Cuban painters under the critical eye of Alejo Carpentier

Havana, Feb 1. - The exhibition "Alejo Carpentier, an advance of modernity" was inaugurated at the Museum of Fine Arts in the Cuban capital, and aims to bring the public closer to the intellectual's career from his critical perspective.

Renowned Cuban painters were included in this exhibition, of which the Cervantes Prize (1977) made an exhaustive evaluation, remaining under his gaze of art expert.

Among the local artists in this exhibition (in the Cuban Art Building) are Carpentier's considerations on the works of painters Wifredo Lam, Antonio Gattorno, Carlos Enríquez, Eduardo Abela, as well as René Portocarrero and Amelia Peláez.

As an art critic, Carpentier also transcended his recognition of those who contributed to the emergence of artistic modernity in Cuba. One of the vice presidents of the Alejo Carpentier Foundation, Rafael Rodríguez, referred to the greatness and humility of this intellectual.

Expressing his admiration for the writer, journalist, diplomat and musicologist, Rodríguez recounted an anecdote that occurred a few days ago related to his erudition. In one of the rooms where part of the writer's personal library is kept, I met a young man who was enjoying the collection, said the specialist.

After a while he asked me if it was a circulating library, when I refused I explained that it only works for the use of researchers, to which after a brief silence he commented exclaiming: "The man had good taste," said Rodríguez.

I will stick with that phrase, because he was a man who, in the world of the artistic avant-garde, not only had good taste in literature, but in the entire sphere of his life as an intellectual, he recalled. We know that one of his great passions was music, but in cinema, theater, opera, ballet and undoubtedly the plastic arts, added the expert.

The hand or critical eye of Carpentier, author of one of the universal works of our literature, such as 'The Century of Enlightenment', was present in the broader cultural manifestations, he added.

Thanks to the articles he published in the pages of the Revista Social, many Cubans had the opportunity to learn about this avant-garde, the specialist concluded. (Text and Photo: Cubasí)