SOURCE: An Introduction to On Art And Literature by José Martí: Critical Writings, edited by Philip S. Foner, translated by Elinor Randall, Monthly Review Press, 1982, pp. 13-33.

In the following introduction to an anthology of Martí's essays on art and literature, Foner demonstrates Martí's appreciation for groundbreaking art and his belief that American art—especially Latin American art—should have a social and political function.

In April 1880, José Martí wrote to his friend Miguel Viandi in Havana: "If you could see me struggling to dominate this beautiful but rebellious English: Three or four months more and I shall open a way for myself."¹ Martí's first article in English testifies both to his remarkable ability to master the language as well as his insight as a critic of art. Written for the newly founded magazine The Hour, it was entitled "The Metropolitan Museum of Art."² Mart...