Historia Kiria is an example of Figari's pictorial cycle as mirrored in his literary works. In this book, he creates a utopian society, placing the primitive and the evolved man in the same context. This corresponds to the idea lying behind Paul Gauguids flight to the Pacific islands in search of paradise. He looked to the beginnings of man, to humanity unspoiled by the artifice of civilization. This series, the inception of which predates 1921, shows man naked in a landscape.
Man is invariably in perfect harmony with or an integral part of nature.
These blacks originally fled to Uruguay from Brazilian slavery. There were no true artistic precedents in Uruguayan art for Pedro Figari's personal vision and style. In the Western Hemisphere, this development seems a natural consequence of a country's separation from its colonial past. Figari's pictorial representations of remembered scenes were not only a means of celebrating his native land but also an attempt to elevate public awareness of the validity of portraying native subjects. We have lived besotted with the wonders of the old world, and this attitude has not accompanied the spirit of freedom and sovereignty that a deeply original creativity demands.