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

SEVERO SARDUY
AND THE
NEO-BAROQUE IMAGE
OF THOUGHT
IN THE VISUAL ARTS
Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures
Editorial Board
Patricia Hart, Series Editor
Thomas Broden
Elena Coda
Paul B. Dixon
Íñigo Sánchez-Llama
Marcia Stephenson
Allen G. Wood
Howard Mancing, Consulting Editor
Floyd Merrell, Consulting Editor
Susan Y. Clawson, Production Editor
Associate Editors
French
Jeanette Beer
Paul Benhamou
Willard Bohn
Gerard J. Brault
Mary Ann Caws
Glyn P. Norton
Allan H. Pasco
Gerald Prince
Roseann Runte
Ursula Tidd
Italian
Fiora A. Bassanese
Peter Carravetta
Benjamin Lawton
Franco Masciandaro
Anthony Julian Tamburri
Luso-Brazilian
Fred M. Clark
Marta Peixoto
Ricardo da Silveira Lobo Sternberg
Spanish and Spanish American
Maryellen Bieder
Catherine Connor
Ivy A. Corfis
Frederick A. de Armas
Edward Friedman
Charles Ganelin
David T. Gies
Roberto González Echevarría
David K. Herzberger
Emily Hicks
Djelal Kadir
Amy Kaminsky Lucille Kerr
Howard Mancing
Floyd Merrell
Alberto Moreiras
Randolph D. Pope
Francisco Ruiz Ramón
El bieta Skłodowska
Mario Valdés
Howard Young
      volume 53
SEVERO SARDUY
AND THE
NEO-BAROQUE IMAGE
OF THOUGHT
IN THE VISUAL ARTS
Rolando Pérez
Purdue University Press
West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright ©2012 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Design by Anita Noble
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pérez, Rolando.
Severo Sarduy and the neo-baroque image of thought in the visual arts / Rolando Pérez.
   p. cm. — (Purdue studies in Romance literatures ; v. 53)
Summary: “Severo Sarduy never enjoyed the same level of notoriety
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55753-604-4 (pbk.)—ISBN 978-1-61249-149-3 (epdf)—ISBN 978-1-61249-148-6 (epub) 1. Sarduy, Severo—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Sarduy, Severo—Knowledge—Art. 3. Sarduy, Severo—Aesthetics. 4. Art and literature. I. Title.
PQ7390.S28Z845 2011
864'.64—dc23
2011027697
In memory of my father
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One
Sarduy as Critic of the Baroque and the Neo-Baroque Figure in Science and Art
Figures of Scientific Rhetoric
Figure I: The Perfect, Moral Circle of the High Renaissance
Figure II: The Ellipse, or the Unnatural, “Perverted” Circle
Figure III: Trompe l’Œil and the Anamorphic Image
Figure IV: The Aberrant Image of Simulation
Figure V: The Neo-Mannerism of the Spanish, Colonial, and Neo-Baroque Image
“Conclusion” by Way of the Retombée
Chapter Two
Sarduy’s Figural Art/Writing: Writing/Art Body
The Architectural Body
The Painterly Body: Bronzino, Rubens, and Beyond
Biological Anamorphosis, Trompe l’Œil, and Body Painting
The Colonial and Monstrous Body
Fetishism and the Body That Is Double . . . and More Than Double
Fijeza , Yin-Yang, and the Inscribed Body of Sadomasochism
The Eastern White Body of “Emptiness”
Chapter Three
Big Bang, Klang Klang, and Painting
The Pictorial/Rhetorical Figure of the Universe (Barroco and Big Bang)
White: Red and Black
From Mallarmé’s Typography to Concrete Poetry and Galáxias
The New World Baroque Aesthetics of Big Bang
The Music in Painting/Writing: Lorca, Jazz, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Etc.
