Xul Solar
Encyclopedia
Xul Solar was the adopted name of Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari (born December 14, 1887 – April 9, 1963), Argentine
painter
, sculptor
, writer
, and inventor of imaginary language
s.
, Buenos Aires Province
, in the bosom of a cosmopolitan family. His father, Elmo Schulz Riga, of Baltic German origin, was born in the Latvia
n city of Riga
, at that time part of Imperial Russia. He was educated in Buenos Aires
, first as a music
ian, then as an architect
(although he never completed his architectural studies). After working as a schoolteacher and holding a series of minor jobs in the municipal bureaucracy, on April 5, 1912, he set out on the ship "England Carrier", supposedly to work his passage to Hong Kong
, but he disembarked in London
and made his way to Turin
. He returned to London to meet up with his mother and aunt, with whom he traveled to Paris
, Turin (again), Genoa
, and his mother's native Zoagli. Over the following few years, despite the onset of World War I
, he would move among these cities, as well as Tours
, Marseille
, and Florence
; towards the end of the war he served at the Argentine consul
ate in Milan
.
During the years of the war, he struck up what was to be a lifelong friendship with Argentine artist Emilio Pettoruti
, then a young man living in Italy and associated with the futurists
. Also around that time, he began to pay more attention to painting, first with watercolor (which would always remain his main medium as a painter), although he gradually began working in tempera
and — very occasionally — oils
. He also adopted the pen-name of Xul Solar. His first major exhibition of his art was in 1920 in Milan, together with sculptor Arturo Martini
.
In 1916, Schulz Solari first signed his work “Xul Solar,” ostensibly for the purposes to simplify the phonetics of his name, but an examination of the adopted name reveals that the first name is the reverse of “lux,” which references the measurement of luminous intensity. Combined with “solar”, the name reads as “the intensity of the sun”, and demonstrates the artist’s affinity for the universal source of light and energy.
During the years that followed he continued his travels, extending his orbit to Munich
and Hamburg
. In 1924, his work was exhibited in Paris in a show of Latin American artists. He also struck up an acquaintance with British Mage Aleister Crowley
and his mistress Leah Hirsig who held high hopes for his discipleship, but later that year he returned to Buenos Aires, where he promptly became associated with the avant garde "Florida group
" (a.k.a. "Martín Fierro
group"), a circle that also included Jorge Luis Borges
, with whom he was to keep an association and close friendship. It was in this group that he also met poet and novelist Leopoldo Marechal
who would immortalize him as the astrologist Schultze in his famous novel Adán Buenosayres. He began to exhibit frequently in the galleries of Buenos Aires, notably in a 1926 exhibition of modern painters that included Norah Borges
(sister of Jorge Luis Borges) and Emilio Pettoruti
. Throughout the rest of his life, he would exhibit regularly in Buenos Aires and Montevideo
, Uruguay
, but he would not have another major European exhibition until his twilight years: in 1962, a year before his death, he had a major exposition at the Musée National d'Art Moderne
in Paris. In 1963 he died in his house at Tigre, Buenos Aires
, 5 years before his biography by Emilio Pettoruti was published.
and Paul Klee
on the one hand and Marc Chagall
on the other. He also worked in some extremely unorthodox artistic media, such as modifying piano
s, including a version with three rows of keys.
The poet Fernando Demaría
in an essay "Xul Solar y Paul Klee" (published in the Argentine magazine Lyra, 1971, and quoted extensively at http://www.xulsolar.org.ar/xulxul.html), wrote, "It is not easy for the human spirit to elevate itself from astrology to astronomy
, but we would be making a mistake if we forget that an authentic astrologer, like Xul Solar, is close to the source of the stars... The primitivism of Xul Solar is anterior to the appearance of the Gods. The Gods correspond to a more evolved form of energy."
Xul Solar had a strong interest in astrology
; at least as early as 1939 he began to draw astrological charts. He also had a strong interest in Buddhism
and believed strongly in reincarnation
. He also developed his own set of Tarot
cards. His paintings reflect his religious beliefs, featuring objects as stairs, roads and the representation of God
.
