In their investigation on the
sincretismo in Wifredo Lam's work (4), Lázara Menéndez
affirms that: "it is
not satisfactory the identification of the Afro-Cuban
popular religiosity and Wifredo Lam's work." Sustains
this thesis, a deep investigation carried out about
the artist's repertoire iconográfico and the variability
with which is used . It is certain that Lam
studies and it uses elements of different cosmogonies
expressly, in its universal symbolic meaning and by
means of a process of conceptual appropriation.
I consider that it is part of the artist's
creative process and don't unite exception, the treatment
expressed with the representation of Eleguá mentioned
by this investigator. It is part of a process of design
of icons starting from universal categories and the
artist's personal conceptualizations; numerous specialists
value the plastic representation of the African thing
in their works by means of a system iconográfico based
on categories of universal signs. In the interview
carried out the painter by Gerardo Mosquera, Lam said:
"Africa was not only robbed of its men but also of
its conscience (...). In this (he refers to The Jungla,
the demarcation is made by the author) and in my other
squares I intended to put on the black objects in
function of its landscape and its own world. My painting
is a descolonización act, non physics, but mental.
In Africa they consider me the best painter in that
continent, although I have hardly visited him."
It is in that context and with
that intention that numerous specialists coincide
in that there are not explicit references in their
works, but universalización, construction of symbols
starting from the study and that the artist consummates
genially in a plastic form that the spectator can
recognize as if it was arquetípica.
Roberto
Diago Querol is another
of the Cuban painters in whose works references will
appear to the Afro-Cuban world. Born in Matanzas,
graduates in San Alejandro in 1941 and acts as Professor
for the School of plastic arts of Matanzas from 1945
to 1957. Starting from the years /60, coinciding with
changes introduced by the Cuban Revolution, a freedom
is manifested in the practice of religious cults that
before were deferred, because the systems of political
power of the stage between 1902 and 1959, maintained
the institucionalización of the Catholic religion
and its preeminencia on other cult forms. It also
happens a process of systematizing of the artistic
education in the whole country that facilitates the
access of people with vocations toward the art to
the levels of basic, half study and superior; as well
as a specialized attention to deepen in the vocational
development for those who are interested.
In the period of 1960 and until
final of the decade of those ' 80, artists' promotions
appear inside those which, there are creators with
works sustained in the influence of the Afro-Cuban
culture and in the poetic of their ritual representations.
One of the most important Cuban painters that treat
the Afro-Cuban topic explicitly is Manuel Mendive,
born in a family that conserves the traditions yoruba
and practitioner of the Rule of Ocha or Santería,
the artist it is graduate of the Academy of fine arts
of San Alejandro, in Havana. The Cuban critic Gerardo
Mosquera has carried out important works on his work,
he has investigated his creation process and his capacity
of incorporating external elements inside his personal
world, achieving a passed over aesthetic coherence
of wise ingenuousness. In The House of the Orishas,
a house temple that is in The Marina neighborhood,
city of Matanzas; there is an altar of the Virgin
of the Charity of the Copper (Ochún) with a work of
Mendive carried out in situ.
Starting from the decade of those
' 90, in the investigation carried out by Yissel Arce
Padrón and Ania Rodríguez Alonso have more than enough
visual arts in Cuba and he studied fundamentally this
period, it is pointed out: "The boarding of the popular
religious field has been now one of the elements that
serves as bridge between the current plastic production
and the previous one, treaty from the coordinates
of the new expressive courses. The ritual component
can appear hidden in the adulterated facade of the
mockery or allegory, metaphor (...). This panorama
is shown as fertile land to welcome in the field artistic
popular credos" (5).
Maple and Rodríguez mention artists José Bedia, Zayda
of the River, Rubén Toasts Llorca, Raúl Cańibano,
René Francisco Rodríguez, Julio Neira, Rolando Vázquez,
Marta María Pérez, Carlos Estévez, relating their
direct linked works or indirectly with the popular
cult to San Lázaro.
(4) Menéndez,
Lázara. - AN Eleguá to come closer to the cyclops.
ARTECUBANO Number 1/2000 have.
Pp. 72. Ministry of Culture, Havana, Cuba.
(5)
maple Census, Yissel and Rodríguez Alonso, Ania:
"The relationships of power in the devotion to San
Lázaro. ARTECUBANO Number 1/2000 have. Pp. 19. Ministry
of Culture, Havana, Cuba.
