The magical whorls of Colombino.

AuthorHurtado, Angel
PositionCarlos Colombino, Paraguayan artist

Carlos Colombino is Paraguay's best known artist. On that score there is no doubt. His artistic activity is varied and copious, covering painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, design, and architecture. He is also a teacher and the leading promoter of Paraguayan plastic arts and handicrafts as well as the founder of the Museo Paraguayo de Arte Contemporaneo and the Museo del Barro. In all of these major undertakings he has relied on the help and collaboration of a group of friends and numerous private institutions. In March 1991, Colombino was awarded the prestigious Gabriela Mistral Prize by the Organization of American States for excellence in the field of plastic arts.

It is not an easy task to write about this multifaceted man who seems to have come out the Renaissance to take up residence in Asuncion. One wonders if there is a unifying theme in his multiple endeavors, all of which point to one goal: plastic expression. Insisting on artistic honesty and responsibility, Colombino has produced a body of work with a high degree of continuity. Although he is a man of contemporary times, he does not abandon classical tradition. In fact, he is closely connected to the past through his contrast search for essence and synthesis.

For Carlos Colombino, painting is the most significant of all mediums. His interest began in the mid-fifties, when he was in his teens. Like young painters all over the world, after his first attempts, he reacted against the established system and became a nonconformist. He tried to inject modern concepts into a stodgy art world where landscapes and genre painting predominated. In 1956, at the age of only nineteen, he had his first exhibition. Though immature, his work reflected a dramatic strength and sense of urgency that heralded the artist to come. When he began to study architecture in 1957, this effervescence was subdued. The rigidity of his architecture courses may have led to more stylized forms, more temperate colors, and a more intellectual approach to composition.

The "vegetal" compositions of 1960 take on a tranquil and organic style which, though inspired by nature, is by no means naturalistic. They are, rather, works of abstract construction in which there appear, from time to time, curved lineal rhythms suggesting foliage or plant skeletons.

Two years later, in 1962, Colombino made a great technical discovery. He found that he could carve the wooden boards used for his compositions in low relief...

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