User:Victoriaeavis/sandbox/El Monte (The Jungle)

El Monte (The Jungle) The Jungle by Wifredo Lam (1902–1982) (hyperlink) is an abstract painting measuring 239.4 x 229.9 cm gouache (hyperlink) on paper mounted on canvas (2). Wifredo Lam completed this piece in 1943 two years after returning to Cuba, his native country.

Aesthetic This avant-garde (hyperlink) piece blends modernist (hyperlink) trends like surrealism (hyperlink) and cubism (hyperlink) while also integrating African and Afro-Cuban aspects. Mainly consisting of various shades of blue and green, Lam also incorporates hints of white. There are notable amounts of warmer colors like yellow and orange. The abundance of green and blue tones gives the painting a more somber tone with rays of lighter mood slightly shining through in the additions of white, yellow, and orange. The cubist (hyperlink) aspects are displayed in the rendering of the figures because of their sharp angles and fluid geometry (3). These elongated figures seem to be broken up and reassembled resulting in a more abstracted form. Many of the exaggerated body parts on the figures are sexual. The buttocks and breasts of many figures seem to be formed of 2 circles, a deviation from the other sharper shapes that make up the figure. The lips also seem to be formed of 2 distinct swollen shapes that are disproportionality large for the face. The faces as wholes are unrealistic in their crescent forms, a classically cubist look. The seemingly reassembled proportions are unrealistic: tThe feet are too large and the legs and arms too long and “ribbon-like” in proportion to the bodies as wholes (7). Within these figures, there are also a number of surrealistic components like surrealism can also be observed through the illogical blending of animal and human forms. Author and art critic Edward Lucie-Smith (hyperlink) describes the continuation of the figures into the next as a “frieze like composition” that “knits their bodies into a densely growing thicket of jointed stems. This thicket, in turn, helps to create a picture space that is simultaneously claustrophobic and disturbingly undefined” (7). On the note of illogical vegetation, sugarcane grows in fields, not the jungle which is thought to be probably communicating a message beyond Lam’s surrealist forms about colonialism (hyperlink) and slavery. The African and Afro-Cuban aspects can be observed in the traditional African masks the figures are sporting (2). Beyond the faces, the bodies as wholes also seem to be references to African sculpture especially in their exaggerated feminine form which was frequently employed by Pablo Picasso (hyperlink) (3).The blend of horse and human may be an analogy to a spirit in Afro-Cuban religion (5).

Meaning The African and Afro-Cuban facets are most prominently observed in the presumed message of the piece as told by the MoMA. Sugarcane plays a main role in The Jungle, but does not natively grow in the jungle, rather it grows in fields. These fields were widely cultivated in Cuba during the 1940s and during the time before slavery was abolished. The aforementioned masks and these sugarcanes together suggest a reference to slavery in colonial Cuba (4). Uprooted Africans made up the main population of the slaves that cultivated the sugarcane fields andfields and were often forced to abandon their indigenous beliefs and adopt new ones like Catholicism. The slaves would instead practice their native religions in secret in crowded concealed settings like the jungle as illustrated by Lam (5). In fact, Lam’s Congolese grandmother was one of the slaves who took part in these practices. This response to the oppression solidified a religion named Santería (hyperlink): an Afro-Cuban religion that worships saints with substantial Catholic influence. This reference to Santería is multifaceted. Lam illustrates spiritual circumstances that are inevitable in Santería and in doing so also exposes how he believes Afro-Cuban culture has been altered in part because their traditions have been diminished for tourism. Therefore, his painting is an attempt at depicting the reality of his true Afro-Cuban culture. This pursuit proved successful as he was highly acclaimed for this aspect of his art (7). All of this sadness and negativity that is being conveyed is exemplified by the blues and greens that make up most of the painting. Most importantly, Lam “intended to create a psychic state” and agreed with the notion “that in spirit it is very close to certain medieval representations of hell” (7). TheThe meanings behind The Jungle are greatly historical and span many eras.

Title The Jungle originally La Jungla, was translated for its entrance into the art scene in the United States. The title is most widely assumed to be a reference to slaves harvesting the sugarcane in Cuba, specifically his enslaved grandmother practicing her Afro-Cuban rituals in the jungle. However, there are alternative literary interpretations of the title. many of them literary. According to Francisco Hernández Adrián, the title might also be referencing the collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling (hyperlink) named Jungle Book I and Jungle Book II. This collection of fables uses animals as vehicles to communicate moral struggles of the human existence just as Lam meshed humans and animals in The Jungle to portray the struggles of slaves in Cuba. Upton Sinclair (hyperlink) also wrote a novel named The Jungle which might play a role in the title of Lam’s painting because it speaks exploited immigrants and their struggles. Influences The Jungle is Lam’s assemblage of two influential cultures: The European modernist (hyperlink) circles he resided in and his Afro-Cuban (hyperlink) roots.

European Lam spent the years of 1923 to 1941 mainly in Madrid and Paris. During this period, there was a modernist movement in the European art scene. This modernist movement consistingmovement consisting of cubism and surrealism was a trademark of avant-garde art whichart, which Lam readily took toutilized as can be observed in The Jungle. While in Madrid, Lam took to the intense colors used by Henri Matisse which comes out in The Jungle (3). In 1938, Lam moved to Paris where he met Pablo Picasso, one of the inventors of cubism, whose artwork is a cornerstone of cubism and also prided himself in his versions of African masks in paintings (3). This new relationship had a great influence on Lam’s art like The Jungle because of his in-depth exposure to the avant-garde art and artists of the time. (5) For instance, this relationship also introduced him to André Breton (hyperlink) in 1939, a pioneer of surrealism. Lam’s European influence did not only come from his time spent there during the interwar period, but also from the fact that he was extremely in touch with his heritage and his mother was part European (3).

African and Afro-Cuban The African and Afro-Cuban conditions of The Jungle may be in part attributed to the fact that Lam was painting The Jungle in Havana immediately after returning there. Fleeing from the 1940 German invasion in Paris, Lam “no longer knew where [his] feelings lay” (7). He described this return with insightful sadness: The Negros were considered picturesque. They themselves aped the whites and regretted that they did not have light skins. And they were divided- the blacks distained the mulattos, and the mulattos distasted their own skin because they were no longer like their fathers, but were not white either (7). He quelled these feelings in his art by “’thoroughly expressing the Negro spirit’” which can most notably be observed in The Jungle (7). Lam described his arrival to Havana Deeper than this, Lam himself was of Afro-Cuban descent and much of his family was African. Therefore, these cultural influences were present from birth and undoubtedly diffused into The Jungle.

History First, The Jungle was shown in the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City in 1944. The MoMA was having an exhibition on Cuban Art at the time, but Lam refused this offer to communicate his disdain for the Cuban regime of the time (7). Soon after, it was bought by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City and remains part of its permanent collection in the drawings and prints department (4).