Introduction

The XIX century was a difficult time in the initiation of republican to the Equator, and of America in general. We can say that they were years of uncertainty, hesitation, paradoxes, and repeated social and political conflicts. Before the adverse situation in which they lived, they organized institutions in the new country (municipalities, ministries, educational institutions, etc.), that with time, they would fulfil with your work partially, because apparently, we were blurring the objectives of national chief of the order, morality, and progress were fundamental. With the time, you developed a certain level of censorship and repression, in which the liberties were stifled, case mirror during the government of Gabriel García Moreno (1860-1875). Although the work of education and culture of this representative was and is undeniable, as it fulfilled the purpose of development, censorship, along with other actions, fathers' reactions to popular bloody.

The movement of restoration of political liberties and religious tolerance in Ecuador had writers, college students, statesmen, and other characters featured in letters as protagonists. As the writers Roberto Andrade and Rafael Carvajal, who are opposed to dictatorial governments and repressive of the time and that will mean exile or jail. In addition, they, and many others who have dedicated their life and work to the expression of their ideals, stand out in this fight as the writer of Ambato, Juan Montalvo.¹ Antonio Sacoto (2008) says that Montalvo is one of the best representatives of the thinking of Ecuador in the XIX century, which used the written word to explain their philosophy and ideology-liberal policy. To his credit has a series of essays, newspapers and various jobs which make extensive his literary production, such as The Regenerator (1876), a magazine with a focus on political, journalistic and essayistic; Mercurial Church (1884), a response to the Archbishop of Quito Ignacio Ordoñez by the banning of the reading of another of his works called The Seven Treaties; Dictatorship perpetual (1874) is a portrait by literary of the power exercised in its variant more extreme, what makes against the government of Garcia Moreno; Geometry moral (1875) makes calculations to solve problems through the philosophy, the arts and sciences, among other trials. These works have crossed borders to be edited, analyzed, and criticized on several occasions, which has caused other writers to compliment not only your work but also the person. Juan Varela, who after reading Geometry moral says that he has gone back to read it several times, «the little book, and every time it is larger»,² says that the intellect of Montalvo is vigorous and that such is «the breadth of the mind (...) that has penetrated it without confusion and with slack and order all the knowledge of Europe, from the early days of classical civilization, Greco-Roman until the day of today».³ So also, note the use of the language, «such is the amazing capacity of his rich, Plateresque and brilliant language, which through his medium expresses and transmits how much he knows; philosophy, religion, literature and fine arts, putting in everything before expressing it, the original and characteristic stamp of his own person».⁴

Even other writers make comments that are very similar. In the publication on the Fans of Montalvo, in which Celiano Monge and Alonso Moscoso compiled what was written about Montalvo, detailed feedback from peers and contemporaries such as Nicanor Bolet Peraza, who mentions «he has worked workmanship in the Spanish language; he left a large family of disciples, because he taught the expression of virile in combat».⁵ For his part, José María Samper says «not only is distinguished by an understanding of first-order (...) but a spirit instructed with vast readings of Spanish classics»⁶ or Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, who is allowed to participate by saying that «in his work you're proceeding with complete originality, has managed not, however, resemble these kind moralists, and at times at the same Montaigne, without transpose direct imitation».⁷ In addition, his work influenced the thinking of other writers of the time, as the uruguayan José Enrique Rodó, who in Five Trials: Montalvo - Ariel - Bolivar - Rubén Darío - Liberalismo y Jacobinismo, in 1915, states that the great spirit of Montalvo, embodied in his works, has been expanded to not only between those who had the pleasure to meet but also among those who read it.

I must say that the trend in the Spanish of the time led to the commemoration of Montalvo. The hispanicism is understood as the presence of the Spanish in American works, and their study, linguistic understanding, appreciation and literary of the Spanish culture. Structured in four key aspects such as the Catholic religion, the English language, the hierarchical organization, or corporate society, combined with a strong ethnocentrism cultural favoring the contributions of the Hispanic spirit in all social interactions. Guillermo Bustos presents hispanicism as the current political thought and culture that emerged in Spain in 1898, when Spain lost its last colonies, namely, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, because of the incursion of the United States. Poets such as Rubén Darío abandoned his criticism of neo-imperialist Spanish to direct his words against the United States and give this form its support to Spain. Even in Ariel (1900), Rodo proclaims the superiority of the youthful spirit of Hispanic Americans to materialism Americans.

