Composición [Composition]

In "Composición" Joaquín Torres-García explores a scheme of traditional archetypes that characterized his signature style, Constructive Universalism. The sun, symbolizing the divine spirit, rules the universe, which the artist divided in three realms: the intellectual (clock and compass), the emotional (human figure, heart, temple, ship), and the physical world (fish). A few months after he returned to Uruguay, after living in Europe for forty years, Torres-García sent this sketch as a form of update to his friend Anatole Jakovski in France. He had met this Russian-born, naturalized French art critic and art collector during the early 1930s, when both were part of an important circle of concrete artists active in Paris. Below the drawing he included a dedication: “To my dear friend Jakovski, cordially, J. Torres-García. Montevideo, November 17, 1934.”