Matanzas limits with the counties
of City of Havana and Havana for the west; for the
east with Villa Clara's counties and Cienfuegos. The
Urban historian Martínez Carmenate indicates that
the first contact of the Europeans with the territory
of Matanzas, happens in 1508 during the bojeo that
Sebastián of Ocampo carried out to the Island, especially
with the open bay located in the north coast where
later the city, October 10 1693 would be founded.
From final of the XVIII century and during the XIX
century received big quantities of slaves that were
employees fundamentally in agricultural work. During
the XIX century had a great economic peak, ending
up taking place in 1857 more than half of the sugar
of Cuba. Toward 1870 was considered one of the most
beautiful populations in Cuba, it had a splendid theater,
an Artistic Liceo and the famous Caves of Bellamar,
as well as some literary gatherings where the most
important intellectuals in the time met. In the census
carried out in the year 1846 the total of slaves it
ascended at 35 188, the black population belonged
to 39 998 inhabitants, for only 26 717 white" (6).
This way, in Matanzas, the continuity
of the influence of the African art, especially in
ways of art religious transculturadas, it sustains
a tradition of artistic expressions sustained in the
Afro-Cuban thing. These expressions continue modifying
the speech of the contemporary art, expressed in the
different tendencies or artistic currents of the XX
century end. Artists like Ever Fonseca, Jesus Gallardo,
Anglé Camacho, Elpidio Guerra Arroyo (Mirito ), Mayra
Alpízar, Orlando Abreu, Perla María Pinedo, Manuel
Moinelo, Emilio O'Farrill, Juan Carlos Urría Fagundo,
painters and sculptors; Héctor Correa, Odalys Marrero,
Rogelio Mesa Ledo, artisans; Ramón Pacheco Salazar,
photographer; Zenén Calero, designer; they expose
in their works that recognition capacity and use of
the plastic values of the iconografic system involved
in the rich visual universe of the different Afro-Cuban
religions.
In Ever Fonseca's work , worked
during many years in Matanzas, one of the constant
iconográficas of their poetic one is the representation
of the güije. The myth of the güije, of indigenous
origin, receives the African slave's influence and
becomes the black güije and midget appearing in the
folklore, the arts and the Cuban literature.
Jesus Gallardo Cacho, designer,
sculptor and painter born in Matanzas, would carry
out an important area of their artistic work, dispersed
in collections matters, under the signs of the African
cultures. When in 1978 case the Shop The Face with
Jorge Luis Rodríguez and the author, the fundamental
line of work is the creation of Afro-Cuban masks,
with the use of the techniques of carving, assembling,
painting matérica and other mixed techniques. A mask
emblemática is the Eleguá carried out in a guano penca
(dry leaf of real palm with cauríes) (1978). In the
group of their work, the treatment of the African
and Afro-Cuban art was approached fundamentally in
sculpture works and in goldwork.