Additionally, the artistic manifestations of the time prove to be intellectual, to demonstrate in their thematic ideals of progress and filial love is Hispanic. Even though the historical processes after the independence of America resulted in attempts to forge the nation, with the pursuit of self-expression and originality, there were raids in favor of Spain, and Ecuador had approaches that were too obvious. The Spanish legacy was valued as social needs, at one time, in which not only the former territories regal attempted to approach but in which Spain also made it to their former territories. Bustos points out that in the XIX century was an accession of Spanish values in Ecuador, which formed part of a hispanophilia.⁸ It is important to clarify that although at the time, the Hispanophiles generally and in its most were conservatives, there were liberal Ecuadorians who made the praises of the mother country, by means of his writings, and that would be the case of Montalvo.

In that sense, the National Congress of Ecuador decrees to honor the memory of the Ecuadorian illustrious «who have sacrificed for the fatherland»,⁹ to which must be purchased the house in which he was born, so that there is created an education campus, and that in this space is erected in a stone of marble, the inscription Juan Montalvo was born on April 13, 1832, and that we start with the popular subscription intended to erect a statue in Ambato.¹⁰ This article presents, in the first instance, the story of the creation of the work in bronze and then, through a description of iconography and artistic reflection on how the image of Juan Montalvo, associated with the filial love of Hispanics, was constructed. The goal focuses on analyzing artistic representations, such as a cultural agreement related to love and respect for Spain with its own representative of Ecuador.

This piece of art has some peculiarities: the first is that it was created in the framework of the modernization of Ecuador, in the expected change appearance of the cities into spaces of civil and cults before and after the liberal revolution; the second is in relation to the development of the origin of the nation, in which the creation of modern heroes was a postulate of the principal; and the third is the one that responds to the trend of reconciliation with Spain.¹¹

Juan Montalvo, immortalized.

Almost ten years after the death of Montalvo, the Congress of the Republic of Ecuador, on October 16, 1900, approved by decree the construction of a monument to perpetuate his image and be lifted in his place of birth, Ambato.¹² Subsequent to this approval, the city council created the committee for the development, planning and execution called the Board of Monument and Park Montalvo. Met the committee, in 1905, they decided to agree with Alfonso Troy, who was already known in the middle for the engineering work on the site, and with Lorenzo Durini Vasalli,¹³ representative of the company L. Durini & Sons, by his experience as intermediaries with the workshops of cast iron, and European artists of the experts. In addition, Durini already had experience in the development of works in bronze, such as the Column of the Heroes of August 10, 1809, in Quito.

Just was tasked with the job, Durini was put in contact with the Italian sculptor Adriatic Froli for the creation of the piece. The contract stipulated a delivery time frame of two years from the date of signature in 1905 for a total cost of 46.090,00 sucres. However, in 1906, relations with the Italian broke down due mainly to the nonconformity of the committee with respect to the initial sketches and the nonpayment of their assets. Then, he was hired Pietro Capurro, who assumed the responsibility of both the work in marble complementary (Bardiglio -dark blue - for parties architectural; Carrara marble for the allegorical representation of the Genius of Poetry) and the pieces in bronze Keller, along with the sketches to final in mud, to his later cast in the workshop of Pietro Lippi Pistoia, Italy.

Between 1908 and 1909, there were various debates related to the veracity of the image of Juan Montalvo, as some of the members of the Board Montalvina were not convinced that the face presented in plaster, first by Froli and then by Capurro, belonged truly to the writer. Earlier, in 1900, the artist Antonio Salguero Rooms had done a portrait painting of Montalvo for the hall of the municipality of Tulcán. The peculiarity is that this portrait highlighted the «very noble like (...) according to the authoritative opinion of the family and friends who knew the illustrious Cosmopolitan».¹⁴ In addition, the face entitlement to that of a sage, «the perfect and premature wrinkles of his face, that shadow of circle senile, the man dedicated unto tireless intellectual tasks, the outcast melancholic, the fighter with the cruel ravages of luck»¹⁵ Additionally, other artists such as Raphael's Rooms had developed similar parts, so that they were backed up socially. However, there was no real consensus as to the resemblance that was present in these works, even though it was the posture of the character and the relevance of the elements and attributes represented. In this way, the Board Montalvina asked the members of the School of Fine Arts in Quito to comment on the piece. Thus, it is also called the Italian artist Carlo Libero Valente, who is domiciled in Quito, made a bust of Montalvo to Capurro to have the idea and the piece to be inspired, but due to the proximity of the delivery, all the attempts were unsuccessful, as the casting of the piece could not wait.

