Books on Haiti and the Caribbean

Hubert Cole. Christophe: King of Haiti. New York: The Viking Press, 1967.

C.L.R. James. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (1938)

Edourad Gissant. Caribbean Doscourse (2004)  /  Barbara Harlow. Resistance Literature (1987)

Josaphat B. Kubayanda. The Poet's Africa: Africanness in the Poetry of Nicolas Guillen and Aime Cesaire (1990)

Myriam J. A. Chancy. Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women (1997)

Paul Laraque and Jack Hirschman.  Open Gate An Anthology of Haitian Creole Poetry (2001)

David P. Geggus, ed. The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World.  University of South Carolina Press, 2001.

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Experiment in Haiti

By Dewitt Peters

A few years ago it was frequently argued by intellectuals that Haitians had no creative ability in the plastic arts. After 140 years of independence nothing of consequence had been achieved in either painting or sculpture. Vestiges of the rich artistic tradition of Africa were almost non-existent, weak and pathetic. The real explanation lay in the fact that, in almost a century and a half, the Haitians had only succeeded in evolving a feudal type of master-servant society, dominated by a French-speaking, often cultivated, small minority, in which the masses, were kept in a quasi-benevolent subjection.

The culture was predominantly French, but second-hand; anything imported must be good, nothing native could conceivably be accepted. for many years Haiti lay isolated, closed and secret, preoccupied with its increasingly unstable local politics, a dangerous game played by upper echelon experts. The period from 1910 on was the most turbulent in Haitian political history, government following government in rapid succession, and in 1915 United States Marines were landed and occupied the country. 

About 1917, as a protest against the American occupation, a wave of nationalism swept over the land, expressing itself in a revolutionary new literature. For the first time since the heroic and violent days of their liberation from the French a small group of Haitian intellectuals and poets turned to themselves and to Haiti for inspiration and direction. It was not until 1944 that another and differently motivated liberation took place, this time in the realm of painting and sculpture.

The ideas and drives behind the foundation of the Centre d'Art in Port-au-Prince in 1944 had little in common with those which precipitated the literary break with France in 1917. Where one was a nationalistic movement of protest involving the prise de conscience of a restricted group of intellectuals and writers the other was motivated by an idealistic, somewhat fanatic, desire on the part of an American and a few Haitian confreres to do something about the plastic arts in Haiti.

The earlier literary revolt had moved with channeled rapidity and power whereas the movement instigated by the Centre d'Art developed more slowly and tentatively. But in the long run a far greater number of individuals were drawn into it and affected by it. Two factors were largely responsible, one was that the new institution was to be democratic--the only criterion for membership is the possession of at least a modicum of talent--the other was that it is not essential to be able to read and write in order to do creative work in the plastic arts.

Philome Obin, 1891-

Seneque Obin1893 (Cap Haitien) – 1977

As an experiment in democracy the Centre d'Art  has been only partially successful. An extended and organized education of the people is necessary to make democratic ideas work. In a country with one of the highest rates of illiteracy in the world it is not surprising that excitable self-interest should often win out over reason and respect for others. During its thirteen years of existence the Centre d'Art has given an equal opportunity to several hundred individuals, the great majority from the so-called lower class. 

A few of them have seized it, becoming in the process good and individualistic artists and greatly improving their social and economic positions. the fact that by far the larger percentage of these artists came from the hitherto submerged and exploited class has been the greatest contribution of the Centre d'Art  to Haitian culture and to Haitian society.

Since the inception of the art movement in Haiti, paintings and sculptures of Christian religious themes have turned up sporadically. The late Hector Hyppolite, a voodoo priest, generally regarded as the nearest approach to an artistic genius yet produced in Haiti, did a number of paintings of religious subjects. In 1946 Wilson Bigaud, then fifteen years old, was "discovered" by Hyppolite through a small statue of the Virgin which he had carved with a penknife out of a soft local stone and subsequently tinted with watercolor; Castera Bazile, a former houseboy now one of Haiti's top self-taught artists and her greatest natural moralist, began his career with a small painting of a a religious procession.

