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Lot Essay
The decades of the 1920s and 1930s proved pivotal in Cuba’s history. Idealistic and hopeful, a new generation sought to create a new society, a true republic that would embrace both the modern and democratic. This vanguardia generation made up of middle-class intellectuals, lawyers, journalists, writers, musicians, artists, academics, students, and emerging labor leaders, joined forces to form a new national ethos—a search for lo cubano or cubanidad guided by the principles and writings of Cuban revolutionary hero José Martí. [1] This nationalist movement sparked a cultural and artistic effervescence and provided the opportunity for numerous artists to express and develop progressive ideas about nationhood. Artists such as Carlos Enríquez celebrated and found meaning in la patria, its African legacy, the Cuban farmer or guajiro and used these as symbols of a truly Cuban identity.
Bembé en el solar is a mature work by Enríquez who, after studying art in the United States in the 1920s, returned briefly to Cuba in 1925 only to leave by 1927 to enhance his training and work in New York and Paris. Finally returning to Cuba in 1934, his homeland was to serve as muse for his artistic production as he immersed himself in depicting its myths, land and people in vibrant compositions such as this one. Set in a courtyard of a solar, or an Afrocuban dwelling, Bembé en el solar portrays a religious ceremony or bembé which is a celebration of an orisha, a deity or santo in Santería, a syncretic faith incorporating elements, deities and rituals of the Yoruba religion of West Africa and Catholicism.[2] Symbols of cubanidad are all present in this tribute to his country—the enchanted rooster Osún, manifestations of both the sacred and profane as the figures enter a sacred realm through the music of the bongos and maracas, and the celebrant dressed in yellow in honor of Ochún (La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre) is swept into spiritual transcendence. Enríquez’s iridescent colors swirl and transfigure his subjects who appear other-worldly through his dazzling virtuosity of form and color.
The African presence in Cuba dates to the sixteenth-century when large numbers of men and women, mostly from the Yoruba and other peoples of West Africa were captured, sold into slavery and transported to the island to work the land. By the end of the nineteenth-century, their labor had made possible the island’s domination of the global sugar market. Forced to adapt to harsh surroundings, their cultures and faiths sustained and enabled them to preserve their humanity while endowing the nation with a remarkable heritage.
Margarita Aguilar, Doctoral Candidate, The Graduate Center, New York
1) J. A. Martínez, Cuban Art and National Identity: The Vanguardia Painters, 1927-1950, Miami: University of Florida Press, 1994, p. 37.
2) M. Fernández Olmos and L. Paravisini-Gebert, Creole Religions of the Caribbean; An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo, 2011, pp. 42-59.
Bembé en el solar is a mature work by Enríquez who, after studying art in the United States in the 1920s, returned briefly to Cuba in 1925 only to leave by 1927 to enhance his training and work in New York and Paris. Finally returning to Cuba in 1934, his homeland was to serve as muse for his artistic production as he immersed himself in depicting its myths, land and people in vibrant compositions such as this one. Set in a courtyard of a solar, or an Afrocuban dwelling, Bembé en el solar portrays a religious ceremony or bembé which is a celebration of an orisha, a deity or santo in Santería, a syncretic faith incorporating elements, deities and rituals of the Yoruba religion of West Africa and Catholicism.[2] Symbols of cubanidad are all present in this tribute to his country—the enchanted rooster Osún, manifestations of both the sacred and profane as the figures enter a sacred realm through the music of the bongos and maracas, and the celebrant dressed in yellow in honor of Ochún (La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre) is swept into spiritual transcendence. Enríquez’s iridescent colors swirl and transfigure his subjects who appear other-worldly through his dazzling virtuosity of form and color.
The African presence in Cuba dates to the sixteenth-century when large numbers of men and women, mostly from the Yoruba and other peoples of West Africa were captured, sold into slavery and transported to the island to work the land. By the end of the nineteenth-century, their labor had made possible the island’s domination of the global sugar market. Forced to adapt to harsh surroundings, their cultures and faiths sustained and enabled them to preserve their humanity while endowing the nation with a remarkable heritage.
Margarita Aguilar, Doctoral Candidate, The Graduate Center, New York
1) J. A. Martínez, Cuban Art and National Identity: The Vanguardia Painters, 1927-1950, Miami: University of Florida Press, 1994, p. 37.
2) M. Fernández Olmos and L. Paravisini-Gebert, Creole Religions of the Caribbean; An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo, 2011, pp. 42-59.