In the middle of June 1909, he came to Guayaquil, sixty boxes with pieces of marble, which correspond to all the elements of a sculpture. It was desirable to inaugurate the monument on August 10, 1909, to coincide with the celebration of the Centenary of the First Cry of Independence in Quito, but the situation with respect to the making of the work in bronze is not allowed. Recently, in October 1909, the actor came to Ambato, the allegory of the Genius of poetry. Finally, the monumental sculpture of Juan Montalvo was inaugurated on June 20, 1911, in the park baptized with the same name. Illustration Nro.1.

Illustration Nro.1 Monument to Juan Montalvo, Montalvo park in Ambato. Photo taken by the authors in 2020. 

The sculpture is composed of base, pedestal, and a bronze sculpture of Montalvo in the cusp. It is a figure of lump-exempt, full length, standing, wearing a morning suit. Montalvo is represented as a young man, «black, Crespo and abundant hair, sparse beard, mustache, not very populated»¹⁶ by allusion to the parable of the Study, and the Writer or Writer. Usually, these characters are dressed in formal attire and modest, and as part of their attributes, they have a pen. Ripa (2016) says that experts tend to be represented in a thoughtful gesture and that the elements that are used as attributes will be objects modest and simple because the attempt is to be noticed in his gesture that put more attention on the issues related to the knowledge that the banal things.¹⁷ In terms of the representation selected, it takes the appearance of a philosopher, «read in the footsteps of the genius thinker and deep. His penetrating gaze, he reveals to the man inflexible that has been consecrated unto long studies and meditations; the lightweight folding of your lips shares the examiner of the human heart, the character used to the harsh battles, who has tasted many disappointments and reaped abundant pains, said a writer physiognomist».¹⁸

The image of Montalvo looks to the west. Your right side is a pedestal, on which we can observe a closed book. His right hand holds a pen that expresses the link between writing and wisdom and the political. This attribute allows the characterization of the momentum of a dreamer and idealist of freedoms and democracy. Through his writings, he denounced those he considered enemies of the fatherland. The pen was then an extension of their ideals, since by means of his works, he «fought against the bad governments, against militarism, the poor clergy, against the intellectual poverty of Ecuador and the spirit of that Patrick travelled by the tip of that pen, such as an electrical current of force incorruptible».¹⁹

The book points to an attribute of eloquence in which the words are art and allow meditation. Written by Montalvo was granted the knowledge of things, forming with it the best and most perfect views, that is from where come the good and the honors,²⁰ and could be considered a «written law, that you should never pass, nor transgress, because it involves the health and salvation.» ²¹ In his gesture, Montalvo is located with an expression lit and thoughtful. Burke and Ripa refer to writers and poets who tend to have the mind occupied and emotions to the limit, which is why your thoughtful gesture.

In terms of its representation as a journalist, writer, and essayist, it is considered to include the allegory of the Genius of Poetry made in marble with a frame internal metal and localized in the base of the monument. The figure of the Genie appears from the Old Age to refer to protection and guardianship, for which reason «is assigned, one to each city, (...) or places».²² We believe that the use of this allegory may be related to the political power in his writings, creating the idea of protection, as if Montalvo was the guardian of something precious, as is the Spanish language or Hispanic.

