Convertir el paisaje en una patria. Pintores paisajistas en Cuba, 1850–1920

Abstract

Landscape painting became an artistic expression of a budding national identity in Cuba during the second half of the nineteenth century. A “Cuban style” of painting emerged as the island experienced three major wars of independence from Spain (1868–98), as well as the maturation of the sugar plantation economy and the abolition of slavery in 1886. The Romantic representation of the local physical environment as an allegory of Cubanness became a leading genre in the island’s painting. Emblematic features of the Cuban countryside, such as the royal palm tree, the peasant hut, and the small independent farmer, became entrenched in landscape paintings between 1850 and 1920.