Latin American Case

The new world is a term largely used to describe the presence of the various countries found in the western hemisphere. Moreover it describes the product of a time period where European explorers stumbled across what we largely call the Americas today. This phenomenon sparked and continues cultural exchange in may areas and forms that still continues to date. This exchange has influenced and shaped the course of history in various areas of social interaction and more specifically academic pursuits. This influence has affected everyone and the results of this influence have manifested itself into somewhat permanent structures. The visual art found in any given country proves to be a documentation of culture, social standings as well as cultural shifts and disturbances. Various countries such as South America and some parts of the Caribbean have endured serious cultural strive due to this globalization, but a few seem to stand out above the rest.

Cuba is one such country that has seen its fair share of cultural shifts and aggressive new world adaptation. Cuba was fist colonized by the Spanish around 1492 and over the course of the islands history it has seen and 10 year war, a liberation from Spanish Colonial rule and rise and fall of foreign ties with America. Part of this revolution however saw the birth and rise of two major icons in Cuban history, namely and Latin American avant garde movement and Amelia Pelaez. It is by observing these two icons that one will start to understand more definitively what kind of effect classical European art may have had on the development of various avant garde artist within Cuba and the wider Latin American community (Lucie-Smith, 1994).

Amelia Pelaez was born in 1896, in Yaguajay Cuba and started her formal visual arts training at a much older age than normal. This late start however did not hinder her development as well as abilities, as she quickly became a favored student of renowned Cuban painter Leopoldo Romanach. She was then later transferred to Europe; more specifically Paris to attend the Academie De La Grande Chaumiere, where she studied drawing, museum studies, and colour theory with Russian Artist Alexandra Exter. After this stint she returned to Cuba to continue a career in painting and muralism, and eventually died in 1968. Paying close attention to her biography I started to become very interested in a few key occurrences, namely, that she left home to study in Paris. This, though being common at that time, did strike me as interesting judging by the type of work she went on to produce at a later date. When she left Cuba for Paris in the 1930's the country was still a further 20 years away form the famous Cuban revolution. This meant that artist did have some freedom to move around within the Caribbean and across the waters with suitable government grants. This was most definitely the case for Miss Pelaez. When she arrived in Paris she immediately took classes at the De La Grande Chaumiere, which to date is known as an art independent school due to its liberal expressive nature. She then went into studying various museums within the country. Much like Diego Rivera a Mexican painter who also left Mexico to study in Europe, she would undoubtedly have been influenced by European aesthetics and techniques. Referring back to Diego we see a scenario where an artist left his home country and became so influenced that when he returned home he was viewed as being too European. In fact, he was sent on various trips around South America to rediscover himself. At a glancing blow and paying close attention to her artwork one may start to think this is much of the same in the case of Miss Pelaez. In the text Latin American Art by Edward Lucie-Smith it states, "her most typical paintings make use of very Cuban motifs. They show abstract still life's, generally of fruit, against brilliantly coloured backgrounds derived from the stained glass windows and transoms often found in the old fashioned houses in Cuba. This statement then becomes even more curious and somewhat outlines the main idea of social framework hegemony. This shows undoubtedly that the prevalent individuals within the society integrated their aesthetics into what is now the normal culture. This then may beg the question, did the Fusion of Cuban and Classical European aesthetics as well as her stint in Paris have and adverse and/or subliminal effect on her artwork?

Cuba was colonized by the Spanish in 1492 and as the process of hegemony took effect the inter breading of the original inhibitors of the land with the Spanish immigrants caused a type of social and cultural melting pot to boil. Almost instantly the traditions and visual forms of a European nature started to mix heavily with native customs. It is the popular belief of many theorist who study the process of hegemony that when this process takes place, the dominant culture is so influential that generations to follow embrace (sometimes unknowingly) the customs of said dominant individuals. Cuba was not a land locked country in any sense. European customs spread like wild fire throughout the land and influenced many people within the society to reproduce and portray what they now understood as culture. As previously stated, the text Latin American Art it speaks briefly about the fact that many Cuban structures boasts various signs of European influence. More specifically it speaks about the use of stained glass techniques on various old Cuban buildings. This is a key point to highlight as the origins of stained glass had it humble yet aesthetically striking origins in ancient Greece. This is a fact that has predated what was known as modern Cuba at that time. This therefore means that this technique was undoubtedly brought forward by European entities during colonization. Amelia being born almost 450 years after colonization took place, would have undoubtedly come into a world rich with foreign hybrids not only in people but visual culture. In an online text entitled Amelia Pelaez and the insertion of the female Sphere by Maria C. Gaztambide (the research coordinator of the international center for the arts on the Americas,) we start to understand where the assumption may be solidified. It states clearly and I quote " Peláez was the fifth of eleven children of the mar- riage, both members of the landed Cuban Creole middle class. Additionally, her mother was the sister of poet Julián del Casal and in this way her family was associated with the highest intellectual circles of Havana.3 When Doctor Peláez became ill in 1915, he moved the family to Havana, where they settled in a comfortable house in the quiet suburb of La Víbora, at 261 Estrada Palma Street. Giulio Blanc mentions that La Víbora is to this day a neighborhood that has a "sleepy, old- fashioned flavor to it" and that it appealed to provincial families for these reasons.4 Built in 1912,