Armando Reverón (1889-1954)

Mr. and Mrs. Carlos Vicente Sucre Vegas, Caracas
Thence by descent to the present owner

Alfredo Boulton and Guillermo Meneses, Reverón, Caracas, Macanao Editores, 1979, p. 79, Illustrated in color
Juan Calzadilla, Armando Reverón, Caracas, Ernesto Armitano, Editor, 1991, p. 122 and 294, no. 96, illustrated in color

It is on the Playón, a few yards from his doorstep, that Armando Reverón painted most of the landscapes he produced throughout his career. He would sometimes turn east (as in this case) facing Caraballeda point, or he would turn west and find Punta Mulatos (dominating La Guaira) and further east, Cabo Blanco (White Cape).  Reverón alternated between painting wide open landscapes from high vantage points– thus showing large views of the Caribbean shoreline with mountain masses plunging into the ocean – and concentrating on smaller vignettes to offer an intimate view of the landscape through coconut trunks or, as in this case, a close-up of what may be the most massive group of uveros (sea grapes) the artist ever painted.

Executed circa 1930, at the height of his artistic powers, these uveros stand apart from his more open and spacious landscapes. The shore, boulders, tree trunk, and foliage are rendered as if Reverón was intentionally investigating a perspective meltdown.  He depicts the trees, the light and the ground on the very surface of the canvas without delving deeper. The viewer’s eye is forced to reconstruct a rather common subject matter from a great variety of brushstrokes in whites, blues, and greens that seemingly float on the sides of the diagonal tree trunk – which is, with a rather timid horizon, the only directional element in this impressive composition. As in other paintings of this period, parts of the canvas are left unpainted. Although the left side of the painting shows a clear mass of blue air above the water, it is on the right side of the painting, in the almost abstract central space that the viewer may perceive a sense of distance in the atmospheric blur between the tree in the foreground and the more monumental uvero shrubs in the background.