He invented two fully elaborated imaginary languages, symbols from which figure in his paintings, and was also an exponent of duodecimal
mathematics
. He said of himself "I am maestro of a writing no one reads yet." One of his invented languages was called "Neo Criollo", a poetic fusion of Portuguese
and Spanish
, which he reportedly would frequently use as a spoken language in talking to people. He also invented a "Pan Lingua", which aspired to be a world language linking mathematics, music, astrology and the visual arts, an idea reminiscent of Hermann Hesse
's "glass bead game". Indeed, games were a particular interest of his, including his own invented version of chess, or more precisely "non-chess".
Outside of Argentina, Xul Solar may best be known for his association with Borges. In 1940, he figured as a minor character in Borges's semi-fictional "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
"; in 1944, he illustrated a limited edition (300 copies) of "Un modelo para la muerte", written by Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares
, writing together under the pseudonym B. Suárez Lynch. http://web.archive.org/web/20041009140216/http://www.xulsolar.org.ar/xulibril.html He and Borges had common interests in German expressionistic
poetry, the works of Emanuel Swedenborg
, Algernon Charles Swinburne
and William Blake
, and Eastern philosophy
, especially Buddhism
and the I Ching
.
The image is of a funeral procession of beings, possibly celestial, led by an angel-figure floating above the ground. The profiles of the figures suggest pre-Columbian art, and possibly an ancient Egyptian influence, as well. The angel-figure as well as the mourners have luminous peaks above their heads, in a re-imagining of halos. The shapes of the peaks are repeated by tongues of fire that point up from the bottom edge of the painting. The image strongly suggests an afterworld, but it is not clear from the image whether the environment correlates to tradition Christian understandings of heaven or hell. Xul Solar provides his viewer with a new image of an afterlife.
Two figures hold a shrouded corpse, which is also surrounded by flames. The hands of the corpse are folded, but above the corpse, a figure resembling a fetus emerges. That Xul uses a fetus instead of an image of a deceased person of typical age leads one to read the image as a depiction of reincarnation, representing a break from traditional Catholic ideas of life and death, and demonstrating the investigation into disparate spiritualities which would continue for the rest of Xul’s life. As the figures recede in the painting, Xul reduces them to geometric shapes. The forms cease to be recognizable as beings, and then are transformed into what can be a tomb, or portal. That all the mourners are of the same color as the temple indicates that they, just like the deceased, will make the same transition someday.
Xul Solar’s life during his twenties was marked by profound existential crisis. His writings at the time reveal a profound desire for creative expression, and a kind of angst caused by the profusion of ideas and thoughts he entertained,
Gradowczyk describes Xul at this point in his life as “a visionary rabidly opposed to the canons reigning in the Buenos Aires of his time". Like other artistically-inclined people of his generation, Xul sought to study in Europe, and settled for a time in Paris while it was an epicenter for avant-garde art. The city was home to the Cubists, while attracting Italian futurists, Russian artists, and participating in the dialogue about German Expressionism. There was also a fashion for sculpture and objects brought back to Europe by anthropologists and traders from African and Pacific Ocean colonies, as well as the Americas.
The artistic canons that Gradowczyk refers to were propagated by the official Argentine art institutions, who favored visual representations associated with national icons. Painters like Carlos Ripamonte, Cesáreo Quirós, and Fernando Fader extolled images of pampas landscapes and rural gaucho culture. The arrival of Spanish intellectuals such as José Ortega y Gasset and Eugenio D’Ors created a new discourse around art that was disseminated among writers and artists working toward an aesthetic modernity. Entierros firmly places Xul Solar as a member of this modernist Argentine movement. Rather than painting subjects recognizable as Argentine, Xul’s focus is internal, painting from his own imagination. His early artistic output seems to represent the profusion of ideas and themes that grew out of Xul's contemplations. The flat shapes and bold colors used in the painting demonstrate a Cubist influence. The faces of the figures, particularly the eyes and shapes of heads can be seen as owing to the fashion for art and artifacts from Africa and the Americas mentioned above.