The Genius of Poetry is represented as a young man wearing a cap light. He holds in his left hand a lyre, which tolls with the right hand, alluding to what she referred to as «the harmonious line of the poetry, the harmonic line in sound, using this instrument (...) when they sang, the things of this earth, by whose lyre were called lyric».²³

The sculpture of the Genius of Poetry turns his face toward the sky in a gesture drawing inspiration from the divine. Ripa poses that the mind of the artists is motivated by the wrath divine, thanks to which images are formed of supernatural things.²⁴ This image is also linked to the Genius of the Lyrics, which has as an attribute between the hands of a few books and weapons, as through his words, is dedicated to war and winning, for his ideals, and in that sense, it complements the representation with the attribute, a laurel branch, in some cases, and in others the olive branch. In addition, what they have in common with the allegories in which he presented a genius is the lira, as this instrument would sing the victories in the form of poems that are constructed in an epic way. The allegory of the Genius of Poetry positioned his gaze to the sky upwards, where the figure of Montalvo- is looking at the figure declared wise, «lifting the face to heaven (...) devour the space with the view, and exclaimed, “Veni, creator spiritus” I, is receiving the creative spirit, you are the light, we own and that life-threatening deified by the fearsome sight check out torrents of intelligence in the form of poems, temples, operas, statuary, boxes, and battles».²⁵

To Montalvo to be Genius was a quality-of-birth, and that in time allows revolutions. The author achieves with his words to return the ashes to the enemies of the homeland and to «lift his country to the pinnacle of glory»,²⁶ argues that it is a skill for one thing, science, or art, a «declared attitude and pungent tastes, (...) so indisputable, that impels him to one of the study or practice in which will make discoveries or end works perfect».²⁷

In that sense, the application of the allegory of Genius refers to the protector of the motherland. The figure of the Genius of Poetry is linked with the Montalvo to include in your context iconological all the alterations of the soul that make possible the creation of the literary and even saves on your inner treasures and virtues that can be transmitted to others.

The link between Montalvo and Hispanic

What is presented in the sculpture is the allegorical representation of the written word, which through the literature is the link to the education of the new generations in the struggle to generate patriotic feelings and morality as fundamental aspects of the new citizens group modern.

According to the social environment in which it developed the work of the writer of Ambato, we can say that, among those who read, apart from the generation of revolutionary ideas, liberal that were modern for the time, there were feelings of excitement and literary, as the reaction that caused the poetry, related to the exaltation of the senses, or even to other literary genres with a social purpose and policy to be accurate.

José Enrique Rodó admired Montalvo for their artistry and style that connects with the language of Castile. What stands out as a guide and mentor lit of America, and eloquently affirms that the use of the Spanish language is admirable and consignment operation. Moreover, in the initial part of the biography of Montalvo, Filmed points out that this was born in a noble family of origin and states that as the child returns to the mother through his teachings, «as the loving mother on the son of her womb” and even says that it is evident that in their letters (...)there was never a literary taste of more net solar Spanish (...) taking all the advantage of their major advantages and excellencies, (...) that prose tested and magnificent it is to the genius of the language, like a magnifying glass, through which is seen bulging to its relief».²⁸

Cesar Arroyo, in his essay, published in the journal America, Montalvo, classical, Spanish, indicates that the inexhaustible source for the development of sugar and the formation of the modern spirit was Cervantes and his work. Writers who took Spanish as an element of expression allowed «all nations to study with love, the glossary with art and interpret it with wisdom».²⁹ Celiano Monge and Alfonso Moscoso in the introduction to the booklet Montalvo before their admirers foreign document publication made on the occasion of the inauguration of the statue, he mentioned that he has sought to praise your figure that stands out among so many authors and that with the spirit of the large sugar mills recognizes their work in the Spanish literature, in addition to using epithets as the Montaigne Ecuadorian and the Cervantes of America Latina. Illustration Nro.2.

Illustration Nro.2 Stamp with the image of Juan Montalvo, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Photo taken by the authors in 2021. 

Américo Lugo makes a semblance between Montalvo and Cervantes in which it raised the similar circumstances they had and for which the similarity is in place. Mentioned that they were both soldiers; the one of the Holy League and the other of the Freedom and the Right. Both fought against tyranny. Were «persecuted and persecutors of the ideal, two knights of his time, whose soul was a prey, they also of the noble insanity of Dn. Quixote of la Mancha»³⁰

