Arts and Religions of Haiti: How the Sun Illuminates under Cover of Darkness by LeGrace Benson

Abstract

Arts and Religions of Haiti: How Sun Illuminates under Cover of Darkness. By LeGrace Benson. Kingston and Miami: Ian Randle Publishers, 2015. ISBN: 978-9-76637-730-4. 328 pp. $75 cloth.Review by Lindsay J. TwaLeGrace Benson's Arts and Religions of Haiti: How Sun Illuminates under Cover of Darkness is a sweeping and lavishly illustrated study that incorporates decades of primary research and interviews on art and artists of Haiti. Benson organizes her ambitious book around concept of Conversations, a living network of mutable communication at geographic, political, and cultural crossroads of Caribbean, making Haiti's arts and religions an incredibly complex Creole mix. The book is divided into seven sections, of various lengths, that describe the environment historically and geographically surrounding situating art environment both as illustration and as expression of it (xxxiv). Benson shows how Haitian art arises out of a multifaceted environment of understandings, communications, and worldviews, taking reader beyond what disciplines of art history or studies alone could offer.Sections 1 and 2 introduce religions that coexist within Haiti. Benson argues that Haiti's environment is ubiquitous and allencompassing: Kreyol sensibilities exert a shaping force on creation of arts, whether ostensibly secular, or commercial or evidently religious (7). Alongside Vodou and Roman Catholicism, trace religions reside within this matrix, whose influences have ebbed and flowed variously over time, including indigenous Taino practices, various denominations of Protestant Christianity, Freemasonry, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and a wide range of superstitions and magical practices. Secularism, European Humanism, and Enlightenment philosophy are also present, though Benson argues throughout that while many Haitian artists would describe themselves as nonreligious, most works that reveal a dedicated mindfulness to what they regard as Pwofon (Deep Haiti), with its Long Conversations reaching back to Africa, maintained traditional practices of Vodou and aspects of Alchemy and varieties of magic (12).1Benson might sometimes seem to overextend her argument, especially documenting trace presences of Taino beliefs, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism. She reminds us however, that art and practices are always a living state of change, and remnants can be found in narratives retained or invented from or for Long Conversation (20). For example, beyond what can be documented from Taino material evidence, of which Benson includes several fascinating archeological artifacts, contemporary artists, such as Josie Joseph and Franklin Joseph, have created a Taino imaginaire-a romance of Ayiti pre-Columbus-to invoke political resistance through representations of Taino and their symbols (20). More problematic to document and prove, Benson suggests Islamic influences for some Haitian images of Djab (devil) and human-animal composites as well as patterning found paintings and sacred flags, both historic and from more contemporary artists such as A. J. Auguste and Maxon Scylla. Throughout, Benson brings scholarly sources into dialogue with artwork and interviews gathered from communities across Haiti. If some connections seem tenuous, this is partly because oral tales, memory, and creative practices can communicate and produce meaning that exists beyond what is officially documented within historic record.Section 3, and Its Close Relations, provides clear evidence for impact and contributions of Freemasonry and its other close relations to Haitian visual arts and practices. In doing so, Benson accomplishes for Haitian art history what David Bejelajac and others have achieved field of US art history. Painter Philome Obin was a Freemason, but artists outside organization also integrated symbols of Freemasonry, mesmerism, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, and other mystical practices. …