Castelao gets catty about modern art

For the last week I've been working my way through book two of my dissertation: Alfonso Castelao's Diario 1921. As I said in an earlier post, my dissertation is on travelogues of Galician nationalists and how their travels in Europe affected their nationalism. This particular book is Castelao's diary from the nine months he spent studying art in Paris, Belgium and Germany, thanks to a scholarship from the local (Galician) government.

While I'm studying the book for Castelao's ideas on Galician identity, it is predominantly a long list of his opinions on the art he sees (and he sees lots of it!). There are whole pages of "X painted this, it was awful, Y drew this, it was average" which can get a bit dull at times, but there are some brilliantly catty remarks peppered throughout. At the very beginning, Castelao recommends that any fans of the Venus de Milo don't see it in real life as they'll be bitterly disappointed. A similar sentiment is expressed towards the Mona Lisa, while Francis Picaba and other Dadaists are treated with utter contempt.

Castelao copies this 1919 piece by Picabia into his diary to ridicule

However, it seems that it is Picasso he treats with most scorn. To give just a few examples:

Os cadros cubistas de Picasso son sempre pra volver tolo a calquera americano do sul; pero unha persoa ben orgaizada espiritualmente non pode tomalos en serio anque vexa que isa clas de pintura non sexa enteiramente inútil.

Picasso's cubist paintings always drive any South American crazy; but a spiritually well-organised person cannot take them seriously even if they recognise that this type of painting isn't entirely useless.

Describing a portrait of a man he says:

Nin ollándoa coa mellor fe do mundo se pode adeviñar a figura dunha persoa.

Not even looking at it with the best faith in the world can you make out the figure of a person.

Picasso, Portrait of Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, 1910

My favourite in terms of rudeness:

Dous Groupes de femmes ó pastel teñen unha semellanza coas cousas de Ingres; pero unha semellanza moi lonxana, coma a distancia de saber dibuxar a non saber dibuxar.

Two pastel Groups of Women have a similarity with Ingres' work: but a distant similarity, like the distance between knowing how to draw and not knowing how to draw. 

Ouch!

Picasso, Three Women, 1908

Ingres, Le Bain Turc, 1862 (also featured in my post on Orientalism)

I personally disagree with Castelao. I'm fascinated by Dadaism and Picasso is one of my favourite artists. What I find most interesting though is that people would pay to send Castelao around Europe to write whatever he thought about the art he saw. I wish someone would give me that job!