EDGAR SOBERÓN: THE HERMETIC UNIVERSE OF OBJECTS / BY EDWARD J. SULLIVAN

I

first became acquainted with the work of Edgar Soberón in the late 1990s, at the time of his significant solo show at Associated American Artists in New York. I was captivated by the subtlety of his art, his mastery of technique, his sensitivity to light and textures as well as the expertise of suggesting a wide range of ideas and emotions within the relatively narrow thematic range of the still life. Of course, it was his subject matter that brought me to Soberón. I had always been fascinated with the history of still-life painting in western art, in both the Old World and the New. Still life is a genre born in the margins of medieval manuscripts in which scribes and painters, whose principal attention was placed on the narrative scenes in the (usually religious) manuscripts, or on the script itself, would liberate their imaginations in the margins and create often fantastical details of fruits, flowers or vegetables. Renaissance and Baroque artists were the first to develop the still-life genre as an independent one. In both northern and southern Europe, sixteenth-century artists fashioned works that focused on the object. The Italian Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593) created extraordinary fantasies using comestibles shaped into fantastical heads. The Flemish artists such as Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575) and Joachim Beuckelaer (ca. 1534-1574) painted market scenes with the focus on a plethora of foodstuffs on offer in the vendors’ stalls. It was in the seventeenth century, however, that still life came into its’ own. Dutch artists like Pieter Claesz (ca. 1597-1661) were creators of grand profusions of luxury objects while others concentrated on suggestions of the swift passage of earthly life in their vanitas pictures. Distinct still-life traditions were established in France and, especially, in Spain where artists such as Juan Sánchez Cotan (1560-1627) and Juan van der Hamen (1596-1631) became undisputed masters of this mode of expression.”

 

Edgar Soberón is, in many ways, one of the most distinguished modern heirs to this Renaissance and Baroque still-life tradition. His reverence for his historical precedents attracted me to his art when I was studying the links between the European still-life masters and contemporary Latin American expressions of this form. In 1999 I curated for the Katonah (New York) Museum of Art and El Museo del Barrio in Manhattan (in tandem with Clayton C. Kirking of The New York Public Library), an exhibition entitled Latin American Still Life: Reflections of Time and Place. We were very interested in several pieces by the artist and gave them a place of honor in the show. We might introduce this essay on Soberón’s art by citing one of the paintings that was in the Latin American Still Life exhibition (and in the present show at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts), Santa Bárbara of 1998-1999 (Fig. 1). This painting looks back to the historical modes studied with such care by the artist, but, at the same time, it embodies some surprising elements that remove it in compelling ways from the conventional history of western still-life art.

 

In Santa Bárbara a table top, with crisp white cloth, is placed before a window ledge. At the upper right, a swag of red curtain (a device borrowed from traditional Baroque portraiture in which a parted curtain reveals the subject to the viewer) separates the foreground from the background. The table has three elements on it: a compote with fruit, a glass with a single pink rose and a plaster statue of Saint Barbara, an Early Christian martyr. One might easily be forgiven for thinking this scene to be a conventional view of a table in a religious (Christian) household. Nonetheless,any viewer with knowledge of the popular culture of Cuba would know two things that indelibly change our impression of this painting. The first has to do with the patterns on the wall below the window. These are derived from the type of tiles typical of nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Cuban households (and whose elegant arabesque patterns are inspired by Spanish ceramics). The second has to do with the statue itself and its relationship to the Caribbean syncretistic religion of Santería in which West African forms of spirituality are combined with Christian symbols and saints. Saint Barbara had long been appropriated to embody the Santería deity Shangó (also spelled Changó or Xangó). It is precisely this “inside/outside” element of Soberón’s art that intrigued me; the fact that he works within and updates standard forms while at the same time completely changing or re-figuring their meaning to add many additional layers of signification to them. In the case of Santa Bárbara, the cultural specificity of the artist’s native country, Cuba, is inserted into the scene in a delicately understated way.

 

When considering the artist’s Cuban background (he was born in Cienfuegos in 1962) we must inevitably cite the precedents within the strong traditions of modern art — and specifically of modern still life — in that country. Although Soberón left Cuba at a young age (going to Spain with his family in 1971 due to political circumstances before emigrating to New York two years later), the influence of the several generations of Cuban modernists has undoubtedly left its mark on his imagination. In Havana the impact of European (specifically French) modern art arrived after 1927 in the development of the first of several generations of vanguard artists. Among the most important names in Cuban modern art are many whose works would not be unfamiliar to Soberón. A number of them, including Mariano Rodríguez (1912-1990), Cundo Bermúdez (1914-2008), Amelia Peláez (1896-1968) (who worked in painting, graphic arts and ceramics) and the most well known of all, Wifredo Lam (1902-1982), were masters of the still life. The color and interest in pattern evidenced in the art of Peláez, the foremost woman artist of the twentieth century in Cuba, appears to have been especially interesting for Soberón (in an admittedly indirect way).Also to be counted among the Cuban masters of contemporary still life is Julio Larraz (b. 1944), a generation older than Soberón (and who also sought refuge from political turmoil in New York). Larraz is a gifted artist whose still lifes often manipulate the subjects in ways that leave the integrity of the forms (bread, fruits, flowers, vegetables) intact, but suggest other narratives which are sometimes amusing and at other times verge on the sinister. The spiritual affinities with the art of Larraz are clear in some of Soberón’s most luxurious compositions, including several in the present exhibition: Aguacates (Avocados) (2006), Ode to the King of Cats (2002-2004), dedicated to Balthus, an artist much admired by Soberón, or All Saint’s Day (2008-2009). Nonetheless, each of these paintings, like the others in this show, has the clear marks of individuality and the artist’s own unmistakable stamp of originality.

