Walking from the Central Park towards the sea on Zulueta Street, we arrive at the National Museum of Fine Arts. Founded on April 28, 1913 by the architect Emilio Heredia, the Museum originally had several locations in the capital, until in 1955 the building that currently houses the Cuban art collection was inaugurated, in Trocadero between Zulueta and Monserrate.4
Touring all the martyred iconography in the National Museum goes beyond our possibilities in time and space. An approach to the vastness of this iconography was the exhibition “Like a Bath of Light,” presented at the Hispanic-American Center for Culture in 2015, to commemorate the 120th birthday of the National Hero’s fall in combat. The exhibition showcased forty works by artists such as Federico Edelman, Armando Menocal, Esteban Valderrama, Jorge Arche, Eduardo Abela, Adigio Ben\u00edtez, Pedro Pablo Oliva, Ra\u00fal Mart\u00ednez, Carlos Enr\u00edquez, Ren\u00e9 Portocarrero, Nelson Dom\u00ednguez and others.
In the National Museum we will only stop at two paintings. We will start with one of the best known, the Mart\u00ed painted by Jorge Arche in 1943: a window open to the Cuban countryside, through which the Apostle is looming dressed in white guayabera, with one hand on his chest and the other exceling outside the frame.
About the Mart\u00ed de Arche has commented the critic Israel Castellanos Le\u00f3n:<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
![\"Arche\"](\"https:\/\/www.palabranueva.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/arche.jpg\")
\r\n“… it is undoubtedly his most accomplished portrait and the one that has made him transcend in a special way in the history of Cuban art. In this painting, the rural landscape in the background is not a mere curtain, for it alludes to the land that the Apostle was forced to abandon and to which he returned to die. Hands are not crossed either, idle. One points and tries to cover the wound, the deadly slash? in white clothing; and the other rests on the frame, insinuating leaving the painted space, from that ‘other’ reality, and moving on to that of the viewer of the moment, as if looking to update himself permanently.”5<\/p>\r\n
Mart\u00ed’s death in Dos R\u00edos had already been the subject, in 1917, of a painting by Esteban Valderrama. But the painter, being harassed by the critics of his time, decided to destroy the work, of which only a few photos remained. In 1939, as part of the project for a mural of the same name, Carlos Enr\u00edquez painted “Dos R\u00edos”, a painting that, sent by the painter’s friends to the contest convened in 1953 on the occasion of the Centenary of Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed, won the prize in painting of that contest.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
![\"Dos](\"https:\/\/www.palabranueva.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/7798d544c4ce9418337cd2a0e39d509c-205x300.jpg\")
\r\nAmong Enr\u00edquez’s characteristic transparencies is Mart\u00ed in the arms of a pale lady who kisses him. Death? “Kiss on the forehead the white lady \/ those who must die early,” Juana Borrero wrote. The homeland? “When you die \/ in the arms of the grateful homeland \/ death ends, the prison breaks, \/ begins at last with the death of life!” wrote Mart\u00ed himself. The frightened horse spins with the rest of the painting in the middle of a whirlwind dream, a dream that is expected to awaken to discover that it is not true that the hero has fallen.
A few meters from Fine Arts, in the square next to the church of the Holy Angel \u2013 where Jos\u00e9 Juli\u00e1n Mart\u00ed y P\u00e9rez was baptized \u2013 is the studio of Kamyl Bullaudy, who defines himself as “painter and martyrdom”. Born in 1962 in Velasco, Holguin, he studied at the School of Art of Las Tunas, where he graduated in 1991. According to one interview, one night in 1995 she found prophetic: “I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t fall asleep. It was a strange thing because I had Mart\u00ed in my mind, and I got up and started and dawned painting it.”6 Since then Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed is a constant presence in the work of Bullaudy, who has represented him in multiple facets and with various techniques. “Painting the Apostle is my great passion. It is difficult to achieve a new image, but there will always be a different dialogue, a renewing concept and a thought to bring to art. The debt is infinite.”
Kamyl is a member of the national board of the Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed Cultural Society and a Martiano Club, and states that for him Mart\u00ed “is one more member of the family […]. I have land from Dos Rios. Behind the bed is a great cloth with him drawn, it’s like my guardian angel. He’s like my neighbor, my father, I talk to him.”
Perhaps that is why tenderness in his paintings is evident, as is the case in “The Two Princes”, where the already mythical character of Saint Exup\u00e9ry shakes hands with that endearing prince of spirit and virtue called Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed. At the same time, the title of the painting alludes to Helen Hunt Jackson’s well-known poem that translated Mart\u00ed for The Golden Age.<\/p>\r\n
Mart\u00ed’s death in Dos R\u00edos had already been the subject, in 1917, of a painting by Esteban Valderrama. But the painter, being harassed by the critics of his time, decided to destroy the work, of which only a few photos remained. In 1939, as part of the project for a mural of the same name, Carlos Enr\u00edquez painted “Dos R\u00edos”, a painting that, sent by the painter’s friends to the contest convened in 1953 on the occasion of the Centenary of Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed, won the prize in painting of that contest.<\/p>\r\n
Among Enr\u00edquez’s characteristic transparencies is Mart\u00ed in the arms of a pale lady who kisses him. Death? “Kiss on the forehead the white lady \/ those who must die early,” Juana Borrero wrote. The homeland? “When you die \/ in the arms of the grateful homeland \/ death ends, the prison breaks, \/ begins at last with the death of life!” wrote Mart\u00ed himself. The frightened horse spins with the rest of the painting in the middle of a whirlwind dream, a dream that is expected to awaken to discover that it is not true that the hero has fallen.