From 1943 and 1944, Xul’s painting was influenced by his thoughts of the Second World War. The sudden, powerful emergence of inhumanity and the potential effects on the world at large wore very heavy on the artist. Gradowczyk posits that “Xul reached his highest point of artistic expressivity in these ascetic paintings whose theme corresponded to that anguishing reality.
From 1980 to 1996, an Argentine literary magazine named Xul was published. In the essay that accompanied the publication of its anthology, several reasons are given for why the magazine was named as such. The last paragraph of the essay begins, “What should have been first remains for the last: XUL, the name of the magazine, was an homage to Xul Solar, a singularly complex individual, writer among many other things, although he was known mainly as one of the principal plastic artists of Argentina.”
-From Xul Solar’s own writings
-Excerpted from an article written in anticipation of Emilio Pettoruti’s first Buenos Aires exhibition for the magazine Martín Fierro, 9 October 1924
1924 – Exposition d’Art Américain-Latin, Musée Gallièra, Paris, 15 March to 15 April
1924 – Primer Salón Libre, Witcomb, Buenos Aires
1925 – Salón de los Independientes, Buenos Aires
1926 – Exposición de Pintores Modernos, Amigos del Arte, Buenos Aires
1929 – Xul Solar, Amigos del Arte, Buenos Aires, May
1930 – Salón de Pintores y Escultores Modernos, Amigos del Arte, Buenos Aires, October
1940 – Xul Solar, Amigos del Arte, Buenos Aires
1949 – Xul Solar, Galería Samos, Buenos Aires
1951 – Xul Solar, Galería Guión, Buenos Aires
1952 – Pintura y Escultura Argentina de Este Siglo, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires
1953 – Xul Solar, Galería van Riel, Sala V, Buenos Aires
1963 – Homenaje a Xul Solar, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires
1965 – Xul Solar: Exposición Retrospectiva, Galería Proar, Buenos Aires
1966 – III Bienal Americana de Arte: Homenaje a Xul Solar, Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes, Córdoba
1978 – Xul Solar, Galería Rubbers, Buenos Aires
1993 – Xul Solar: A Collector’s Vision, Rachel Adler Gallery, New York
1994 – Xul Solar: the Architectures, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
2005 – Xul Solar: Visiones y Revelaciones, Colección Costantini, Buenos Aires, 17 June to 15 August
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, and inventor of imaginary language
Constructed language
A planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary has been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
s.
Biography
He was born in San FernandoSan Fernando, Buenos Aires
San Fernando de la Buena Vista is a city in the Gran Buenos Aires, in Argentina, and capital of the San Fernando Partido, north of the city of Buenos Aires.- Geographic Data:...
, Buenos Aires Province
Buenos Aires Province
The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...
, in the bosom of a cosmopolitan family. His father, Elmo Schulz Riga, of Baltic German origin, was born in the Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
n city of Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
, at that time part of Imperial Russia. He was educated in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, first as a music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
ian, then as an architect
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
(although he never completed his architectural studies). After working as a schoolteacher and holding a series of minor jobs in the municipal bureaucracy, on April 5, 1912, he set out on the ship "England Carrier", supposedly to work his passage to Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, but he disembarked in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and made his way to Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
. He returned to London to meet up with his mother and aunt, with whom he traveled to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Turin (again), Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, and his mother's native Zoagli. Over the following few years, despite the onset of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, he would move among these cities, as well as Tours
Tours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
, Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, and Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
; towards the end of the war he served at the Argentine consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
ate in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
.
During the years of the war, he struck up what was to be a lifelong friendship with Argentine artist Emilio Pettoruti
Emilio Pettoruti
Emilio Pettoruti was an Argentine painter, who caused a scandal with his avant-garde cubist exhibition in 1924 in Buenos Aires. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Buenos Aires was a city full of artistic development...
, then a young man living in Italy and associated with the futurists
Futurism (art)
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
. Also around that time, he began to pay more attention to painting, first with watercolor (which would always remain his main medium as a painter), although he gradually began working in tempera
Tempera
Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
and — very occasionally — oils
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
. He also adopted the pen-name of Xul Solar. His first major exhibition of his art was in 1920 in Milan, together with sculptor Arturo Martini
Arturo Martini
Arturo Martini was a leading Italian sculptor between World War I and II. He moved between a very vigorous classicism and modernism. He was associated with public sculpture in fascist Italy, but later renounced his medium altogether.-Futurism:Martini seems to have been an active supporter of the...