Stream points to the Don Quixote as one of the architectural capitals of the human spirit that flowed from the pen of a genius who «ascended to the luminous spheres in which they live hero’s eternal of the great creations of the human spirit»,³¹ it becomes a work immortal. By spirit, language, blood, history, character and environment, the Don Quixote had played a major role and was sacred in Hispanic America as an item developer of imagination and reality in society. The writers of the American nations in the XIX century were not able to come from their origins, says Brook, referring to the connection with Spain, thus indicating that,

whose race, whose traditions, whose deeds and whose customs are the same as those of the Mother country, despite having unleashed, by a law of life necessary, the political bond that she bound them, and from whom she inherited the privilege apex of emptying your spirit in the most divine mold that invented God, in the most perfect way acoustics, rich and harmonious language, which, in homage to the genius that is so immeasurable height of the rose, is called in the world of the language of Cervantes.³²

We believe that to move away from the idea of the barbarian, which was built a long time ago, to take on an emblematic work in Spanish, it was crucial to talk about the civilized nation; that is, they were considered barbarians,³³ the Other, who speak differently, awarding the language well-respected and established, in this case Spanish, as a condition of humanity. ³⁴ For this reason, the Don Quixote as it passes from generation to generation among children and adults, and taught the exquisiteness of the language and, delicate thinking and gentlemanly to proceed, you are perpetual rule of conduct for the ingenious and generous Hidalgo Manchego, mild, in the exaggerations of idealism, for sanity merely practice of Sancho Panza, who, with their rough experience, it is in the immortal novel cervantina the representation of the large part that takes on the life of the material, mud miserable, yes, but the ballast of the entire extent necessary so that the balloon of the existence do not miss bursting in the space of the impossible and the unrealistic. ³⁵

Thus, we are claiming that America owed to Cervantes his filial love, and keep intact his tongue in that «drank so many and such sublime beauty and teachings»,³⁶ including Arroyo says that Spanish is like «a demigod aesthetics, which has placed the divine Manco, with pride, on the altar of all souls; and it flourishes in all minds and all the days, with perennial freshness, the symbolic life of adventure of Don Quixote and Sancho, so deeply embedded in the popular soul».³⁷ You can then say that the one who made a literary work with the language of Cervantes raised him an everlasting memorial, a symbol that shows the ideal, that it is more durable, because of its thoughts, «more expressive, (...) because it is of words; more eloquent and multiple a statue, because it is a book».³⁸

Capello says that although Montalvo roof infamous trends imperialist Spanish, the Ambato-proclaimed «your love for writing classical Spanish and praise to the heroes of the peninsular».³⁹ For Sacoto, as for many others, Montalvo is regarded as the Cervantes of America, who with his literary work, obviously influenced by that of Miguel de Cervantes, managed to position itself as a Hispanic and faithful representative of Spanish civilization. With his novel, the Chapters that they forgot to Cervantes continue with the tradition and literary roots of Hispanics. This work, which was published posthumously, makes stories more satirical than those transported to the Hidalgo of La Mancha in the Sierra of Ecuador to meet adventures to the political enemies of the writer by way of satire. With this piece of literature, Montalvo highlighted his penchant determined by imitating the inimitable. In tribute to Montalvo in America magazine, which makes Juan Pablo Muñoz Sanz in his essay Don Juan Montalvo. The artist and the man raise that to continue or resume the subject in a work successful is an enterprise of reconquest of what was conquered by others, by novelists have recognized your temper in the essence of the work of another artist, the case of Salome, which is in interpreters how to Wilde, Flaubert, among others. Then, Montalvo realized the creation of Cervantes eloquently. When you write the chapters that they forgot to Cervantes, Montalvo was banished, and despite the conditions, no books, no money, is memorable the value of understanding as an intellectual effort, apologetic and sentimental that you put in the work, «Montalvo, in its nature as a writer, seemed a little the model, that on this occasion he tried to imitate. Cervantes, in whom the invention romantic retains much of the simplicity of the primitive epic, had the divine inspiration of the style, and as their art infused; but without, in forces of their own absolute naturalness, of consciousness of style, which is intense and predominant in Montalvo».⁴⁰

Montalvo is served in a singular sense anecdotal in the use of the characters in the work of Cervantes. Conducted a comprehensive description and a formal landscape, as well as a waste of interesting talks, happy adventures, and wise lessons, which according to Muñoz, Sanz was able to achieve by being common traits of his race (the Spanish) and by the greatness of the work to emulate, «(...) in the language has poured wines without a doubt the best of the winery Cervantina».⁴¹ I must say that the imitation of the work of Cervantes is considered not as a copy, but as an opportunity that you used Montalvo to evolve, and dedicated to the essence of the creator, making it grow more to the work and to the original artist. Moreover, Muñoz Sanz refers to this work as the Don Quixote Montalvino and indicates that all of the quivers of this work are that of the higher quality of the treatment of language and ideas, and that is admirable, since it suggests that it is not an imitation but rather would be a continuation of the work of Cervantes, as if through his lyrics, «Montalvo excels an epic, cool, as a hero of the Emancipation of the race Hispanic-American to exhibit qualities Homeric».⁴²

