ARTH Exam 2 Reading/Lecture Information

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What function did Brunias's paintings serve?

Colonial marketing: showed the islands as places where land and people could be 'cultivated and refined' to persuade middling-class Britons to settle; also countered abolitionist images by showing slaves and free people of color as content and orderly.

1898

USA invades PR

Why was Landaluze in Cuba?

Spanish artist living in Cuba 1850-1889, documenting and satirizing Cuban 'types' for a Spanish colonial audience

Brunias/Landaluze: portraits or types?

Types, not portraits of individuals. Both were outsiders making images of the colony for Europeans or colonial elites

How does Brunias stage the mulatresse? (visual strategies)

Tall, centered, bright white dress and turban, hand on hip (authority); framed by a darker servant/suitor in a pose of 'deference and desire.'

How does Brunias depict darker women?

Working, nude or squatting (laundresses, sellers), marking them as 'uncivilized' and less desirable.

How does Brunias depict men?

Often dark and shown as servants, workers or violent: another marker of 'uncivilized.'

How does Brunias stage Carib gender relations?

As 'primitive': dominant men in polygamous households, women carrying loads like beasts of burden; also gave British men a fantasy of 'savage domination' to laugh at and condemn

Racial hierarchy in Brunias

Lighter = more refined and desirable; darker = laborer or threat. Central figure is racially ambiguous but never white. (similar to castas paintings)

Yellow Caribs vs. Black Caribs

Yellow Caribs (leeward) = 'good'; Black Caribs (windward, Carib and African descent) = 'savage.' Young changed his opinion once he wanted the Black Caribs' windward land for sugar.

Chatoyer the Chief

Black Carib leader of St. Vincent. Brunias's 'Chatoyer and His Five Wives'- shows a dominant male and burdened wives, signaling 'savagery.'

Racialized femininities and masculinities

Gender ideals built through race. Examples: refined mulatresse, laboring dark woman, dominant 'savage' Carib man, violent dark man.

Landaluze's stylistic influences

Spanish costumbrismo and caricature.

Landaluze early work (1850) vs. later work (1881)

1850- documentary, picturesque costumbrista types.

1881- opposed to independence. types to ridicule Afro-Cubans and mambises in defense of Spanish rule (after the 10 years war)

Negros curros

means free black- Free Black men in Havana known for flamboyant dress and speech; painted by Landaluze as types, often satirically.

Abakua Society

Men's secret society descended from cabildos; Members were involved in Cuban independence movements.

Abakua origin story

A river and a roaring fish representing sacred knowledge: the daughter fetches water and catches the fish, which is stolen.

Irime

(nanigo dancer) Covered, costumed dancer with bells (noisy)

Campeche

Puerto rican, trained in art. religious paintings and portraits of Spanish and Creole elites

St. John Nepomuk

Patron saint of confession, bridges, irrigation and engineering

TACUI

‘be silent' (confessional seal).

Hacienda

plantation (houses cooler higher up).

Trapiche

rustic sugar mill

Pajuil/cajuil

Cashew

Jibaro

Rural Puerto Rican farm worker; a national emblem.

Velorio de angelito

Wake for a dead child (a 'little angel' going straight to heaven), celebrated with music and dance (bequine)

Baquine

Caribbean wake tradition of music and dance

Puerto Rican flag

Designed 1895 by the PR section of the Cuban Revolutionary Party; illegal to display until 1952. Red stripes = blood; white = victory and peace; blue triangle = sky and sea; lone star = the island.

San Alejandro Academy (1818)

Founded by Escobar, del Rio and Vermay. Second academy in the Americas

Why did the Vanguardia rebel against San Alejandro?

Saw it as 'worn-out' academic practice. The Free Studio of Painting and Sculpture (1937), directed by Abela, offered free tuition and was the first significant alternative.

Antecedents to Cuban modernism

Nature, peasants, Afro-Cuban tradition, costumbrismo

Jose Marti

Hero of Cuban independence; canonized in art and rediscovered by 1920s intellectuals.

Marcus Garvey

Jamaican Pan-Africanist behind the UNIA; Black solidarity; influence on Jamaican racial activism.

Cuban ties to Mexico

(Cuban modernism) Muralism and Rivera's influence- Many artists studied or taught there

Cuban ties to New York / Harlem Renaissance

West Indian migration and exchange, work parallels artists from there

Primitivism

Western movement (c. 1905-35) idealizing non-Western, 'tribal' or prehistoric societies as 'pure' alternatives to industrial modernity; simple forms, bold colors. Per James Clifford, problematic, rooted in colonial 'noble savage' myths. Vanguardia portrayed the guajiro as calm, sensual, natural, timeless.

Mambises

Independent fighters who battled Spanish colonial rule in Cuba

Rumba

Means both a street and a type of dance.

DR timeline

Juan Sanchez Ramirez leads a revolt returning the colony to Spain. Independence from Spain; soon under outside control again. Haitian rule- 'liberating' the east from Spain. back to Spain- (policies 'erasing' blackness begin and continue). U.S. occupation. Repressive, anti-Haitian. Overturned citizenship for Dominicans of Haitian descent.

Vodou

Creole, African-derived religion; the word means 'spirit or sacred energy.'

Lwa

Spirits that fuse African and Creole gods, deified ancestors and Catholic saints. Relationship is reciprocal: services in exchange for protection.

Vodou ceremonies

Song, sacred drumming (calls the gods), dance, prayer, spirit possession (being 'ridden'), food preparation, animal sacrifice.

Legba

Lwa who removes barriers; master of roads and crossroads. Often a feeble old man on a crutch.

Agwe

Rulers of the sea

Danbala

Serpent divinity of water, rain, lightning, wisdom, fertility; Often intertwined snakes. Color white;

Zaka

Patron of crops and farming; sometimes depicted as St. Isidore.

Baron Samedi

Lwa of the dead, Colors black and purple; graveyard imagery, sunglasses.

Manbo

Priest / priestess.

hounfort

Temple, with sanctuary, dance space and altars.

Veve

Drawn sacred symbols that invoke the lwa; a kind of writing system.

Vodou priest training

Herbalism, musical aptitude, skill in understanding psychological and emotional problems.

Ayiti

Taino name meaning 'land of mountains.'

Negritude

Founded 1930s for pride, solidarity, liberation

Surrealism vs. Haitian view

Surrealism treats myths, magic, symbols as the unconscious; for Haitians (and Africans) the spiritual is part of everyday reality.

Poto-mitan

Central pole of a temple; conduit between living and ancestors.

Drapo

Ceremonial flag, sequined or beaded.

'Primitive' vs. 'intuitive'

'Primitive' = label used by foreign critics/Eurocentric baggage. 'Intuitive' = preferred alternative