.
In 1916, Schulz Solari first signed his work “Xul Solar,” ostensibly for the purposes to simplify the phonetics of his name, but an examination of the adopted name reveals that the first name is the reverse of “lux,” which references the measurement of luminous intensity. Combined with “solar”, the name reads as “the intensity of the sun”, and demonstrates the artist’s affinity for the universal source of light and energy.
During the years that followed he continued his travels, extending his orbit to Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
and Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. In 1924, his work was exhibited in Paris in a show of Latin American artists. He also struck up an acquaintance with British Mage Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
and his mistress Leah Hirsig who held high hopes for his discipleship, but later that year he returned to Buenos Aires, where he promptly became associated with the avant garde "Florida group
Florida group
The Florida group were a Buenos Aires-based avant-garde literary group in the 1920s, known for their embrace of "art for art's sake"...
" (a.k.a. "Martín Fierro
Martín Fierro (magazine)
Martín Fierro was an Argentine literary magazine which appeared from February 1924 to 1927. It was founded by Evar Méndez , José B. Cairola, Leónidas Campbell, H. Carambat, Luis L. Franco, Oliverio Girondo, Ernesto Palacio, Pablo Rojas Paz, and Gastón O...
group"), a circle that also included Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
, with whom he was to keep an association and close friendship. It was in this group that he also met poet and novelist Leopoldo Marechal
Leopoldo Marechal
Leopoldo Marechal was one of the most important Argentine writers of the twentieth century.- Biographical notes :...
who would immortalize him as the astrologist Schultze in his famous novel Adán Buenosayres. He began to exhibit frequently in the galleries of Buenos Aires, notably in a 1926 exhibition of modern painters that included Norah Borges
Norah Borges
Leonor Fanny Borges Acevedo , better known by the pseudonym Norah Borges was a visual artist and art critic, member of the Florida group, and sister of the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges....
(sister of Jorge Luis Borges) and Emilio Pettoruti
Emilio Pettoruti
Emilio Pettoruti was an Argentine painter, who caused a scandal with his avant-garde cubist exhibition in 1924 in Buenos Aires. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Buenos Aires was a city full of artistic development...
. Throughout the rest of his life, he would exhibit regularly in Buenos Aires and Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, but he would not have another major European exhibition until his twilight years: in 1962, a year before his death, he had a major exposition at the Musée National d'Art Moderne
Musée National d'Art Moderne
The Musée National d'Art Moderne is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou in the 4th arrondissement of the city. Created in 1947, it was then housed in the Palais de Tokyo and moved to its current location in 1977...
in Paris. In 1963 he died in his house at Tigre, Buenos Aires
Tigre, Buenos Aires
Tigre is a town in the Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, situated in the north of Greater Buenos Aires, north of Buenos Aires city. Tigre lies on the Paraná Delta and is an important tourist and weekend attraction, easily reached by bus and train services, including the scenic Tren de la Costa...
, 5 years before his biography by Emilio Pettoruti was published.
Work and interests
Xul Solar's paintings are mainly sculptures, often using striking contrasts and bright colours, typically in relatively small formats. His visual style seems equidistant between Wassily KandinskyWassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
and Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
on the one hand and Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
on the other. He also worked in some extremely unorthodox artistic media, such as modifying piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
s, including a version with three rows of keys.
The poet Fernando Demaría
Fernando Demaría
Fernando Demaría is an Argentine poet, philosopher and classical scholar.Demaría studied at Buenos Aires’ Colegio Champagnat, run by the priests of the Marian Order, whose dedication and rectitude represent a cornerstone in the poet’s life.He then graduated in Philosophy at the University of...
in an essay "Xul Solar y Paul Klee" (published in the Argentine magazine Lyra, 1971, and quoted extensively at http://www.xulsolar.org.ar/xulxul.html), wrote, "It is not easy for the human spirit to elevate itself from astrology to astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, but we would be making a mistake if we forget that an authentic astrologer, like Xul Solar, is close to the source of the stars... The primitivism of Xul Solar is anterior to the appearance of the Gods. The Gods correspond to a more evolved form of energy."
