Negrista Influences in the Cuban Drawings of Galician Castelao and Manchego García Maroto

Irina Bajini

doi:10.30687/ri/2037-6588/2019/111/003

Abstract

In this article we compare the graphic representations of two Spanish artists both committed to representing Cuban transculturation in the era of the avant-gardes of the 20th century. In a climate of negrista cultural effervescence and optimism for the accomplishment of the republican project, the trip and the happy stay in Cuba of Federico García Lorca were developed together with the musicologist Adolfo Salazar and the painter, writer and engraver Gabriel García Maroto. Eight years later, also a Galician from humid and cold lands like Alfonso Castelao would undertake the same American journey and, in spite of his political worries and his personal anguish for the future of Spain, he would find in Cuba a haven of peace from where he swelled his artistic creativity. There is no doubt that Castelao's negrism, being naturally refractory to the seduction of exoticism and folklore, appears more austere than the representations of other Spanish artists, who are, like García Maroto, more fascinated and influenced by Cuban vitalism.

Highlights

In this article we compare the graphic representations of two Spanish artists both committed to representing Cuban transculturation in the era of the avant-gardes of the 20th century
Para ilustrar el proceso bastarían pocos ejemplos: un pregón – El Manisero – de Moisés Simons, que conquistó a Josephine Baker y al mundo; el ritmo del son que Nicolas Guillén quiso asimilar a sus versos; las células sonoras africanas que Amadeo Roldán y Alejandro García Caturla incorporaron a sus composiciones cultas vinculadas a las vanguardias europeas; Ecué-yamba-O, una exclamación de ‘negro brujo’ que Alejo Carpentier transformó en título de su primera novela; los forcejeos de una legión de ilustradores y pintores comprometidos en llevar el ‘color cubano’ a los altos niveles de la cultura nacional
Estas reflexiones, creo que la clave para explicar esta diferencia sin recurrir a fáciles generalizaciones sobre supuestas idiosincrasias regionales, debe buscarse en los pocos y dramáticos años que dividen las estancias de estos dos artistas en Cuba: si García Maroto realiza su viaje en 1930 saliendo de la España republicana, en un clima de gran optimismo, Castelao, en 1938, está huyendo de un país en llamas y se identifica de inmediato en la condición de eterno desarraigo de las victimas de la diáspora africana

Summary

Introduction

In this article we compare the graphic representations of two Spanish artists both committed to representing Cuban transculturation in the era of the avant-gardes of the 20th century.

Results

Conclusion