Carnival is in the air as a lively crowd spills onto a street corner. Participants play music and draw the neighbors to their balconies and windows to witness their revelries. It’s Three Kings Day in Havana, and Black men and women, in fine dress and costume, have gathered for a celebration rooted in both Catholic and West African traditions. This painting by the Spanish artist, Víctor Patricio Landaluze, is one of the many images he created documenting and commenting on colonial Cuban society.
Cuba through the lens of costumbrismo
Originally from Bilbao, Spain, Landaluze arrived in Cuba around 1850 at the age of 20 after a short stint at the San Fernando Academy of Arts in Madrid. He settled permanently in the Spanish colony, developing a military career while also working in print as an illustrator and cartoonist, and as a painter focusing on genre scenes and portraits.
Throughout his career Landaluze represented colonial Cuban society, taking a particular interest in the guajiros (country folk) and the Black and mixed populations. He approached Cuba through social types and the careful representation of cultural and economic customs. This was deeply tied to costumbrismo, a literary and artistic movement preoccupied with the portrayal of local traditions and the economic and geographical characteristics of a particular country or region.
These representations were often related to regional and national identities, focusing on people who the authors considered as characteristic of that place. Costumbrismo in the visual arts often took inspiration from picturesque aesthetics, where the representations of the countryside and its people are stylized and idealized. A prominent example of this is the publication Tipos y Costumbres de la Isla de Cuba (Types and Customs of the Islands of Cuba) from 1881, for which Landaluze worked as an illustrator. His illustrations of figures like the coach driver, the cigar maker, and the curandera (witch doctor) are accompanied by stories of each. Classist and racial stereotypes of the period often informed both image and text.
It is through this lens that Landaluze portrays the Black and mixed population as an intrinsic and representative part of Cuban society. They were the majority of the population by the second half of the 19th century and were fundamental to Cuba’s plantation economy. His representations of Black and mixed people range from the documentary and ambiguous to the stereotypical and racist. His painted work, often small compositions destined to adorn the houses of middle-class criollo families, present them in genre scenes set in urban environments. [1] Here his focus is often placed on enslaved individuals, both male and female, working in a domestic context and whose condition was idealized and far from the harsh realities of slavery.
In absence is characteristic of this production. It shows an enslaved Black woman dressed in white pausing her work to try on the clothing of one of her enslavers while they are out of the house. She placed a fashionable hat over her turban and haphazardly tied a blue dress around her waist, as if not knowing how to properly put on that type of gown. This is a relatively common theme in his production: the mocking of the Black population through the notion of their unattainable desire to be like the white criollos. He also produced paintings like Gallant scene where we find two of his most recurrent characters, the Black coach driver and the desirable mulatto woman, talking over a short wall in a romantic encounter.
Landaluze produced these painted images during a tense political moment as the growing desire for independence and the abolition of slavery were constant topics of discussion in the press. He was firmly against Cuban independence and upheld Spain’s colonial interest throughout his military career, a sentiment that can be seen in his caricatures of the independence movement. [2] His painted work can be understood as responding to costumbrismo but also as images that catered to the comforts of the privileged Spanish and criollo population. These images may have quelled fears of abolition and insurrection by representing the enslaved population in a romantic manner, content with their condition. This also responds to insular criollo anxieties stemming from the new Hispanic republics of Central and South America, where abolition gradually followed the successful independence movements. Landaluze also shows an interest in documenting important cultural aspects of the Black population in a way that had not been done before in painting. Three Kings Day in Havana is one such example.
The Epiphany under slavery
This canvas is considered one of Landaluze’s most important and represents the Black celebration of the Epiphany (Three Kings Day). The painting sets the viewer at the point where the street connects to a town square. In the foreground, we find part of a parade framed by residential buildings and a scene that captures the revelry of carnival.
There, an elegantly dressed woman in green steps away from a young man in a costume composed of a colorful skirt and red pants who kneels on the ground with a sword and stares imploringly at her. He seems to be seeking her attention or perhaps playing tricks on her after giving her a fright. To the right, under the shadow of a house, a finely dressed man in a golden sash extends his top hat to receive the coin given by a woman in pink, who’s gathered with her family by the window to see the celebrations. On the other side of the canvas, two musicians play drums for the crowd as a child in ragged clothing dances beside them.