Xul Solar had a strong interest in astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
; at least as early as 1939 he began to draw astrological charts. He also had a strong interest in Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
and believed strongly in reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
. He also developed his own set of Tarot
Tarot
The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...
cards. His paintings reflect his religious beliefs, featuring objects as stairs, roads and the representation of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
.
He invented two fully elaborated imaginary languages, symbols from which figure in his paintings, and was also an exponent of duodecimal
Duodecimal
The duodecimal system is a positional notation numeral system using twelve as its base. In this system, the number ten may be written as 'A', 'T' or 'X', and the number eleven as 'B' or 'E'...
mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. He said of himself "I am maestro of a writing no one reads yet." One of his invented languages was called "Neo Criollo", a poetic fusion of Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, which he reportedly would frequently use as a spoken language in talking to people. He also invented a "Pan Lingua", which aspired to be a world language linking mathematics, music, astrology and the visual arts, an idea reminiscent of Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
's "glass bead game". Indeed, games were a particular interest of his, including his own invented version of chess, or more precisely "non-chess".
Outside of Argentina, Xul Solar may best be known for his association with Borges. In 1940, he figured as a minor character in Borges's semi-fictional "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a short story by the 20th century Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in the Argentine journal Sur, May 1940. The "postscript" dated 1947 is intended to be anachronistic, set seven years in the future...
"; in 1944, he illustrated a limited edition (300 copies) of "Un modelo para la muerte", written by Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares
Adolfo Bioy Casares
Adolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, and translator. He was a friend and collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges, and wrote what many consider one of the best pieces of fantastic fiction, the novella The Invention of Morel.-Biography:Adolfo Bioy...
, writing together under the pseudonym B. Suárez Lynch. http://web.archive.org/web/20041009140216/http://www.xulsolar.org.ar/xulibril.html He and Borges had common interests in German expressionistic
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
poetry, the works of Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg
was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian. He has been termed a Christian mystic by some sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica online version, and the Encyclopedia of Religion , which starts its article with the description that he was a "Swedish scientist and mystic." Others...
, Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...
and William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, and Eastern philosophy
Eastern philosophy
Eastern philosophy includes the various philosophies of Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Iranian philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Indian philosophy and Korean philosophy...
, especially Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
and the I Ching
I Ching
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
.
Entierro, 1914, Watercolor on paper
After a brief experimentation with oils, Xul chose the watercolors and tempera that would become his preferred media. Instead of large-scale canvases, Xul painted on small sheets of paper, sometimes mounting his finished works on sheets of cardboard. One of his early works in what would become his signature format, Entierro demonstrates the confluence of Xul’s internal thoughts and external influences.The image is of a funeral procession of beings, possibly celestial, led by an angel-figure floating above the ground. The profiles of the figures suggest pre-Columbian art, and possibly an ancient Egyptian influence, as well. The angel-figure as well as the mourners have luminous peaks above their heads, in a re-imagining of halos. The shapes of the peaks are repeated by tongues of fire that point up from the bottom edge of the painting. The image strongly suggests an afterworld, but it is not clear from the image whether the environment correlates to tradition Christian understandings of heaven or hell. Xul Solar provides his viewer with a new image of an afterlife.
Two figures hold a shrouded corpse, which is also surrounded by flames. The hands of the corpse are folded, but above the corpse, a figure resembling a fetus emerges. That Xul uses a fetus instead of an image of a deceased person of typical age leads one to read the image as a depiction of reincarnation, representing a break from traditional Catholic ideas of life and death, and demonstrating the investigation into disparate spiritualities which would continue for the rest of Xul’s life. As the figures recede in the painting, Xul reduces them to geometric shapes. The forms cease to be recognizable as beings, and then are transformed into what can be a tomb, or portal. That all the mourners are of the same color as the temple indicates that they, just like the deceased, will make the same transition someday.