Brook claims that in the period in which he played live at Montalvo, there was a lot of idolatry of the way and grammatically, and as a child of his time, he participated in the «effort reconstructor language»,⁴³ only that in their work, in addition to stylistic note his creative spirit. His Spanish is «not able to be more authentic, or it may be neither more nor most exclusive of its author. It is not archaic, it is not neologist or modernist; it does not contain phrases, or twists or clause, or words that do not prescribe our grammar and that do not contain our lexicon (...) do not notice the slightest trace of imitation of our ancient authors». ⁴⁴ At that time, his literary works are displayed with spirit young, vibrant, universal, and eternal.

Not only speak and write the Spanish pure, but he has studied, with love; it has the rich treasury of his words, turns and phrases, and the uses and orders with inexhaustible ease of speech and artistic skills to express their thoughts. Not that has ever happened, by great and pilgrims that his sayings thoughts are, you will not be able to transmit them to the neighbor in the language of Cervantes(...)⁴⁵

The writer of Ambato is not a wonder of the surface with respect to the Spanish. Socoto (2008) argues that Montalvo is aware that the culture, language, and religion were native to the Equator, and as he himself says, it is a fair appreciator of what is good and noble in Spain and, therefore, notes its flaws. The analysis of the wars of independence refers to with tenacity to the conquered - Las Americas - to raise the top and the glory of the conqueror - Spain - and justifying the actions of emancipation, «our struggle is having conquered the freedom, but it is our glory that he came to the Spanish invincible». ⁴⁶ Shot indicates that the language of Montalvo is «victorious demonstration of the lot, despite trials vulgar, it should be contained in the romance legacy of the Conqueror when he is known in the deep (...) boot successfully to the hardened molds of a stale language, without deformalize or Revealing the purposes ». ⁴⁷ Montalvo does not use the epithet pejorative to refer to those Spaniards who came to America in the XVI century and refers to them as you are not a coward, bad soldiers, or people vagrant.

No, they are not a coward; no, they are not bad soldiers; no, they are not sheaves disordered people vagrants: are the people of Charles V, King of Spain, Emperor of Germany, owner of Italy and the Lord of the New World (...) are the warriors of Cangas de Onís, Alarcos and Navas; they are the people adventurous and determined that invades the world of the unknown and the conquest; they are the family of Cortes, Pizarro, Valdivia, Benalcazar, Jiménez de Quezada and more titans that won the Olympus climb Popocatépetl, the Toromboro and Cayambe. Village illustrious, great people, that in the same decadence feel superior with the memory of their past events and does get out of their grave.⁴⁸

Certainly, Montalvo is considered a true American. The writer Juan Pablo Muñoz Sanz says Montalvo is conceived as what was needed to America, «the illustrious men and scholars, loaded with titles, academic, educated, some abroad or who had travelled to Europe and the United States, had in Ecuador, but an intellectually dynamic that worked, fought and to pursue efforts to redeem gradually to the country of their social diseases almost did not exist».⁴⁹ This indicates that Montalvo wrote that in America, and clearly in Ecuador, social dignity, respect for public freedoms and brotherhood between men are fundamental principles in the territory.