Behind these figures, more women in fine dresses and men in elaborate costumes sing and dance. They lift what seems to be the Spanish flag and an umbrella of the same colors. In the background a cloud of dust blurs the rest of the crowd gathered before a building, possibly the Franciscan convent in Havana.
This festivity was organized by the Black population on January 6, a day in which the enslaved population was “free” as part of the religious celebration. Both free and enslaved individuals would gather and organize in cabildos (councils) representing different African nations or ethnicities and elect their respective king and queen. [3] They would dress up for the day, with many opting for costumes inspired by those of religious West African festivals. In this colonial context, a Christian holiday became the stage for cultural and religious syncretism where those of African ancestry, enslaved and free, could express their own traditions and beliefs. Similar events developed all around the Caribbean and the Americas including the carnival tradition in Jamaica.
One of the proposed origins for this celebration is the adoption of the Aguinaldo by the enslaved population. [4] It was said the enslaved people working under the King of Spain received a Christmas bonus on January 6. In Havana the revelers would reach the governor’s residence at the end of the parade to ask for an Aguinaldo. [5] This celebration was characteristic of the pre-abolition period, its practice waned afterwards though aspects were incorporated in other festivities such as the carnival after Lent. [6]
The painting also includes important references to the costumes worn during Three Kings Day. These, along with the cabildos, allude to the strong links between the enslaved diaspora and the cultural heritage of their African ancestry. The costumes worn by the male participants harken to those worn in western Africa with their horned headdresses and the use of vegetable fibers and/or straw. One of the most striking is the figure in the full-body costume found on the right side of the composition. This is a diablito (little devil), also known as an íreme, and is one of Cuba’s most recognizable carnival characters due to his association with the Abakuá secret society.
The diablito abakuá
The diablito abakuá figure represents the spirits of the dead and natural forces. [7] He’s easily recognizable through the black and white costume and conical headdress. The designs on the body and the mask can be different, but the triangular shape, the cowbells and tails at the waist, and the almond shaped eyes on the mask are constant features. We can appreciate this in two other paintings by Landaluze.
These compositions focus solely on the diablito. One is an exterior scene where the figure is shown from behind wielding a staff and interacting with two women and a child on a windowsill. This composition also seems to reference Three Kings Day as a crowd with a Spanish flag can be spied on the right side of the composition. The other painting is an interior scene, likely the meeting place of the Abakuá. Here the figure is seen from the side and the pose allows a better appreciation of the front of the costume.
The diablito is part of the Abakuá secret society (or ñañiguismo), a group originally composed of enslaved and free Black men that developed in early 19th-century Cuba with the aim of providing economic support for its members. [8] They also sought to retain their African culture and religions, and to provide spiritual assistance in private ceremonies. They took inspiration from similar societies functioning in the region of old Calabar, what is now Nigeria and Cameroon. [9]
There is an interest in the religious aspects of the Abakuá in Landaluze’s diablito paintings. The dead rooster in both compositions allude to its use in Abakuá rituals, where the animal would be presented and sacrificed. [10] Landaluze has included names of entities and orishas (Yoruba deities or spirits originating in West Africa), important to both ñañiguismo and Santería. Written on the walls, we see Abasí, their supreme god, Ecue (aka Ekue), a fierce male spirit whose worship is prominent in the society, and Chango, a prominent orisha in Santería associated with fire and warfare. In the lower right corner is a drum, likely an Ekue drum, a prominent feature at Abakuá gatherings.
Before Landaluze, genre painting and painted representations of the Black population in Cuba were not of great interest to local or foreign artists. While much of his work is laden with his prejudices and aligned with those of his target audience, his representations of the Black and mixed population provide important information about their customs. Three Kings Day in Havana and the diablito paintings remain important images of the cultural and spiritual resistance of the African diaspora in the face of slavery in the colonial Caribbean.