Hombre constructivo [Constructive Man]

Julio Alpuy studied and taught at the Taller Torres-García [Torres-García Workshop], founded in 1943 with the objective of shaping a new generation of modern artists in Uruguay. "Hombre constructivo" exemplifies the lessons about constructive art taught at the workshop. Students learned to reduce the representation of objects to their basic visual elements of line, form, and color. Then they integrated figures into a grid created through the Golden Mean, a system of proportions developed in Ancient Greece. To emphasize the abstract quality of the work, instructors taught pupils to paint with limited colors. In this painting, Alpuy tries to balance these principles with a more personal style, favoring bright colors and establishing a looser relation between figure and geometric structure.