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Many
historians date the beginning of Haitian art with the opening of the
Centre de Arte in Port-au-Prince, by DeWitt Peters in 1944.
However, artistic activity has always held a place in Haitian history.
As early as 1807, Henri Christophe encouraged the development of
art in the new independent black country. In 1816, Alexandre Petion
helped a french artist to establish an art school in Port-au-Prince.
Although some smaller schools arose during those early years, the
emphasis of the art was on religion
and portraiture.
When
DeWitt Peters opened the Centre de Arte, he created an
environment in which talented artists could express themselves, and
young artists could develop their skills. In this way he provided
exhibition space as well as instruction space.
Amazingly,
the founders of the Centre de Arte uncovered a wealth of talent
that would forever affect the history of the art movement in Haiti. The
first
painter to gain recognition was Hector Hyppolite. He was a voodoo
priest whose innate ability made him one of the greatest natural
painters of modern times. Those early painters, known as the first
generation of artists, included the now popular, Philome Obin,
Rigaud Benoit, Castera Bazile and
 Wilson
Bigaud.
These men were completely artistically
untrained. They came to their canvasses as bookkeepers, truck drivers,
and houseboys. Their subjects were most often what they perceived in
their everyday mundane existence and what they learned from their
mythical religion, voodoo. Although they came from simple backgrounds,
their paintings were full of passion and color. They managed to
integrate what they saw, felt and believed and express it with intensity
of emotion and a childlike innocence. These men had no formal
education, no visual training and basically developed their styles in
isolation from the rest of the art world.
The
first generation inspired a second generation of painters. These new
painters had the good fortune to benefit from the numerous art schools
that developed in Port au Prince and Cap Haitien. As the art world
discovered the wonders of the naive Haitian art and the artists were
exposed to different artistic styles, each generation of Haitian artist
become more sophisticated and trained. Some of the third and fourth
generation of artists still use what is known as the naive or primitive
original style in their works, while others employ new materials and
styles.
Whichever their choice of style, the
Haitian artist will always represent a folk art expression of
spontaneity and simplicity. |
