Interest Information

Culture

Cuban culture is a combination of Spanish and African traditions, present in literature, music, painting, poetry, cinema, crafts and other artistic and cultural expressions.

However, in the conformation of the Cuban nation three roots merge, which were slowly incorporated into the integration of the ethnic society: the root of the aboriginal settlers, whose ethnic legacy was reduced by the impact of the process of Spanish conquest and colonization ; and Spanish and African roots. The first, the result of a migration from what was once the Cuban metropolis; and the African root that left a very particular mark on the formative process of Cuban culture. Coming from different ethnic groups (Yorubas, Mandingas, Congos, Carabalíes, Bantú), as slaves they were mixed in the Cuban plantations, causing new cultural associations, among the African communities themselves. To this is added the ethnic influence of the Chinese, introduced as hired coolies, and who have left their mark on miscegenation and Cuban cuisine. In the current definition of Cuban culture, these roots form the basis of traditions, culture and popular religiosity.

Music
In music, genres such as contradanza, son, danzón, bolero, guaguancó, trova, feeling, mambo, cha-cha-chá and salsa stand out. The mixture of the Spanish guitar and the African drum gives its most distinctive forms to the rumba and the son. Some of the folk music of Cuba, such as the Cuban point, the zapateo and the guajira, have been influenced by European music.

Paint
Painting is the most genuine of the country’s plastic expressions. Its evolution could not follow a coherent development process, because its first expressions, carried out by the aborigines in the caves, were interrupted with the disappearance of these populations. After the Spanish conquest and evangelization of Cuba, religious painting predominated, associated with the Catholic liturgy. In the 19th century, with the founding of the San Alejandro Academy (1818), a painting made by Creoles began to take shape in the country, aimed at satisfying the European taste of the Cuban bourgeoisie. Around the 1880s, a new orientation trend was produced, which had the landscape as its main theme. Among the most important figures are Esteban Chartrand and Valentín Sanz Carta. Expressions of costumbrista painting followed in the work of Víctor Patricio de Landaluze. The avant-garde reaction of the 1920s (of the 20th century) inaugurated a new moment in Cuban painting. The modern movement had its first and most important exhibition in 1927, sponsored by the Revista de Avance. Initiators of the Cuban avant-garde were Eduardo Abela, Víctor Manuel, Antonio Gattorno and Carlos Enríquez, among others. Young artists already indicated a new moment in Cuban art, which would materialize with the so-called School of Havana, in the 1940s. Figures such as René Portocarrero, Amelia Peláez and Mariano Rodríguez were part of this movement. In 1942 Wilfredo Lam returned to Cuba, after a long stay in Europe and a workshop experience with Pablo Picasso. In 1943, Lam made the work that has immortalized him «The Jungle», which was acquired by the MOMA in New York. The plastic movement is strengthened from the creation, in 1962, of the National School of Plastic Arts, with important figures such as Raúl Martínez and Antonia Eiriz. A few years later, in 1976, the Faculty of Plastic Arts of the Higher Institute of Art was founded. Works by Roberto Fabelo, Zaida del Río, Tomás Sánchez, Pedro Pablo Oliva, Manuel Mendive, Flora Fong, Nelson Domínguez, among many others, make up the heritage of recent decades. We must add names of younger artists such as José Bedia, Kcho and Flavio Garciandía, who have occupied a privileged place at the forefront of the new paths in plastic arts. Cuban painting during the last 30 years has shown a great capacity to receive the most important influences of international art with its own creative sense, assuming at the same time, a critical posture in its themes, to continue defining the features of the Cuban identity. .

The National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana houses collections of classic and modern art, and relics of native cultures from before the 16th century. Other important museums are the Colonial Art Museum and the Anthropological Museum, in Havana, the Emilio Bacardí Moreau Museum and the Natural History Museum, both in Santiago de Cuba, as well as the Oscar María de Rojas Museum, in Cárdenas.

Literature
The first versified literary work of Cuba, Mirror of patience, was written by Silvestre de Balboa and dates from 1608. In the first half of the 18th century, the first known theatrical work by a Cuban author appeared: “The Gardener Prince and Feigned Chloridane”, by Santiago de Pita