The feeling of love was not only down to the site where he was born, but by the nation that he bequeathed to his culture as an inheritance, then it would explain because Montalvo admired in the Hispanic culture, and I felt love and devotion for the language of Miguel de Cervantes. The pages in the Seven Treaties clearly reflect the spianism of Montalvo when he says: «And Spain! Spain! What is pure in our understanding, it is what we have to you, we must. The think big, the feel to the game, working to the right in us, are those of Spain; and if there are in the blood of our veins few drops purpurins, are from Spain. I adore Jesus, I speak the language of Castile; I coat the conditions of my parents and I follow the customs, how he will hate?».⁵⁰

It should be noted that the language heritage of Spain, to the XIX century, the region was part of the past viceregal of this monarchy, was formed in a unifying element (Gutiérrez Viñuales, 2004), pointing to the figure of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedrra, and your work, Don Quixote, as the largest sample of Hispanic heritage, therefore, to keep the language, and even develop the reading of the works of the Spanish writer was not only assume that the civilization was granted by Spain to the former American colonies but also to accept that there is an inheritance that must be respected and appreciated. We know that in the literary Latin American, Cervantes has been the character that has a higher degree of socialization, and therefore its representation, in the case of Spain, had pretenses of nationalist identification.⁵¹ In Ecuador, although the image of Cervantes is not performed with the same swiftness that in Spain, Juan Montalvo, who is recognized by the magnificent use of language in his works, will be that image of conduction toward the idea that it is directed toward one's own Cervantes the rediscovery of Spanish American by means of the language. «Americans, it is The universe must hear our applause at the moment that the Spanish constitutional took its place among Europe's liberal and progressive: the Spanish liberals are our brothers and friends (...) the cause of the People is the same in the one and the other hemisphere, and our votes should be with them in the race of his glory and of his freedom (...) Glory and Freedom to the Spain of the XIX century».⁵²

Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales (2004) indicates that, in Spain, developed in different years and types, monuments of Cervantes, which reflects that there is a point in common, to raise a monument to the author of Don Quixote, is not only a continuation of its glories but also to immortalize the idea that the writer Spanish is a genius, and therefore, its image had the objective of stimulating the Spanish nations and daughters, as sisters, an identity based on the memory literature.

We can say that it is not necessary to raise a monument to Miguel de Cervantes because Montalvo already did, «the more durable statue of Cervantes is there, carved with the anointing which a craftsman devotee would chisel a holy picture»,⁵³ but the monumental sculpture of the writer of Ambato Montalvo, who responds to the need to remember the figure of Cervantes in the land of Ecuador, works as a trope that refers to the children of Spain, that by means of the language came to the greatness and by means of the works makes a full tribute, a monument to the one-Armed man of Lepanto.

In that sense, this is where the figure of Montalvo relates to that of Cervantes, as his writings have been qualified as the large samples of the language of Cervantes. To borrow a phrase from Carlos Reyero (1999), taken by Gutiérrez Viñuales (2004), will help us, at this time, to explain that Montalvo is a point of reference and a memory of Spain in Ecuador, by which his sculpture is presented as national pride and caste, «as if the literary work was a pedestal that holds the memory of its author, and the monumental sculpture is a metaphor much more beautiful than the result achieved».⁵⁴

This kind of image can be seen in monumental sculptures such as the Guayaquil-Jose Joaquin de Olmedo (1892), a work of Jean Alexander Falguiere, the statue of Louis Pasteur in Paris (1904), Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, San Juan of Argentina, and the work of Victor de Pol, among others. In the case of Cervantes, calls attention to the sculpture made in 1908 by Carlo Nicoli in Havana, where it appears sitting, crossed legs, with a menagerie of the era and dressed in a rough-necked and shim.⁵⁵

By way of conclusion

The sculpture of Juan Montalvo is presented as a figure of the Spanish in Ecuador. It is not the only piece with these features, therefore, you can enumerate the production related to this topic, however, it is possible to narrow with the Commemorative Column of August 10, 1809, where it is possible to see the figure of the ibero-American lion that is being defeated but not subjected in the basement of the monument, or others that were mutilated to avoid confrontation and enmity as is the case of a sculpture Sucre given freedom to the Homeland that was developed in the bronze medal in 1906 and is located in the main façade of the Teatro Sucre. All these pieces, together with others that have not been mentioned, tend to maintain a neutral position and cordial, even to address the issues in a single direction and not to raise the scandal.