The point to be made is that in a country where the cult of voodoo is widely practiced purely Christian art is being produced, often by known voodooists. Hyppolite's "Virgin Surrounded by Saints" is a major example. This what might be called "split allegiance" is not only manifest in a good deal of Haitian art but it is to be found in many aspects of the country's life. It is not at all unusual for a Haitian to lose himself in the frenzy of a ceremony on Saturday night and to turn up at an early mass in the Catholic church on Sunday morning.  This dangerous duality is further complicated by the adoption by voodoo of many of the Christian concepts and symbols. No houmfor altar is complete without a figure of the Christ Child, a statue of the Virgin and a chromo of the Archangel, all now transposed and representing various deities of the cult. There are, however, certain Haitian painters who rigorously avoid voodoo subject material and whose occasional religious paintings are strictly in the Christian tradition.

Seneque Obin's recent "Nativity" is a good example, and at the same time a work of charming, fresh originality. Gabriel Leveque's "Crucifixion" is a sincere if somewhat idealized concept in this vein.

It was not until toward the end of 1949 that the Haitians were given the opportunity to focus on a large scale communal religious art project, the decoration with monumental murals of the Episcopalian cathedral in Port-au-Prince. By this time a group of nine "primitive" painters (Toussaint Auguste, Castera Bazile, Rigaud Benoit, Wilson Bigaud, Prefete Duffaut, Adam Leontus, Gabriel Leveque, Plilome Obin, and Pernand Pierre) had sufficiently developed and crystallized their personal styles to be entrusted with this vast project. What they accomplished still remains the greatest achievement in Haitian religious art. "Nativity" by Seneque Obin

The two outstanding sculptors of haiti, both of whom frequently produce work of pure religious quality, are Jasmin Joseph and Andre Dimanche. As personalities they are dramatic opposites. Joseph is a peasant, secretive and vocally inarticulate, only just able to write his name. Dimanche is an intelligent, volatile ex-pharmacist now the well-paid superintendent of a large essential oils plantation in the mountains. 

Joseph's medium is that same clay which up to a few years ago he was fashioning into commercial building bricks for a few pennies a day; Dimanche is a master wood carver, gifted with an extraordinary ability to breathe life into dead wood. It is these totally different artistic personalities who have collaborated recently on a project of peculiar importance to the evolution of Haitian religious art, the chapel of the Petits Seminaristes in the impressive new building of the College St. Martial in Port-au-Prince.The chapel, exclusively the work of Haitian workmen artisans and artists, is severely simple, lighted by louvered glass windows running the length of both sides. surmounting the altar is a "Crucifixion" by Dimanche.  "Crucifixion" by Gabriel Leveque

Two other wood sculptures by Dimanche flank it, a superb "Head of Christ" and a "Madonna and Child," this latter curiously reminiscent of the early Italian Renaissance. Simply framed in black, the fourteen small terra cotta Stations of the Cross by Joseph are hung above eye level at well spaced intervals along the side walls and the rear wall. High above the street on the upper floor of its massive mother building and with its views of sky and distant mountains the small chapel provides a removed and quiet setting for its purely Haitian sculpture.

Catholic laymen here have reacted overwhelmingly in favor of the religious art in the chapel. There has, however, been some criticism leveled against the work of Dimanche, mostly from an anatomical point of view. But, as the enthusiastic young Haitian priest who showed us though summed it up, the patent sincerity, religious feeling and good taste which imbue all these works of art far more than redeem them from criticism for any shortcomings in classical proportion. 

For more than a decade the Catholic Church has stood aloof from the vital young art movement in Haiti. With the realization of the chapel in the College St. Martial an important victory has been won by the artists of the country and by the more liberal elements in the Church itself.

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The chapel of the Petits Seminaristes at the College St. Martial in Port-au-Prince is an example of what Haitian artists and workmen can do. One floor of the new building of the college is devoted to the uses of the seminarians; on this floor is the dormitory study hall and chapel (left) for about fifty young students for the priesthood.

The chapel is the combined work of Father Grienenberger, superior of the establishment, and architect Hermann Charlot who designed the building. the crucifix over the main altar as well as the head of Christ (left) and the Madonna (right) which decorate the chapel are the work of Andre Dimanche, and are sculptured in native woods.

DeWitt Peters was the director and founder of Le Center d'Art in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He was the son of Charles Rollo Peters, distinguished Romantic painter of nocturnes, and a frequent writer on subjects concerning art.

Source: Books on Trial (June-July 1957)