A few meters from Fine Arts, in the square next to the church of the Holy Angel \u2013 where Jos\u00e9 Juli\u00e1n Mart\u00ed y P\u00e9rez was baptized \u2013 is the studio of Kamyl Bullaudy, who defines himself as “painter and martyrdom”. Born in 1962 in Velasco, Holguin, he studied at the School of Art of Las Tunas, where he graduated in 1991. According to one interview, one night in 1995 she found prophetic: “I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t fall asleep. It was a strange thing because I had Mart\u00ed in my mind, and I got up and started and dawned painting it.”6 Since then Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed is a constant presence in the work of Bullaudy, who has represented him in multiple facets and with various techniques. “Painting the Apostle is my great passion. It is difficult to achieve a new image, but there will always be a different dialogue, a renewing concept and a thought to bring to art. The debt is infinite.”
Kamyl is a member of the national board of the Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed Cultural Society and a Martiano Club, and states that for him Mart\u00ed “is one more member of the family […]. I have land from Dos Rios. Behind the bed is a great cloth with him drawn, it’s like my guardian angel. He’s like my neighbor, my father, I talk to him.”
Perhaps that is why tenderness in his paintings is evident, as is the case in “The Two Princes”, where the already mythical character of Saint Exup\u00e9ry shakes hands with that endearing prince of spirit and virtue called Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed. At the same time, the title of the painting alludes to Helen Hunt Jackson’s well-known poem that translated Mart\u00ed for The Golden Age.<\/p>\r\n
The equestrian statue
in the Park March 13
Next to the former Presidential Palace, today museum of the Revolution, where Zulueta and Monserrate streets converge to become the beautiful Avenida de las Misiones, stands the replica of the equestrian statue of Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed that was made in 1958 by new York artist Anna Hyatt Huntington. The original monument is located in New York Central Park. The 5.63-meter effigy, unique in the world where Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed appears on horseback, depicts the Apostle’s death in combat in Dos R\u00edos, and rises on a black granite pedestal, on whose sides a brief synthesis of Mart\u00ed’s life appears, in English and Spanish:
“Apostle of cuba’s independence, a guide to American peoples and a paladin of human freedom, his literary genius rivals his political clairvoyance. He was born in Havana on January 28, 1853. He lived fifteen years after his exile in New York City. He died in combat in Dos R\u00edos on May 19, 1895.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The inaugural event of the statue in Havana was held on January 28, 2018, on the 165th anniversary of the birth of Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed, with the presence of Ra\u00fal Castro Ruz, president of Cuba, and Eusebio Leal Spengler, historian of the city, among other personalities.
Anna Hyatt Huntington was old when the original sculpture began. To the reporters of bohemian magazine who interviewed her in 1957, Hyatt told them: “By her compatriot Gonzalo de Quesada I knew laxly of Mart\u00ed’s apostolic work, of her struggles for the independence of her homeland, of her character. Without Mr. Quesada’s cooperation, my work would have been impossible. I see in Mart\u00ed, above all things, a deep intellectual spirit and a man of a rare and exquisite sensibility.”7<\/p>\r\n
Two portraits of Mart\u00ed
Among the paintings preserved in the collection of the Office of the City Historian is the one he painted in 1901 Armando Menocal (1863-1932), based on a photo of the Apostle given to him by Dona Leonor P\u00e9rez. On the pictorial art of Menocal had been expressed by the poet Julian del Casal:<\/p>\r\n
“Under the dominion of his brush, the mirrored satin, the silk creaks, the lace is more steamy, the flower boasts invisible nuances and the precious stones throw very bright glows. The same can be said of the human figure. The face retains its color; pupil, her gaze; forehead, folds; and physiognomy, the expression.”8<\/p>\r\n
But the only portrait made directly from the natural, in the life of the Master, is preserved in the collection of jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed’s Casa Natal Museum. Opened in 1925 as Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed Museum, personal and other objects related to the life and work of our National Hero are treasured there. The house is located at Calle Leonor P\u00e9rez 314 (the old address was Calle de Paula number 41). “The pen in his fine, nervous hand was an attribute that seemed to be part of his own being. Very well interpreted is the character of the race writer in the painting of the Swedish artist Norrman, the only oil portrait of the natural that de Mart\u00ed exists. He is at the Martiano Museum in Havana and spent many years hanging on the Master’s desk in his New York office, 120 Front Street.”9
In the painting of the Swedish painter Herman Norrman Mart\u00ed is seen in the attitude of writing; behind him is a bookshelf, and next to him an inkwell. Blanche Zacharie de Baralt, Mart\u00ed’s personal friend and author of a book about him, comments in an article:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.palabranueva.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/MARTI-PARCEN-1224x814.jpg\")
<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The painter and literary Federico Edelman dedicates to the painting and its author a more extensive commentary:
“Among the fondest memories I keep of the Master is that of having visited, using him as cicerone, the first major painting exhibitions I saw in my life. […]
“Because of this love of painting, Mart\u00ed had to discover in New York bohemian Herman Norrman, a highly talented Swedish painter …, who painted from the natural the only portrait of Mart\u00ed that exists, and gratefully offered it to the Master, who greatly appreciated it as a work of art.
