Cuban Styles of Art
Cuban art is a combination of African, European, and North American cultural art styles. The art features a combination of 20th century modernism with growing vanguardism movements. Vanguardian artists started with painters like Antonio Gattorno. His oil painting, titled The Siesta, was an inspiration to the surrealist Cuba. Other artists such as Eduardo Abela, Fidelio Ponce de Leon, and Carlos Enriquez Gomez were all responsible for the new Cuban nationalist movement at the start of the 20th century.
These early painters adapted European and Mexican art style interpretation to the Cuban people. They also found a sense of directness and idealization that resembled early Renaissance paintings. Many of the paintings also showed a modern primitivism art style. Paintings were filled with exotic, rural landscapes with simple people. Primitivism was also connected to a changing Cuban country. Themes of change, death, and transformation were all part of growing Cuban nationalism, and they were strongly depicted in early 20th century paintings.
After the Cuban revolution, many artists went into exile and submission. They became more isolated and were both anti-European and American. Cuba’s art forms were censored from the 1950s to the early 1980s. In the 1970s, the graduates of art schools began teaching younger students about different art forms. Their teachings created a platform in which students learned about expressive freedom. This new freedom of expression influenced the way art was portrayed. This time, art gave out a message and a new style. The new generation learned about individual freedom that spread into the next decade. By the 1980s, Cuban art became more natural and less politically influenced. This new expression of art was, in part, due to a newer post-revolutionary generation.
Different paintings like the ‘Volumen Uno’ and ‘Havana Bienal’ showed off personal expressionism and a new sense of freedom. In and after the 1980s, Cuba began seeing individuals who were seeking to express themselves in different ways. At the same time, painters began to feel the strong isolation that was all around them. The sculpture ‘Immediately Geographic’ showed a broken Cuba. It was clear that Cuba was still very repressed, and at times, paintings showed a Cuban country that was regressing back to the revolution.
Cuba has gone through different eras of art. The most common art forms were modernism, primitivism, and vanguardism. Each style not only showed expression, but a strong connection with Cuba’s rich and prosperous history.
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