"Buscar la raíz de todo": Martí en la subasta Stewart

Abstract

This is an analysis of José Martí's chronicle of the auction of the Stewart collection in 1887. Through a close reading and a comparison with other chronicles of the author and other reports on the event, I show how Martí manipulates the information and performs a complex work with the form to make his chronicle a coherent whole: a reflection about the soul and about art, its trade and appreciation. In his chronicle, painting soothes the suffering soul, and the auction-the most degrading manifestation of the art market-endangers that relief. In opposition to the auction's implications, Martí looks for a way to approach the work of art that does not put the market at the center of the narrative, but that does not ignore it either. At the same time, he proposes and puts in practice the appreciation of the work of art as a condition for its enjoyment.