Nadadores (Swimmers)

The work of Francisco Pérez Mateo is linked to the New Objectivity, a movement that became known throughout Spain with the publication of Franz Roh’s Magischer Realismus (Magic Realism) in 1927 and other texts by Matila C. Ghyka, who spread an interest in geometric rationalisation in forms and proportions in art. Roh’s text advocated the representation of the object as a second creation, not as an imitation, an essence of the expression of a purified world, which reconstructed the object according to the artist’s interiority. These ideas can be found in Nadadores (Swimmers). The composition is original; the frontality of the main figure, the fragmented views of other swimmers and the flattened perspective of the ladder rungs and diving board create an atmosphere not only of competition sports, but also of the hustle and bustle of the modern world, through geometric lines and measured objectivity. The relief, in contrast to its atemporal almost primitive aspect, can also be taken as an example of linking leisure activity and sports to the idea of modernity, an aspect that was simultaneously being dealt with in poetry by the writer Concha Méndez.

Carmen Fernández Aparicio