 

Soberón’s familiarity with a wider tradition of hispanic painting stretches deep in time. Among his earliest memories of his childhood years in Madrid are of seeing works by Baroque master Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664) and eighteenth-century artist Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) at the Prado Museum. Soberón would guard these impressions within himself during his years as a young artist studying at Parson’s School of Design in New York. It would not be until the later 1980s that he returned to Europe (to Paris and Florence in 1986) and, finally, to Spain in 1987. There he re-encountered the artists who had impressed him as a child and also came into contact with the larger world of European art in a way that he could not have experienced in the U.S. (despite his proximity to great masterpieces of art in such Manhattan museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art or The Frick Collection). On his return to Spain it was the masters of the Spanish Golden Age of still-life painting that most deeply struck a responsive chord in his imagination. In various interviews and conversations Soberón has made reference to the work of Zurbarán, the Baroque artist who has been called “the painter of monastic life.” Spending most of his career in the southern Spanish city of Seville, Zurbarán worked for numerous monasteries and convents in Andalusia painting religious scenes and portraits of the nuns and friars. Yet it was his few still lifes, one in the Prado and another in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California, that impressed Soberón. The tranquility radiating from these works, the evenness of their light and the deep, suggestively profound shadows have all found their ways, in much altered forms, into some of Soberón’s most successful and intriguing works. These include the 1998 Lemon, virtually a “portrait” of this fruit resting quietly on a white plate; the equally enigmatic Cítricos de El Lobo (2003) (Fig. 2) which presents a bird’s-eye view of fruits strategically placed on a white cloth as if they were notes on a musical scale, and the 1996 Parábola (Parable), one of Soberón’s many paintings that can be read both as a traditional still life (with a suggestively off-balance plate at the left side) as well as a quasi-sacramental statement of the biblical references to the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. The artist has also created a direct homage to his much admired master in the 1992-1993 soft-ground etching entitled Sueño de Zurbarán.

 

Francisco de Zurbarán was by no means the only Spanish still-life master whom Soberón admired. He also came to know the work of the early seventeenth-century artist Juan Sánchez Cotán, who painted both intimate religious scenes and, more famously, elaborate still lifes that often juxtapose vegetables and fowl. In his most characteristic works the elements are viewed as if displayed on a shelf against a window. Some of the items are invariably hanging from a string. Soberón has looked carefully at Sánchez Cotán’s work both in the Prado and other institutions, such as The Art Institute of Chicago, for inspiration for some of his canvases. The 1998-1999 Pineapples with Scissors, a composition in which the artist has transposed the subjects into tropical fruits, evokes reminiscences of the Spaniard’s art. Two large pineapples rest on a luxurious white cloth on a table. To the left, hanging from a thin string, is an orange, serving as a delicate counterbalance to the weight of the larger fruits. Also on the table, to the left, is a plate with scissors that are open in a manner suggesting they are ready to cut the cord and completely undo the composition’s serenity. Thus, we again see an instance in which Soberón inserts a note of disquietude to an otherwise placid picture.

 

In certain instances Soberón investigates specific iconographies associated with historical still life. His various images with skulls are the most outstanding examples. While some Spanish seventeenth-century masters did, on occasion, insert this symbol of the swift passage of earthly time into their work (we might think of the work of Juan de Valdes Leal (1622-1690) or Antonio de Pereda (1611-1678), it was the Dutch old masters who did this often. The skull has been a common feature of vanitas imagery since antiquity and Soberón ingeniously incorporates this symbol (which is also intensely interesting for its compelling visual form) into his art in both paintings and graphic works. The elegant 2009 painting Skull and Lemon (painted with oil on linen, like a number of other works, giving an even greater sense of glossy smoothness to the surface) and the lithograph of 2004 Calaca (Skull with Scarab) are fine examples of this deployment of this emblem of mortality into his art.

 

Any mention of the artist’s graphic work leads us into a significant chapter of his career, the making of prints and monotypes which has taken on a highly important role in his imagination in the last decade. The series of compelling and beautiful silkscreen monotypes merit special attention. When studying these works the viewer is struck by how intensely different they are from his paintings. While they often deal with the same subjects (still lifes of fruits and flowers), Soberón is able to suggest a distinct psychological realm within the limited blacks, whites and grays used in these works. Graphic art represents a more meditative side of his artistic personality. He is able, in his monotypes (as well as in his lithographs and his prints in which he combines etching and aquatint) to cast aside the demands of color and adjust his aesthetic radar screen to a more inwardly directed place. Of the silkscreen monotypes we might mention as particularly outstanding works such as Alcachofas (Artichokes) (1996), a resplendent display of artichokes, The Lost and Found (1994), an intriguingly up-close scrutiny of fruits, and El Ojo (2000),a simply elegant depiction of lemons within a tall glass.

