midterm intros

Question 1

cuban catholicism and holy beings: escalera, enriquez, and lam

Answer 1

• Catholicism, as the driving justification of the Spanish colonization of the Americas, penetrated Cuban culture.
• While Escalera’s The Holy Trinity features a traditionally European depiction of Catholic holy beings, Enriquez’s Virgin of Charity and Lam’s The Eternal Presence depict the distinctly Cuban syncretism of the West African Orisha deities with Catholic saints.

Question 2

sugar production

Answer 2

• Cuba 1870: world’s largest sugar producer. History of sugar inseparable from that of slavery, portrayal in art is no different
• Thesis: Landaluze and Aria obscured violent realities of the slaves on sugar plantations to uphold anti-black institution, while Wifredo Lam paid tribute to these realities and the rich Afro-Cuban traditions born out of them.

Question 3

guajiros

Answer 3

HOOK: Like the American identification with the cowboy, *no symbol was thought to represent Cubanidad more than the guajiro.

• In Cuban art throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, guajiros, or rural peasants, were idealized as the most authentic Cubans for their closeness to nature and disconnection from the rapidly industrializing cities and foreign influence.
• THESIS: Victor Patricio de Landaluze’s The Zapateo, Antonio Gattorno’s Guajiros and Plantains, and Carlos Enriquez’s Happy Peasants demonstrate the evolution of depictions of guajiros from, respectively, one idealizing their life and omitting their economic suffering, to strongly implying their suffering, to finally, explicitly condemning the dire conditions of the guajiro.

Question 4

afro cuban contributions

Answer 4

• Afro-Cuban culture is so influential that most, if not all, things associated with Cuban culture, from Santeria to the Rumba, are of Afro-Cuban origin. Yet contributions to Cuban culture not always been respected, including throughout Cuban art history.
• Thesis: Landaluze and Carreno disparaged and misrepresented Afro-Cuban traditions, especially the significance of the powerful íreme spirit dancer, while Abela revered Afro-Cuban contributions to Cuban culture through his glorification of the rumba.

Question 5

abstraction and politics

Answer 5

• In the 1940s and 1950s, various Cuban vanguard painters utilized abstraction in creating politically charged pieces.
• While Amelia Peláez used abstraction in her painting Sisters to critique the status of aristocratic women in Cuba, Mario Carreño and Guido Llinás used, respectively, geometric and gestural abstraction to launch critiques of the Batista dictatorship in their untitled works.