FINE ART & CUSTOM FRAMING
since 1966
Galerie Nader, Years of experience, years of excellence
Our Web-Site is under Remodeling----Pardon our dust!
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FINE ART & CUSTOM FRAMING since 1966 Galerie Nader, Years of experience, years of excellence
Our Web-Site is under Remodeling----Pardon our dust! |
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Genres
Abstract ----------------------------------------------- Themes
Daily/Urban Life
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Haitian Art and Christianity Before its independence in 1804, Haiti, one of the greater Antilles, was the richest of all French colonies of the New World. Known as Saint-Domingue, its immense plantations of sugar required a lot of labor and thus many slaves brought in from Africa, these salves carried with them, over the Atlantic, elements of their native culture consisting mainly of religious beliefs. According to article 2 of the Black Code, their religious practices were banned and Catholicism was imposed onto them as the only authorized religion in the colony. Salves, at first, and later free men and women, had no difficulty in dealing with this imposition of the catholic faith. Several Haitian anthropologists have noted that, on the contrary, in the slave's mind, the catholic religion represented the strength of the white man. Thus while practicing voodoo secretly, their adherence to Catholicism became imperative. As a consequence of this, a most remarkable occurrence was noted that created common rituals and iconographic forms in both religion. In deed, voodooists have since used and reinterpreted Catholicism to suit the purposes of their ancestral religion. In doing so, they have, for instance, come to a clever superimposition of their deities onto images of catholic saints, images that were widely available through chromolithographs imported after the signature of a concordat in 1860 between the state of Haiti and Rome. This synchretic mechanism enraged the Catholic church who discouraged and even banned images of saints by Haitian artists. By the late nineteen forties, paintings and sculptures of Christian religious themes were turning up sporadically. Bazile, Castera (1923-1966), one of Haiti's most famous self-taught artists, represented with much charm, a religious procession. Dewitt Peters, who founded the Centre d'Art in 1944, acknowledges in personal notes dated from 1957 that«.. .in a country where the cult of voodoo is widely practices, purely Christian art is being produced.» He points out, however that there is what he calls a <<split allegiance>> which, he says, is <<manifested in a good deal of Haitian art but also is to be found inn many aspects of the country's life.>> He then makes this interesting comment: << It is not at all unusual for a Haitian to loose himself in the frenzy of a (voodoo) ceremony on Saturday night and to turn up at an early mass in a Catholic church Sunday morning. This dangerous duality is further complicated by the adoption by voodoo of many of the Christian concepts and symbols.>> He further point out that <<there are, however, certain Haitians who vigorously avoid Voodoo subject material and whose occasional paintings are strictly in the Christian tradition.>> In 1950, several Haitian popular artist began painting a series of murals at the Episcopalian cathedral in Port-au-Prince. In the words of Peters, these artists << had sufficiently developed and crystallized their personal styles to be entrusted with this cast project >> In spite of all the controversy brought about by these murals, one must admit that what these artists have accomplished remains the greatest achievement in Haitian Christian art. When finished, this decoration project justly received international acclaim. Time Magazine then published full color pictures of the cathedral's apse, the so-called << naive mouvement >> instantly touched the heart of the American public and artists such as Castera Bazile, Obin, Philomé (1891-1986), Benoît, Rigaud (1911-1986), Bigaud, Wilson and Duffaut, Préfète have since been collector's favorites. In the late fifties, a chapel in one of Port-au-Prince's notorious catholic schools was decorated with religious sculptures by Leon Dimanche and Joseph, Jasmin, this chapel, located on the top floor of one of the school's buildings was however not accessible to the general public. Despite this fact, Peters considered it as an «important victory (that) has been won by artists of the country and by the more liberal elements of the church itself.» Christian themes are most common in the works of the so-called «naive» Haitian painters, they are not as often dealt with by contemporary trained artists and if so, the approach is most of the time symbolic with works that bear social and political contents.
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9260 S.W 59th street, Miami, FL 33173 Tel: 786-371-1134 / 305- 412-9618 Apt (305) 409-7059 #50 Rue Gregoire, Petion-Ville, Haiti Tel: (509) 257-0855 Fax: (509) 257-5602 Prices are subject to change without notice
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