First volume of essays on the visual arts written by Mexican poet and Nobel laureate Octavio Paz is preceded by a preliminary note or {Aviso,} meaning both "warning" and "notice." Paz states that he has not written about art as a professional critic but as an {aficionado.} Covers heterogeneous topics such as Paz's famous essay "Apariencia Desnuda" on Marcel Duchamp; "El Grabado Latinoamericano;" and "Arte e Identidad: los Hispanos de los Estados Unidos," which Paz wrote for the exhibition catalog of {Hispanic-American artists in the United States} (Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1986). Despite Paz's {Aviso,} the collection is a superb exercise in erudition that requires the reader to have an acquaintance with the history of culture, philosophy, literature, and the arts in general.