Xul Solar’s life during his twenties was marked by profound existential crisis. His writings at the time reveal a profound desire for creative expression, and a kind of angst caused by the profusion of ideas and thoughts he entertained,
“Dazzling light, colors never seen, harmonies of ecstasies and of hell, unheard-of sounds, a new beauty that is mine… If my damaging sorrows are due to labor in childbirth, I am pregnant with an immense, new world!”
Gradowczyk describes Xul at this point in his life as “a visionary rabidly opposed to the canons reigning in the Buenos Aires of his time". Like other artistically-inclined people of his generation, Xul sought to study in Europe, and settled for a time in Paris while it was an epicenter for avant-garde art. The city was home to the Cubists, while attracting Italian futurists, Russian artists, and participating in the dialogue about German Expressionism. There was also a fashion for sculpture and objects brought back to Europe by anthropologists and traders from African and Pacific Ocean colonies, as well as the Americas.
The artistic canons that Gradowczyk refers to were propagated by the official Argentine art institutions, who favored visual representations associated with national icons. Painters like Carlos Ripamonte, Cesáreo Quirós, and Fernando Fader extolled images of pampas landscapes and rural gaucho culture. The arrival of Spanish intellectuals such as José Ortega y Gasset and Eugenio D’Ors created a new discourse around art that was disseminated among writers and artists working toward an aesthetic modernity. Entierros firmly places Xul Solar as a member of this modernist Argentine movement. Rather than painting subjects recognizable as Argentine, Xul’s focus is internal, painting from his own imagination. His early artistic output seems to represent the profusion of ideas and themes that grew out of Xul's contemplations. The flat shapes and bold colors used in the painting demonstrate a Cubist influence. The faces of the figures, particularly the eyes and shapes of heads can be seen as owing to the fashion for art and artifacts from Africa and the Americas mentioned above.
Fiordo, 1943, Tempera on paper mounted on board
The severe, bleak, landscape in Fiordo suggests ancient Chinese and Japanese prints. Narrow mountains with undulating edges stab up from placid water. Here, Xul communicates his affinity with Asian forms and, in turn, ideas. The ladders that criss-cross the mountains, are described by Gradowczyk as symbolizing spirituality, both of the ascendant nature as well as with the possibility of descent. The single figure in the bottom corner suggests a hermetic existence, a difficult spiritual path that is mirrored in the steep staircases. The figure holds a book in one hand and what appears to be a lantern in the other, representing study and guidance. Xul tells his viewer that while spiritual pursuit can be arduous, others have established a path, and they point the way. A structure appears atop one mountain, ostensibly a temple. None of the ladders lead directly to the mountain peak, however. The path twists and turns, and the doors cut into the mountainsides represent the stages, and possible moments of being waylaid, as one endeavors spiritually.From 1943 and 1944, Xul’s painting was influenced by his thoughts of the Second World War. The sudden, powerful emergence of inhumanity and the potential effects on the world at large wore very heavy on the artist. Gradowczyk posits that “Xul reached his highest point of artistic expressivity in these ascetic paintings whose theme corresponded to that anguishing reality.
Legacy
In 1939, Xul initiated a project to establish a “universal club,” which he called “Pan Klub” in Neocriollo. His purpose was to create a type of salon for intellectuals and those of mutual interests, and inaugurated the club at his home. Nearly fifty years later, his widow, Micaela (Lita) Cadenas established the Fundación Pan Klub, based on the original precepts set by Xul during his lifetime. This foundation established the Museo Xul Solar in 1993, in a building whose design was based on Xul’s work. The Museo exhibits works that Xul himself selected for the Pan Klub, as well as houses objects, sculptures, and the documents compiling his personal archive. The Fundacion also preserves Xul’s home, where his extensive library is located.From 1980 to 1996, an Argentine literary magazine named Xul was published. In the essay that accompanied the publication of its anthology, several reasons are given for why the magazine was named as such. The last paragraph of the essay begins, “What should have been first remains for the last: XUL, the name of the magazine, was an homage to Xul Solar, a singularly complex individual, writer among many other things, although he was known mainly as one of the principal plastic artists of Argentina.”