According to Jean-François Botrel, the hispanist will be who was fascinated with «the study of language and literature of Spanish and the things of Spain (...) or began to profess the study of language and literature or Hispanic culture or is versed in it».⁵⁶ In the case of Montalvo is a Spanish abroad, which can be understood as one who looks to Spain, not only with fans, but rather as an object worthy of a vision in which go through the essence of language, literature and Spanish history, in the place of origin, although it is built of part of the Spanish obey to the needs and traditions of each country, but crossing and contrasting looks and that inevitably leads to that «imperialism unconscious, this desire of propaganda to achieve an international hispanicism ».⁵⁷

In other words, they are the Hispanists who spread the image of Spain and Latin America in the world and are producers of some specific images that refer as much to the history of the country's gazebo as the nation watched. Juan Montalvo contributed to the formation of the opinion of his fellow citizens with respect to the image of the Motherland, which inherited aspects such as civilization by means of the transfer of language. However, by itself, the language is not enough. As manifested by Renan (1882), the language invites us to meet but not to force links, invites to the generation of these, but cannot force or coerce. By means of language, feelings and thoughts are shared by meanings and not by grammatical structure. Spain certainly shares with Ecuador the language, which Montalvo is our greatest representative, peror the similarity of language does not imply - as it says Renan - the similarity of race. The people of Spain are not equal to those of Ecuador, but that shared past allows the creation of links, which in turn generates the desire to be united, despite the variety, that desire is a strong feeling, even more so than the one created by the language itself, which, as shown by Renan, is sometimes obtained often through that ordeal.

Then, the hispanicism local that was developed was a cultural movement founded-as will tell Capello-in the "compliment" to hispanic identity, which was from its very beginning a racist philosophy. In that case, praised the Spanish origins and the language is seen to the present civilization. To recognize that language and other cultural events and the legacy of Spain are proof positive of intentions "civilizing", in other words, it means to accept that the long-awaited civilization came from another place other than the Equator, and therefore, it was necessary the presence of ideological authority civilizing or that generates civilization, endorsed in the policy approaches of modernization.

As we have seen, relations between Spain and Ecuador were more cordial than with other countries, and while there were conflicts, the hispanophila was presented as an opportunity to modernizing to the territory, since, unlike other places, at the Equator, meant to change the look of the locality where these manifestations are reconciling. The historian Ernesto Capello indicates that there was a process of hispanization in Quito, especially visible in the celebrations of the Discovery of America, also called the day of the race on the 12th of October, or the dates of the Foundation of San Francisco of Quito, (August 28 and December 6, both of 1534).⁵⁸ That meant an attempt to let go of the idea of the city obsolete, to be proposed as a religious center and up to tourism, from the perspective of the Spanish, was to be that the answer to modern, to the frustrations of the time, and as a way of dealing with ethnic problems of the Equator. Additionally, we believe that there was one such attempt in other geographical areas of Ecuador, as in the case of Ambato, in the sense of letting go of the image of the villa, village or town, far away from civilization.

Throughout the country, many intellectuals showed their sympathy with the trend of hispanicism, which is presented as a regenerating and shaping force with the potential to redeem the country. Although we denote the acceptance by identifying Quito as the center of the nation hispanicized, we consider that in other cities, there was the need to make a declaration of consent and affinity with Spain, not only by adhering to the diplomatic protocol but also because, in some way, it is necessary to achieve the desired modernization, according to what we already had, that is, recognizing in the past native civilization to sustain the thesis of the "improvement of race", which allows for the change in the internal view and external recognition in the social and cultural development of the city in the early XX century.

Renán (1882) pose that matching feelings and thoughts to love the same things, that is, to gather around the community of interest, is an element that creates unity. Therefore, although language may be a part of this community, as it is a historical formation, it indicates little about the blood of those who speak it, but it represents the nexus and not an idea by itself of unity with Spain. We mean that it is not even the language, of the bonds of union, it is rather by the ideas which are transmitted by means of this. To achieve the recognition of independence by Spain, to initiate and maintain diplomatic relations between both nations and to develop monumental sculptures that referred to these good relations and indirectly speak of the mother country, it was consecrated as a nation that conforms with and by spiritual principles and deep-communicable diseases. According to Renán (1882), the spiritual principle of the nation, which in turn works as a soul that constitutes an irremediable link, is constituted by the past and the present. The past is the position in common gift shop that has been inherited, and this is outlined in the consent and desire of living together, «the desire to continue enforcing the heritage that it has received».⁵⁹ This reminds us of the duty of memory, as proposed by Bustos (2007). The possession of memories in common and the desire to live together in the present are the elements that contribute to the decision that a community takes to assess a particular region of the past, to which it recognizes a national character.