According to the historiography of art, the landscape is the pictorial genre that represents scenes from nature. In Las Tunas, every year there is a provincial event called Verde que te quiero Verde (Green, I love you green), which reveres the painting movement.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Sponsored by the Provincial Center of Cultural Centers (CPCC), the event encourages caring for the ecosystem through live painting, conferences, workshops, and other initiatives.
But the recently finished 15th edition was marked by the coronavirus pandemic, forcing its organizers to look for alternatives so as not to lose tradition, and activities mostly online or with little public were the way out.
Aware that "a portrait, a landscape, a drawing, a photograph ... are as important as a thousand tons of sugar or a cup of coffee," as the writer José Alberto Velázquez said, lectures were shared and work by some of its cultists.
On this occasion, Jorge Vázquez Téllez, Saúl Santiesteban Álvarez and Carlos Gutiérrez Sánchez were granted the prizes; while Daimí Silva García, Luis García Hidalgo and Camilo Hidalgo Ramos reached mentions. The jury, made up of Eliades Ávalo Rosales, Miguel A. López Leyva and Othoniel Morffis Valera, confirmed that the chosen works, as is customary, will be exhibited during the National Landscape Saloon of the Cucalambeana Fiesta.
Carlos Gutiérrez was one of the selected lecturers, who was a professor for about 10 years at the former Academy of Plastic Arts of Las Tunas and is one of the consecrated painters of this expression here. He spoke about the cultivation of this pictorial trend in the province.
“Landscape has validity, it speaks of Cuban identity and traditions, but it must have an atmosphere and color treatment, which is not a colored drawing and can be interpreted. Many people make good paintings today; in the municipalities of ´Jesús Menéndez´ and Majibacoa, there is a flourishing in this sense. This branch of art should not die and the exchange between creators is necessary,” Gutiérrez commented to 26.
Sadly, some still underestimate this pictorial horizon; even creators such as Carlos Gutiérrez and Liusan Cabrera confess that those who bet on it were despised at the now-defunct local Academy.
However, “the landscape in Las Tunas has an inexhaustible source in its creators. Some territories stand out, but there are protagonists in all of them. This is a genre that was considered as the "Cinderella" in plastic arts; but, today, it is exhibited in any saloon. Defending it is a way of caring for art,” the painter Eliades Ávalo Rosales, a member of the Provincial Committee of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and member of the jury, expressed.
In our province, there is a tradition in the cultivation of the landscape, especially the rural environment. Events such as the Cucalambeana Fiesta, Confluencias, Sclat, Sol y Arte, Verde que te quiero Verde, among others have demonstrated the potential of local artists over the years.
“We have painters of our beloved geography. People who put their chests before the void to make it retreat by dint of tenacity and talent… It is not enough to look at the paintings, you have to feel them. And if we look closely, perhaps we will find people who walk within them: it is us,” the writer José Alberto Velázquez summed up sometime.
