Following the Cuban War of Independence, Menocal seeks to create a distinct Cuban iconography.
Armando García Menocal, Campesino y soldado español (Peasant and Spanish soldier), 1902, oil on canvas, 43.2 x 64.8 cm (Collection of Emilio and Sylvia M. Ortiz) on display in the exhibition, 1898: Visual Culture and U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Speakers: Dr. Taína Caragol, Curator of Painting and Sculpture and Latino Art and History, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution and Dr. Beth Harris
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0:00:05.0 Dr. Taína Caragol: We’re standing in front of a painting titled in Spanish “Campesino y soldado español” or “Peasant and Spanish Soldier” by Armando García Menocal. Menocal was a Cuban painter. He also has experience fighting in the last Cuban War of Independence.
0:00:24.0 Dr. Beth Harris: So, Cuba has been fighting for its independence from Spain, which has controlled Cuba and so much of the Americas for hundreds of years.
0:00:33.5 Dr. Taína Caragol: And so what we see is a seemingly quotidian scene: a building, there’s a beautiful tree in the background; there are some chickens; and the central scene is this military official on a horse, dressed in a blue uniform, and a man gesturing.
0:00:53.7 Dr. Beth Harris: This very real moment in the war that’s so calm. But as soon as you really understand what’s going on, you feel this incredible tension. And there’s no question of the authority of that figure on horseback. There’s a long tradition in art history of military figures, Roman emperors, kings on horses, looking powerful.
0:01:16.9 Dr. Taína Caragol: There is a dynamic of power that we can recognize in that interaction, and that is what breaks that quotidian moment. What we don’t know is what kind of information he’s providing.
0:01:29.1 Dr. Beth Harris: Well, we know that people who lived in rural areas were aiding the Cuban Liberation Army in their attempts to bring independence to Cuba. And so is this a moment when he’s misleading the Spanish soldier and helping the Liberation Army, or is he perhaps helping the Spanish soldier?
0:01:49.7 Dr. Taína Caragol: There is this ambiguity. What we know, however, is that Armando García Menocal enlisted in that final War of Cuban Independence. He was a soldier, an aide-de-camp to Máximo Gómez, who led that War of Independence. He achieves the rank of major. And once the war is over, he returns to his post as professor of landscape at the Academia San Alejandro. And when Cuban Independence is recognized by the United States, Armando García Menocal becomes invested systematically in this creation of an iconography of the Cuban nation. And this painting is made in that very moment in which Cuban Independence is recognized, with the caveat of the Platt Amendment, an amendment that the U.S. required the Cuban government to include in their new constitution, that accepted the oversight of the United States over Cuban affairs and its ability to lease land for military bases. And that thwarted the full independence and sovereignty of Cubans over their own country.
0:03:08.1 Dr. Taína Caragol: Right next to the entrance of that building is a grinding stone for sharpening knives and machetes. And the machete is a recurring motif in the work of Armando García Menocal when he depicts the Cuban Liberation Army. And that might give us clues into what the position of that peasant is. Perhaps he’s one of the Pacíficos, and the Pacíficos are the non-fighting population who were sometimes helping out the the Cuban Liberation Army. And the Pacífico population was very problematic for the Spanish. As the war started to gain momentum, they had crossed that line of fortifications that divided the east of the island where the previous insurrections had happened, to the west where the economic center was located. That was seen as a threat for Spanish colonial authorities as a moment that was helped by this Pacífico population.
0:04:09.4 Dr. Taína Caragol: And how does Spain respond? They send General Valeriano Weyler, and he will try to placate that advance of the war by ordering the removal of peasants into fortified towns that are constantly surveilled. And those towns don’t have proper sanitation, there’s not enough food, and people start getting sick and dying by the hundreds of thousands, causing a human rights crisis that will antagonize everyone against Spain.
0:04:40.1 Dr. Beth Harris: And it’s one of the reasons that the United States enters the war. As we stand and look at this, I begin to sense not the power of that soldier on horseback, but his vulnerability. He is sandwiched between this perhaps Pacífico, who is giving him advice. He’s the one with knowledge. And then on the other side, we have that grinding stone, which recalls the machete, a weapon used by the Cuban Liberation Army. And he’s between those. And instead of looking powerful to me, he suddenly looks confused.
0:05:16.9 Dr. Taína Caragol: And I almost read his thought, “Should I trust him? Is what he’s telling me true?”
0:05:22.9 Dr. Beth Harris: It’s so interesting, this idea of truth, because what the artist ultimately leaves us with is the truth of this day, and the sunlight and the clouds and the shadows and the breeze. And we’re convinced of the reality of this moment.
0:05:39.5 Dr. Taína Caragol: And to me, even the way that he paints the walls of that building is so interesting, because the walls of the building have this sort of mold that you see in the tropics. And that, in the context of Armando García Menocal’s painting, which is so invested at the turn of the century in creating this iconography of the new Cuban Republic, there is a recognition of place and social context that is very important to this painting.
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