Page 329 - Arte e Historia
P. 329
Art and History
at the Banco popular dominicano visual arts collection
Regarding Higüey’s Sanctuary, Alcocer stated the following in All these manifestations strengthened Duarte’s patriotic
1650: Every day you see many miracles, there are so many that identity as well as his vocation for the ineluctable eman-
people don’t ask or write about them…». cipation. The struggles for autonomy from Spain, the
secret societies, the heroic model of the templar and the
Bishop Polanco Brito explains: «The Dominican people ecclesiastical feast of «La Santa Cruz,» they all inspired
have offered what is popularly called a miracle to God and Duarte’s liberating vocation upon his return to Santo
his saints, that is a votive offering of metallic gold, silver, and Domingo in 1832.
other less noble materials like wood or wax. This custom has
survived (…) It is true that the Shrine of Our Lady of Alta- The historian Alcides García Lluveres explains Juan
gracia is the most representative part of the miracle (…) many Pablo Duarte’s link to the commemoration of the Holy
miracles are offered each year, mostly elaborated by Creole Cross, related to the triumph of the Christian kings of
artists, sometimes in a very primitive way». Bishop Polanco Castile, León, Navarra and Aragón at the Battle of Las
Brito qualifies the Higüey Sanctuary medallions as «vo- Navas de Tolosa, where 300, 000 soldiers were defeated,
tive offering Series.» Emphasizing that «this collection is on July 16, 1212. «The bishops of Narbonne and Toledo, pres-
valuable.» It represents the artwork of one of our master ent in Navas, used the Cross to excite the combat. That memo-
painters. He is remembered as Diego José Hilario. There rable day began a new era in the life of Spain: the secular power
is no biographical information about this anonymous au- of the Moors was broken there and the Iberians seized Sierra
thor who offers votive paintings that recount miraculous Morena, the key to the Andalusian plain. In commemoration
events. 27 medallions were produced by this eighteenth of the splendid victory, the Church celebrates every year on July
century painter, of which 16 are preserved. The missing 16, the feast of «The Triumph of the Holy Cross.» Juan Pablo
ones were lost by adverse and unknown circumstances. Duarte, who wanted to initiate the revolution against Haiti
Also missing are many of the legends included in the with the invocation of the Cross of the Savior, and that in un-
surviving works. dertaking his works opened another era in Dominican life, chose
to take action in a meaningful date: hence our unforgettable
In pointing out that our national art was born Alta- July 16, 1838, the day of the founding of the ‘Trinitarian’s.
gracian, like our homeland, we recognize the primacy of (…) Duarte called his friends «Templars,» that is, «Knights of
a great divine and miraculous benefit that comes from the Cross». The association recalled a secret military order
Catholicism, whose imprint, like so many others, are formed during the famous medieval Crusades, for the
imposed from the beginning to the native island. It is purpose of advocating in favour of Christendom in the
the homeland of a racially mixed population in a process Iberian peninsula until it was suppressed by order of the
of acculturation-transculturation, adverse and unavoid- Roman papacy in the fourteenth century.
able, in the discussions of centuries of history, and whose
balance is the Creole inhabitant expressing his-her local Our immortal pavilion was born with the founding
character. It is the awareness of belonging to the home- of the Trinitarian, whose description is included in the
land with which Juan Pablo Duarte y Díez identifies text of Induction of the first members of the secret society:
himself when angrily denies being Haitian in order to «In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity Almighty God:
be considered Dominican. His native country was uni- I swear and promise, for my honor and my conscience, under
fied under the rule of Boyer, when his parents decided our President Juan Pablo Duarte, to cooperate personally with
that he traveled to Europe in 1828, where his humanistic my life and property to the final separation from the Haitian
education grows in a period of euphoric liberal ideas, lib- government, and establish a free republic, sovereign and inde-
eration struggles, an ardent and romantic nationalism. pendent of foreign domination, which will be called Dominican
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