Page 376 - Arte e Historia

Danilo De los Santos
what justifies the present award by which, the President has
distinguished you». Then, Yoryi said: «From the deepest of
my soul, happiness made of ringing, roses, chiaroscuros and
my homeland shades, come to tell me, almost at the end of
my journey but with glorious elemental strength, that each
day and every effort, each smile and each tear in my life,
have been recognized and awarded with the magnificent hon-
our you all leave in my chest» (Junior Lora, El Caribe.
November 27, 1972).
«Yoryi considers himself a brush poet,» is the title of an
interview from 1977, subscribed by Rafael Pérez, in which the
modern precursor who «got to the golden wedding with paint-
ing,» does not feel his decline. «On the contrary, after a visual Ortega, in 1979. Around the 80s, dies at age 95 the great
illness already surpassed, he keeps painting with great energy
and dedication,» declaring Ï feel the painting in all my being»
(…) After all, I have had great vitality (…) I have been working
with a none tropical intensity I love to paint spontaneously (…)
I always try to be as sincere as possible in my life, to do what
I really feel, even if I’ll have to suffer damage for it» (Rafael
Pérez, La Noticia, July 24th, 1977).
Yoryi Morel fell ill and was interned at the Coromi-
nas Clinic. Knowing he would never combine chromatic
ranges again, not to smoke a cigar or get back to the family
home; he asked to be accompanied by his kids. Jaime Mo-
rel (Jano) flew home from Argentina where he was doing
career as a musician. The dying father asked him to play
with the violin the song «Spring Breeze». «After listening to
it, Yoryi said good bye, and entered the final sleep…» (Domingo
Saint-Hilaire Junior, Listín Diario, Abril 16th, 1979).
«Marine,» oil/canvas, 24x30 inch., 1964. The theme was
not a usual one in master Yoryi Morel; always imbued
by the Cibao’s and his native Santiago landscapes. Nev-
ertheless, his work as a professor at the National School
of Fine Arts pushed him to listen to the Caribbean Sea
swell; to interpret it with his palette light. «Quartet (Farm-
ers Celebration),» oil/canvas, 13x15 inch., no date.»The tittle
subjects it is about a traditional «perico ripiao» livening
up a farmers celebration with dancers, waiting for a bar-
becued pork on a brush shelter. «Elder Woman with Girl,»
oil/canvas, 13x16 inch., no date. The scene is a typical vision
of an impoverished house’ inhabitants. Landscape, water-
colour/paper, 15x19 inch., no date. The fast stroke domi-
nates a rural view composition. The chromatic contrasts
create an emotional and impressionist atmosphere.
Languages’ New-Behavior
Great and experienced Dominican teachers of mo-
dernity died in the seventh decade of the twentieth
century, leaving trace of a transcended legacy: the avant-
garde artist Jaime Colson, in 1974, the delusional Yoryi
Morel, in 1979, and the hallucinated Gilberto Hernández
precursor Celeste Woss y Gil (Santo Domingo from 1890
to 1985), while Darío Suro recalls in the city of Wash-
ington DC a cycle of Dominican landscapes and forests
in ceramics, sculptures and paintings in acrylic almost
parallel to his erotic period.
Darío Suro combines aspects of landscape and hu-
man corporeality in the remarkable work «Storm,» oil/
canvas 48x36 cm., 1987; provides the visualization of an
emerging leg until its foot, with storming waters mov-
ing. Painting of dramatic lyricism where figuration and
geometric focus, define onslaught and death. It is an
eloquent representation of our painting trajectory, in
which Suro is a linchpin because of his constant and vital
transgressions, or self ruptures justified when he claimed
that to keep the same style and discourse-linguistic and
thematic-is very boring.
If some general features can be seen in our modern
and contemporary visual arts, one is its timelessness in
the Western context from which its nourishment emerg-
es. Another one is the variety of its linguistic conjuga-
tions, and the third, the sense of belonging expressed by
the artistic sector to interpret national trends to a greater
extent. In the 1980s, the new Dominican configuration
can be determined; the simultaneous realism as the aca-
demic and naturalist hyper-realism and magical realism.
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