“This small oil portrait, depicting him sitting at his desk, in his historic 120 Front Street office in New York …, gives a full and just idea of the Apostle.”10
Herman Norrman, born in a small town in Sweden in 1864, arrived in New York between October and November 1887, and returned to Europe in the spring of 1891. After spending a year in Paris, he returned to his hometown, where he lived working as abanist and furniture decorator until his death in 1906.
“… from a very young age he was able to paint by heart, and with great precision, oaks, birch trees, pines and fir trees, and to reproduce the wild freshness of foliage. […] It can be said that the stream of the mountains, and not the sea, was the atmosphere of shapes, movement and colors that nurtured Herman Norrman’s artistic sensibility.”11
By way of conclusion
So far our short tour visiting Mart\u00ed in some of its plastic representations in the historic center of Havana. Outside this center, many places remain to be visited where statues, busts and effigies of the National Hero have been placed, or that relate to his passage through the city: among many others, the giant and thoughtful Mart\u00ed of revolution square, the statue in the National Library and the beautiful portrait painted by Esteban Valderrama in 1951, which is preserved in the Center for Martyrdom Studies. As we have already pointed out, it is not the intention of this work to explore martyred iconography or its critical analysis; Specialists in the field have published important works on the subject.12 We only wanted to approach, once again, the Apostle from Cuban plastic, in which his prominence is undeniable. These lines are a modest tribute to the man of the Golden Age: hero, politician, poet and exceptional human being. \u03a9
Notes
1 Fina Garc\u00eda Marruz: “Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed”, in Essays, Havana, Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2008, p. 9.
2 Manuel L\u00f3pez Oliva: “A Debt of Conscience”:\u00a0http:\/\/www.cnap.cult.cu\/actualidad\/marti-una-deuda-de-conciencia.
3 Alejo Carpentier: “Mart\u00ed y el tiempo”, in Yearbook of the Center for Martyred Studies, No. 26, 2003, p. 181.
4 The collections of universal art are located in the building that was the headquarters of the Asturian Center, in front of the Central Park.
5 Israel Castellanos Le\u00f3n: “Jorge Arche, retractor of Cuban modernity”, in La Jiribilla, No. 212, 2006:\u00a0http:\/\/epoca2.lajiribilla.cu\/2005\/n212_05\/mirada.html.
6 Lauris Mar\u00eda Henr\u00edquez: “Mart\u00ed is my spiritual handle”, in Escambray, 8 August 2017:\u00a0http:\/\/www.escambray.cu\/2017\/marti-es-mi-asidero-espiritual-fotos-y-pinturas\/.
7 Quoted in Marta Rojas: “Work of Love: Anna Hyatt’s Equestrian Mart\u00ed” in Granma, January 16, 2018:\u00a0http:\/\/www.granma.cu\/cultura\/2018-01-16\/obra-de-amor-el-marti-ecuestre-de-anna-hyatt-16-01-2018-23-01-40.
8 Quoted by Pedro Antonio Garc\u00eda Fern\u00e1ndez in “Armando Garc\u00eda Menocal, the Mamb\u00ed painter”:\u00a0http:\/\/www.cubahora.cu\/historia\/armando-garcia-menocal-el-pintor-mambi-fotos.
9 Blanche Zacharie de Baralt: “Mart\u00ed, Caballero”, in Carmen Su\u00e1rez Le\u00f3n (comp.), I met Mart\u00ed, Havana, Centro de Estudios Martianos, 2012.
10 Federico Edelman and Painted: “Memories of Mart\u00ed”, in Carmen Su\u00e1rez Le\u00f3n (comp.), I met Mart\u00ed, ed. cit.
11 Ren\u00e9 V\u00e1zquez D\u00edaz: “Herman Norrman, the Swedish painter of Mart\u00ed”, in La Jiribilla, No. 664, 2012:\u00a0http:\/\/epoca2.lairibilla.cu\/articulo\/6850\/herman-norrman-el-pintor-sueco-de-marti.
12 See, for example, Jorge R. Berm\u00fadez: Visual Anthology. Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed in Cuban plastics and graphics, Havana, Cuban Letters, 1999, and Mart\u00ed, visual communicator, Havana, Centro de Estudios Martianos, 2017; as well as Iconografia de Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed, editor Arturo Carricarte, Mexico, Editorial Frente de Afirmaci\u00f3n Hispanista, 2017.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"