JPA - Roh, Flores, Leal

Roh

Roh’s essay is all about the new era of art, called post-expressionism, and its transition from expressionism and impressionism. Roh called this new art magical realism. In his essay, Roh describes the differences between this new realism of European art and the previous way people and artists would view a painting. Expressionism and Impressionism has a simplified way of viewing art, focusing simply on the shapes and colors of the objects. Post-expressionism had an objective way of viewing art, such as the smells, tastes, textures, and other representations that came to mind when viewing a specific painting. Viewing art became much more intense and deep according to Roh. Roh also believed that before magical realism, people took the exterior world, which the art is representative of, for granted. During post-expressionism, artists began to take into account the reality of the art that they were creating. For example, a picture on the wall was seen more as a window, where the painting represented the “reality” of looking out into the world around us. Roh explain that Magical realism focused on the actual existence of the art and the material matter that each painting represents, whereas before the art just represented the simple color and shape of the objects. Roh ends his essay by explain how post-expressionistic art paid much more attention to detail than earlier art. He explains that “a small painting the size of a plate could produce the impression of a poster the size of a house.” Post-expressionism was able to focus on many different objects spread over the horizon, and then separate them without some objects breaking off into space as if they did not exist.

Flores

Flores describes the time where Latin America was flourishing with many talented authors, who were all able to perfect the craft of writing fiction. These magical realists were able to transform the common everyday life into unreal and magical stories. At the same time they were able to keep plots that were very logical and easy to follow by their readers. These Latin American writers were able to move away from the highly criticized and confusing writing that filled their past, and create brilliant novels and short stories that made the “magical realism” era.

Leal

Leal’s essay is what he believes Magical Realism truly is where he highly criticizes when Flores has to say. Leal believes that magical realism is not magical literature and does not distort reality into imaginary worlds. Instead Leal claims that it is an attitude toward reality where an author confronts reality and tries to untangle it and discover what things in life are mysterious and strange. Leal says that the events in magical realism have no logical explanation and do not focus on the reality of its surroundings. In fantastic literature, the author must justify the series of events, however in magical realist works, the mystery of the represented world hides and is unexplained. Leal believes that the reader must search for what is realistic in the story and then just accept what cannot be explained without wanting any reason for its mystery.