 

Soberón is an innovative graphic artist, especially within the technique of the silkscreen monotype. It is important for us to understand how he accomplished these elegant works. In personal correspondence with me he described them with the text that follows below. The reader should note the artist’s combination of direct description, as well as his emotional approach to the making of this facet of his work. It is equally touching to read Soberón’s personal testimony of gratitude and admiration for the person who perfected the technique he uses:

 

“Some of the prints I will show in the exhibition in Montgomery are silkscreen monotypes. These are unusual works which are printed in the traditional manner using a squeegee and a clear wax based medium. I clamp a screen upright on a table and I draw directly on the silk mesh (we use real silk instead of polyester) with graphite sticks and pencils. When the drawing is completed we flood the screen with wax medium once or twice with the squeegee and print onto handmade paper. The result is miraculous to say the least and I love how direct it is. We usually get three or less [sic] variations from dark to lighter versions. The wax adds a luminous quality and protects the image. This process was perfected by master printer Sheila Marbain at the Maurel Studios [in New York] in 1992. We were close friends for many years. Sheila passed away this last October. I will dedicate the catalog to her memory.”

 

Throughout Soberón’s work we sense a constant blending of past and present. While his reverence for the Spanish Baroque tradition is something about which he has been very forthcoming in his own descriptions of his work, we cannot not discount the myriad other connections with the art of still life throughout the last four hundred years, on both sides of the Atlantic. More contemporary Spanish artists have been studied avidly by Soberón in the recent past. These include contemporary painter and sculptor Antonio López García (b. 1936), the acknowledged master of the important realist movement in Spanish art today. López García (who has become more familiar to U.S. audiences recently through his ground breaking retrospective at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in spring and summer, 2008) works slowly, producing only a handful of paintings over the course of a decade. He transforms reality, bringing it out of the ordinary and imbuing it with an aura of time-defying monumentality. Soberón’s own work does not necessarily resemble the paintings of this master, but the Spaniard’s desire to freeze time and create an other-worldly ambience can be sensed within his production. Claudio Bravo (b. 1936), a Chilean artist who spent considerable time in Madrid in the 1970s (and who has lived since then in Morocco) is another master of the timeless still life whom Soberón has looked to as a kindred spirit.

 

Since 2001 Edgar Soberón has lived in Mexico. Leaving New York at the start of the decade, he chose San Miguel de Allende in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato as his home. This is a significant fact in itself. San Miguel has been, since at least the beginning of the twentieth century, an important artist’s colony. Many of the professional (and amateur) artists are from north of the border, but a considerable number of native Mexican painters have spent time in San Miguel. Among the most distinguished U. S. artists to benefit from the stimulus of this lively community in the 1940s was Milton Avery (1885-1965) (called by his fellow artist Adolph Gottlieb “one of the few great painters of our time”), whose sojourn in San Miguel in 1946 produced a large body of evocative still lifes, landscapes and figure studies.

 

Since coming to San Miguel, Soberón’s art has experienced subtle shifts. I would look to the greater sensitivity to color (especially earth tones that are so characteristically Mexican) to define one of the evolutionary elements in this latest phase of his development. At the same time, the proximity of some of the works of Mexican modern art in the museums, galleries and private collections of San Miguel and other venues in Mexico has made its mark on his work. He has cited his interest in such nineteenth-century Mexican masters of still life as Agustín Arrieta (1803-1874) and Hermenegildo Bustos (1832-1907) as important for the development of his own work. I would also wish to cite the parallels between Soberón’s latest production and the work of some of the greatest modern figures of Mexican art as important for our assessment of his current achievements. Paintings such as the elegant 2005 En Tela de Coco (Hanging by a Thread) or the 2004 Cactus and Tunas with Red Kilim both represent high points in his sensitivity to the colors and forms of Mexican popular arts. In addition, they seem to share sensibilities of color, light and form with some of the best still lifes of painters like María Izquierdo (1902-1955) or Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991).

 

As a final assessment, I think it important to stress again the fact that spiritual and formal affinities with the work of others can take us only so far in the understanding of an individual artist, who has his own characteristic “visual stamp,” his own aesthetic personality, and his own distinct approach to capturing the look and feel of the objects around him. We may end with a consideration of the 2007 painting “De Corazón Verde”(With a Green Heart) (Fig. 3). This painting may be aptly described as subtle, sensuous and mysterious. The objects displayed here become quasi-sacramentalized as they rest on the crisp, white cloth. They appear to exist on what might even be described as a secularized altar.

 

In this work, as in so many others, Soberón creates his own distinctive theology of art, evincing a reverence for life and nature.