Quotes
"I am a world champion of a game that nobody yet knows called panchess (Panajedrez). I am master of a script that nobody yet reads. I am creator of a technique, of a musical grafía that allows the piano to be studied in a third of the usual time that it takes today. I am director of a theatre that as yet has not begun working. I am creator of a universal language called panlingua based on numbers and astrology that will help people know each other better. I am creator of twelve painting techniques, some of them surrealist, and others that transpose a sensory, emotional world on to canvas, and that will produce in those that listen a Chopin suite, a Wagnerian prelude, or a stanza sung by Beniamino Gigli. I am the creator, and this is what most interests me at the moment, apart from the exhibition of painting that I am preparing, of a language that is desperately needed by Latin America.”
-From Xul Solar’s own writings
"Although this is a time when art is more individual and arbitrary than ever, it would be a mistake to call it anarchic. In spite of so much confusion, there exists a well-defined tendency toward simplicity of means, toward clear and solid architecture, toward the pure plastic sense that protects and accents abstract meanings of line, mass, and color, all within a complete liberty of subject and composition…
Let us admit, in any case, that among us now – if mostly still hidden – are many or all of the seeds of our future art, and not in museums overseas, and not in the homes of famous foreign dealers. Let us honor the rare ones, our rebellious spirits who, like this artist, before denying others, find affirmation in themselves; that instead of destroying, seek to build. Let us honor those who struggle so that the soul of our country can be more beautiful.
Because the wars of independence for our America are not yet over…”
-Excerpted from an article written in anticipation of Emilio Pettoruti’s first Buenos Aires exhibition for the magazine Martín Fierro, 9 October 1924
Selected Exhibition History
1920 – Xul Solar and the sculptor Arturo Martini, Galleria Arte, Milan, 27 November to 16 December1924 – Exposition d’Art Américain-Latin, Musée Gallièra, Paris, 15 March to 15 April
1924 – Primer Salón Libre, Witcomb, Buenos Aires
1925 – Salón de los Independientes, Buenos Aires
1926 – Exposición de Pintores Modernos, Amigos del Arte, Buenos Aires
1929 – Xul Solar, Amigos del Arte, Buenos Aires, May
1930 – Salón de Pintores y Escultores Modernos, Amigos del Arte, Buenos Aires, October
1940 – Xul Solar, Amigos del Arte, Buenos Aires
1949 – Xul Solar, Galería Samos, Buenos Aires
1951 – Xul Solar, Galería Guión, Buenos Aires
1952 – Pintura y Escultura Argentina de Este Siglo, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires
1953 – Xul Solar, Galería van Riel, Sala V, Buenos Aires
1963 – Homenaje a Xul Solar, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires
1965 – Xul Solar: Exposición Retrospectiva, Galería Proar, Buenos Aires
1966 – III Bienal Americana de Arte: Homenaje a Xul Solar, Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes, Córdoba
1978 – Xul Solar, Galería Rubbers, Buenos Aires
1993 – Xul Solar: A Collector’s Vision, Rachel Adler Gallery, New York
1994 – Xul Solar: the Architectures, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
2005 – Xul Solar: Visiones y Revelaciones, Colección Costantini, Buenos Aires, 17 June to 15 August
Selected works
- Nido de Fénices, Oil on board, c. 1914, private collection
- Paisaje con Monumento, Oil on board, c. 1914, Private collection, Buenos Aires
- Dos Anjos, 1915, Watercolor on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Entierro, 1915, Watercolor on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Ofrenda Cuori, 1915, Watercolor on paper mounted on card, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Reptil Que Sube, 1920, Watercolor on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Casas en Alto, 1922, Watercolor on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Grafía Antiga, 1939, Tempera on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Fiordo, 1943, Tempera on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Casi Plantas, 1946, Tempera on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Muros Biombos, 1948, Watercolor on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Pan Arbol, 1954, Watercolor on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Cruz, 1954, Wood and watercolor, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Grafía, 1961, Tempera on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
- Mi Pray Per To Min Guardianjo, 1962, Tempera on paper, Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires
External links
- Images by Xul Solar
- Museo Xul Solar, in Spanish, including over 100 reproductions of paintings by Xul Solar.
- Biography