Page 327 - Arte e Historia
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Art and History
at the Banco popular dominicano visual arts collection
orange tree in the town of Higüey, according to a tradi- gave an energetic speech in Spanish, and not in French as
tional legend. She became a miracle of dedication and was expected. He stated the truth that among the popula-
faith starting from the early sixteenth century, transcend- tions of the former territories of the island of Haiti, the
ing the subsequent centuries of our territorial history. difference of origin, language, legislation, customs and
At this point it is already the story of a country defined habits, were powerful causes that opposed the merger in
in the East of the island, consisting of Creole women one single State, and that the future would make possible
and men, Dominicans, as most of its inhabitants identify to prove this assertion with founded facts…
themselves during the first four decades of the nineteenth
century. The primitive and residual art of the Aboriginal In isolation, with the racial and social democracy
pre-Hispanics, and the colonial arts imposed by Spain, product of the impoverishment, the Dominican culture
such as religious paintings and sculptures, among other was oblivious to the flourishing of the arts and educa-
artistic manifestations prevail in this process. tion, except for some enlightened attempts in the early
nineteenth century, in the port city of Santo Domingo,
Since early nineteenth century, the island is di- where there were some scattered newspapers, published
vided into two distinct territories: Haiti, where there by a government printing passed on by the French oc-
had been a bloody slave revolt against French rule, cupiers, which also published literary pamphlets and
and Santo Domingo, affected by that revolution, and official documents. These publications are connected
as a result transferred to France by the Treaty of Basel to José Núñez de Cáceres, head of a group of teachers
(1795), producing a mass exodus of the most educated seeking the opening of the University of Santo Tomás
elite population. The French rule of Gen. Louis Ferrand, de Aquinos. In the city overlooking the Ozama, during
confronted by the reconquest undertaken by land-owners, this period are also known the paintings of Francisco Ve-
and a desire for a colonial return to Spain, culminated in lázquez, author of religious cathedral medallions, that ap-
the Proclamation of independence of 1821, led by José peared following those painted by Diego José Hilaris, in
Núñez de Cáceres; an ephemeral independence because the eighteenth century, for the Sanctuary of the Virgin of
it facilitated the Haitian invasion of President Boyer, with Altagracia in Higüey. Hilaris and Velázquez are the first
Dominicans advocacy groups welcoming the territorial Creole painters remembered for their works.
unification of two culturally distinct societies. The au-
thoritarianism and militarization that ensued, attempted With the exception made of its enlightened and in-
to suppress the Creole ethos by fostering integration dur- tellectual expressions, the Creole culture was essentially
ing twenty-two years (1822-1844). Although the political inland oriented: based on land and cattle farm owners,
unification was real, the spiritual, mental and customary clinging to the mountains and patriarchal, linked to the
habits were indomitable in a population with rooted his- main economic sectors of agricultural smallholdings,
paniz, despite the pervasive process of hybridization and cattle raising, timber cutting and the emerging tobacco
syncretism, in the context of the isolation of a country plantation which bring forth the independent farmer,
facing constant adversity. the free peasant, and the tobacco grower from the moun-
tainous Cibao region. If one can speak of social educa-
The Haitian rule was not a setback for our country, tion, it would be the process in which the prevailing il-
but an adverse event which caused the native population literacy and empirical wisdom are connected to the rural
to recognize itself as «Dominican people» as stated in the life, including architectural models of huts, hermitages
«Declaration of Independence,» written by José Núñez de and ranches, culinary expressions, basic tools, animal-
Cáceres, who in the delivery of the keys to the city to Boyer powered transport, speech full of archaisms, and the
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