PERUVIAN AVANT-GARDE: ORIGIN, CHARACTERISTICS, REPRESENTATIVES - LITERATURE - 2025

The Peruvian avant-garde was an artistic movement that developed at the end of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century, although it had greater force between the years 1920 and 1930. It was a movement that in Peru leaned more towards poetic literature than in other countries, where he focused on other creative disciplines.

Three were the main figures of this movement in Peru. Alberto Hidalgo stood out in Latin America for the simplicity of his works, José Carlos Mariátegui also stood out for influencing the avant-garde from the Peruvian territory, and César Vallejo was the author of one of the most symbolic works of the movement.

César Vallejo was the highest representative of avant-garde in Peru. Source:, via Wikimedia Commons.

The avant-garde displaced modernism in order to have freedom, not to respect or establish rules. Within this movement, other currents such as ultraism, futurism, cubism, dadaism or surrealism were present.

This movement was born in Europe, mainly in France. It covered all areas of art: literature, architecture, music, painting or theater.

Origin

The term "avant-garde" comes from the French word vangarden. Its meaning is to innovate.

In Alberto Hidalgo's work Lyrical Panoply there is a poem titled Ode to the car. It was published in 1917 and was the first signal or avant-garde manifestation in Peru.

This work made Peru one of the Latin American countries where the avant-garde movement first manifested itself. He also distinguished himself from the rest by having a very radical attitude about the movement. In other nations such as Bolivia, Cuba or Paraguay it took a little longer to appear.

Over the years, works with avant-garde characteristics continued to be published in Peru. Flechas magazine, for example, was the first publication to be declared avant-garde and appeared in 1924.

The presence of more magazines allowed the rise of this artistic movement to increase. Although Amauta was, between 1925 and 1930, the most respected publication of this period.

Context

Worldwide, when the avant-garde movement appeared, many changes and conflicts were underway. The First World War happened between 1914 and 1918, and shortly afterwards the Soviet revolution occurred. The working classes were left out, so the avant-garde had a great motivation to develop social content.

On an economic level, everything was going well until there was a recession due to the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929.

For its part, in Peru the aristocratic or wealthier groups were those that were in command of the country. Social conflicts were very present during the development of the avant-garde.

The communist and Aprista parties were born in Peru. And laws were being created like the eight-hour workday. In this context this artistic trend appeared.

characteristics

The Peruvian avant-garde focused on literature and within this artistic branch he devoted himself almost exclusively to poetry.

A very distinctive characteristic of the avant-garde in Peru is that it had indigenous authors. This was a sign that the poetry of this movement also had a social component, where the future of man was of great importance. An example of this can be seen with the poem Masa written by César Vallejo.

Since it was based on innovation, literature during this time had freedom in its metric composition. That is, his verses did not have a defined structure in terms of their rhythm, the number of syllables that made them up, the total or partial presence of rhyme or their combinations.

In addition, the avant-garde author shows the past as something that does not work. He is nonconformist and his objective is to start a new period where the poetic content is above the structure that composes it.

As the poems emphasize the inner world, they are not usually chronological in their narration: it is the evolution of the soul that determines the time.

Finally, because the avant-garde was based on modifying everything, it was also characterized by using neologisms, expressions that did not previously exist. This allowed new styles to be established at the linguistic level, and even at the cultural and social level.

Representatives

The Peruvian avant-garde had many prominent authors, but the most important were three: Alberto Hidalgo, César Vallejo and José Carlos Mariátegui. Each one had a different contribution to the artistic movement of the time and also their influence occurred in different parts of the world.

You can also find other representatives of this artistic trend such as Ciro Alegría Bazán, Carlos Oquendo de Amat or César Moro, who stood out because he was the greatest exponent of surrealism.

Alberto Hidalgo

The first sign of an avant-garde model was with his poem Ode to the car in 1917, present in the publication called Panoply lyrical. He was the creator of simplism in Peru, which was the equivalent of ultraism in places like Spain or Argentina. He was also the founder of several magazines, such as Oral and Pulso.

He not only dedicated himself to poetic manifestations, but also published short stories. His work has more than 30 works, most of them published in Buenos Aires, where he had a great influence.

Jose Carlos Mariategui

The Amauta magazine, which became the most important of the Peruvian avant-garde, was the brainchild of the journalist and writer José Carlos Mariátegui. This publication was going to have the name Vanguardia at first.

The articles published in Amauta had the function of helping to understand the renovating process that was being experienced in Peru and in the rest of the world. Although Mariátegui did not consider his magazine as an avant-garde publication, but as a socialist one.

Apart from Amauta, he was only the author of two books and due to his early death (he died at the age of 35) two other works were left unfinished. All his work was done in Peru, and that is why some say that he is the most representative figure of the avant-garde in the country.

Cesar Vallejo

He published his first two works in Peru, Los heraldos negros and Trilce, which was his masterpiece and became the most representative expression of the Peruvian avant-garde and had a great impact worldwide.

His work did not focus only on poetry. He also excelled in narrative and theater. He also published chronicles and made translations, specifically from French to Spanish.

Although almost all his work was done in Paris, he is considered one of the most important Peruvian authors of this time.

References

1. Mamani Macedo, M. (2017). Site of the earth. Lima: Economic Culture Fund of Peru.
2. Monguió, L. (1954). Peruvian postmodernist poetry. Berkeley-Los Angeles: Univ. Of California Press.
3. Oviedo, J. (1999). Four avant-garde Peruvians. Recovered from magazines.ucm.es
4. Pöppel, H., & Gomes, M. (2004). The literary vanguards in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Madrid: Iberoamericana.
5. Soní Soto, A. (2007). César Vallejo and the literary avant-garde. Recovered from scielo.org.mx