The Figural Body of the Dance of Life and Death
Conclusion
Chapter Four
Colors, Bodies, Voices, and the Click-Clack of Theater
The Four Primary Colors
White, Black, and Red
The Erotic Body
Sound and Music
Funerary Baroque
Del Yin al Yang
Decolonization: The Circle of Los matadores de hormigas
Conclusion
Conclusions < > Continuities
Illustrations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
Illustration 1
The Ambassadrs (1533), by Hans Holbein the Younger
Illustration 2
Las Meninas (1656), by Diego Velázquez
Illustration 3
Zinc Door (1961), by Franz Kline
Illustration 4
Corona de las frutas (1990), by Ramón Alejandro
Illustration 5
Sudario (1987), by Severo Sarduy
Acknowledgments
No book, or any other creative enterprise, is done in isolation. While a particular person’s name appears as the author of the work, the undeniable truth is that for any book there are many authors—“silent” partners—as it were—without whom the project would not have been possible. Many have been family members, friends, and colleagues whose encouragement and support contributed to the realization of this work. To that end, I am indebted to the encouragement and assistance of Oscar J. Montero, Ottavio Di Camillo, Marlene Gottlieb, Elena Martínez, Gustavo Pérez Firmat, and Christopher Winks. If humanity is not a category of great scholarship, then it should be—especially for those of us who at least claim to be “in the humanities.” For this is exactly what my above-mentioned friends have in common—not only an undisputed excellence in their respective fields, but more importantly, a great a sense of humanity, from which I learned so much.
I would also like to thank my friend, the great Cuban painter Ramón Alejandro, who without previously knowing me, answered many of my questions about his friend Sarduy, then kindly sent me all kinds of invaluable material, and even gave me permission to reproduce one of his lithographs from Corona de las frutas (a book on which he and Sarduy collaborated). In a similar connection I would like to thank author and translator Aline Schulman, who generously provided me with the image and the reproduction rights of Sarduy’s painting, Sudario . Ms. Schulman is the owner of this wonderful painting. I am also grateful to Gustavo Guerrero and Mercedes Sarduy, Sarduy’s sister, heir, and director of the Severo Sarduy Cultural Foundation. Both Mr. Guerrero and Ms. Sarduy offered to help in whatever way necessary to secure the rights to reproduce Sarduy’s art work. My gratitude extends to my friends in the Library, to my colleagues in the Romance Languages Department of Hunter College, and to Ms. Susan Clawson, production editor at Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures, who was so very kind and patient with me.
And lastly, but not least, I am grateful to Nuria Morgado who came to the rescue at a moment of crisis during the final preparation of this book; who constantly encourages and inspires me in infinite ways, and for being who she is. Without her, life would be unbearable.
As with all journeys, a book begins on a certain day, and then one day it suddenly comes to an end. But between that first day, and the very last day so much happens, and, of course, not all of it good. Yet it is only because of other people that we can somehow survive it all. By the time I finished this book, and in fact, just as I had started working on it, my father—who inspired me with the love of learning—bravely passed away. With yellow-turning leaves on the ground, on a cold November day in 2005 the crab of leukemia finally won. Therefore, I want to thank my family: my father in absentia , my mother, and my brother for being there for me in the only way family can ever be there for each other, and to dedicate this book to the memory of my father. In his name, I thank all of you—those of you mentioned here, and those whose names do not appear in these pages, but were and are part of the fabric of my life—of which this book is a mere piece. Whatever shortcomings are reflected here, be it known that they are mine and mine alone.
Introduction
 
 
Cuando me siento ante mi mesa de trabajo no sé si voy a escribir o a pintar .
—Severo Sarduy
“Esbozos,” Radio France Internationale
(Interview), 1992
If you don’t admire something, if you don’t love it, you have no reason to write a word about it .
—Gilles Deleuze
Desert Islands and Other Texts
Severo Sarduy’s work has never enjoyed the same level of notoriety as that of other Latin American writers of his generation like Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel García Márquez. Instead, he remains what is often referred to as a “writer’s writer,” albeit one who, by that same token, has not been ignored by the academic world. Contributing to this interest is the fact that even his literary writing displays a vast amount of knowledge of history, philosophy, psychoanalysis, astronomy, Eastern religions, literary criticism, and art, in ways that blur the common divide between theory and literature. The ideal reading of a novel like De donde son los cantantes (1967) would require knowledge of Cuban history, Heideggerian philosophy, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and of