago wrote about his contribution to Chilean culture in an obituary: “He will always be present through his painterly and literary work, an unusual combination of two areas of creativity. He will be remembered by future generations as an example of strength and perseverance and through his work. "
Quotes about Cruz Vargas
" Poet , painter , sculptor and film producer , the fertile artist who recalls the spirit of the earlier, self-taught authors who made an important contribution to national culture."
" Cruz Vargas is a child who does not renounce dreams, who lives at the same time as the adult, and who fights for bits of life and clings to them through poetry and its multiple means."
“ Eugenio Cruz has managed to recreate the old connections between painting and poetry of the Renaissance. During this period almost all poems were descriptions of paintings. During this period, the word completely worshiped the image. But the pictorial symmetry was also that of poetry. The poet and the painter differ from the rest of mortals in their ability and daring to discover in nature and in humans the naive, the wonderful, the extraordinary, the contrasts and the internal impulses of the soul and objects, and through them To convey words or colors. "
“The open-hearted and honest spirit of the artist can be seen in his works; the word mixes with the brushstroke and at the same time there is a symbiosis between painting and poetry. A symbiosis that is rarely found, except in the case of the Englishmen Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) and William Blake (1757–1827). "
He is also compared to Pablo Neruda in his early career.
"... writes with colors and paints with words."
"The painter who loves nature."
Reviews
Víctor Carvacho Herrera (1916–1996), member of the national association of art critics, AINCA, wrote in his foreword in the catalog of the 1986 exhibition:
- “He loves nature and of all its wonders he prefers trees. That is why his favorite genre is landscape paintings. That's the truth. He can be a master of himself. Few can do that. With pleasure, a conifer or eucalyptus can be recognized on a canvas through its textures and colors. That is its naturalistic aspect. His more romantic is evident in his color palette when you consider the totality of the colors he prefers: the gray tones of the white, the brown tones, the gray tones of the red and the ocher, and finally the rich green tones, similar to Oskar Trepte's style, without his melancholy, but with all the power of a cheerful and memorable poetry ... "
José María Palacios Concha (1926–2002), art critic for the Segunda newspaper and the national art critic association AICA wrote:
- “The gaze that distances itself and observes, from an imaginary feeling that the truths of our nature are always ready to receive the painter's eye and to reward it. And so we come to Eugenio Cruz's ultimate success : it defines a style. He emphasizes that he has a personality who was able to portray his experiences from the inside out, freely, without prejudice, and who illustrates this to us as an autodidact in his creative maturity. His color palette is generous. As a painter, he knows how to deal with his emotions and how to create glances that point to the meaning ... Eugenio Cruz's painting is characterized by a balance and harmonization of gray tones that suggest a certain longing for his old country life. Especially after the trees. "
Emilio Antilef Arriagada , Chilean poet , writes in the foreword to his last book presentation (2011):
- “The feelings in the work of this Chilean author are not one-sided. His protests, declarations of love, condemnations of the system and the market, the allegories and the games allow for different interpretations. This is something of value at a time when the language is constantly changing and discussions about its limits are abundant. The weight of our time makes us thirsty for poems that can reflect the pluralism of our epoch. Dear intellectuals of our time, such as the Venezuelan Rafael Rattia, express themselves as follows: Often it is the nuance, the imperceptible turn of language that makes the poem a work of art. The poetry in this book could not have been conceived without the traces that a violent experience leaves behind and that is indispensable for moving from the earthly to the spherical. It is the desire shared by young people and adults, as it were, to touch the sky, or simply to get out of it. "
Contribution to the culture of the arts
It is mainly the ability to listen to the inner nature , and after a time in the affluent circles of society and with entrepreneurial success to do without it in order to become one with the essentials and his enthusiasm for life through his multidimensional works of art to submit. This simplicity and generosity are the greatest contribution to the culture of art painting and literature .
gallery
waterfall
ocher
Mythical landscape
Sailboats in the mirror
Alto Pucalan
Monte Almirante Nieto, Torres del Paine
Potrero en Bucalemu
Rincon en el Cajon del Maipo
Eucalyptus Parque Peñuelas
Homage to Mozart
Web links
- Eugenio Cruz Vargas on Artistas Plásticos Chilenos (Spanish)
- Literary works by Cruz Vargas in Stanford University Libraries
- Recordando a Eugenio Cruz Vargas: El pintor chileno que amaba la naturaleza. El Mercurio from February 1, 2016 (Spanish)
- Segundo aniversario de la muerte del poeta y pintor Eugenio Cruz Vargas January 18, 2016 (Spanish)
- Eugenio Cruz Vargas, Tataranieto de Andres Bello y maestro de si mismo January 27, 2016 (Spanish)
- El Genio del Creativo Eugenio Cruz Vargas. La Nación of October 2, 2015 (Spanish)
- Eugenio Cruz Vargas Un Artista Total from September 29, 2015 (Spanish)
- El Mostrador. Recordando la entrañable obra del pintor surrelista, October 2, 2017
- El Mostrador, El pintor y poeta en la memoria de Chile, October 2, 2019
Remarks
- ↑ Biografías y Vidas on Eugenio Cruz Vargas
- ^ Profesor en Linea on Eugenio Cruz Vargas
- ↑ The painter who loved nature, El Mercurio de Santiago 1 de February 2016
- ↑ Biography of Eugenio Cruz Vargas in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Chile
- ↑ Diario La Nación de Chile del 2 de Octubre de 2015 ( Memento of the original from June 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Biography about Eugenio Cruz Vargas
- ^ Portal del arte on Eugenio Cruz Vargas
- ↑ El Mercurio de Santiago de Chile. 2008-2016
- ↑ Biographie de Eugenio Cruz Vargas, Cultural Institute of Providencia , Chile
- ↑ Biographie de Eugenio Cruz Vargas, Cultural Institute of Providencia , Chile
- ↑ El Mercurio de Santiago, January 18, 2014, page A25
- ^ El Genio del Creativo Eugenio Cruz Vargas. ( Memento of the original from June 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Emilio Antilel book launch, 18 April 2011 "de lo Terrenal a lo Espacial
- ↑ Eugenio Cruz Vargas, Tataranieto de Andres Bello y maestro de si mismo
- ↑ Eugenio Cruz Vargas Un Artista Total
- ↑ Biographie de Eugenio Cruz Vargas, Cultural Institute of Providencia , Chile
- ^ Centro Cultural Montecarmelo. Del paisaje a la abstracción. Santiago: El Centro, 2008
- ↑ Recordando a Eugenio Cruz Vargas: El pintor chileno que amaba la naturaleza.
- ^ Instituto Cultural de Providencia. Óleos Eugenio Cruz . Santiago: El Instituto, 1986
- ^ Instituto Cultural de Providencia. Óleos Eugenio Cruz . Santiago: El Instituto, 1999
- ^ Book presentation of the poet Eugenio Cruz Vargas April 18, 2011
- ^ El Genio del Creativo Eugenio Cruz Vargas. ( Memento of the original from June 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. La Nación of October 2, 2015
- ↑ Recordando a Eugenio Cruz Vargas: El pintor chileno que amaba la naturaleza. El Mercurio from February 1, 2016
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cruz Vargas, Eugenio |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Chilean poet and painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 2, 1923 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Santiago de Chile |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 18, 2014 |
| Place of death | Olmué , V Región, Chile |