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Lot Essay
In a 1999 interview, Cuban painter Tomás Sánchez stated 'I don't paint specific places. Everything I depict comes from my imagination and in my mind's eye I conceive of what Cuba might have looked like before the Conquest, or how I would prefer that Cuba looked today.' These words reveal a great deal about the mature work of Sánchez, of which the 1996 painting Nubes sobre la laguna is a prime example. In his most characteristic paintings since the early 1980s, the artist attempts to create a pristine world in which there is little or any human intervention. At times there will be a hint of a human figure (usually modeled on the artist's own form) but in most cases, we are left alone to contemplate nature in its pure state.
This work represents the type of painting which has come to define the signature style of Sánchez. A low horizon gives way to a profound, almost 'operatic' or even 'baroque' display of clouds. We instantly recognize these cloud forms as completely representative of those moisture-laden tropical clouds which might be seen on a late summer afternoon, presaging, in many cases, a rain storm in the immediate future. Still, there is the sun which drenches the earth in brightness, making many of the individual trees stand out against the mass of jungle-like foliage. We are given a glimpse of a lagoon, almost hidden within the circle of trees. We are just enough above the forest to perceive this quasi-mythical body of water. The entire sensibility as expressed in this painting is one of peace and tranquility--an almost preternatural serenity literally breathes from the surface of the work. While we may be tempted to analyze this and related paintings by Sánchez stricly in terms of his own oeuvre or in terms of certain chapters in the history of modern Cuban painting, we would be misunderstanding the depth of this image if we did not look beneath the surface, as it were, and enumerate some of the other sources and ideas at work here.
Like most important painters, Tomás Sánchez is intimately familiar with the history of art. A product of the superior artistic educational system of Cuba in the 1960s and 1970s, Sánchez emerged from the San Alejandro Academy in Havana, his training there and his intensive studies with the expressionist painter Antonia Eriz (a major force on his artistic development) combined with a thorough knowledge of both the historical and contemporary chapters of western art history. In many of his earlier pieces (1970s) he emulated the expressive force of painters such as Edvard Munch and James Ensor. Later, when the formal qualities he absorbed from these artists lessened as sources for his own work, he continued to develop themes that were based on his engagement with social issues and social protest. In terms of landscape, many of his pieces of the 1970s and even later treated subjects related to ecology and the destruction of the forces of nature by mankind. His mature work is also derived, in part, from his study of the work of past artistic masters. He has looked carefully at many landscape traditions and points to such nineteenth century painters as the American Hudson River School artist Frederick Edwin Church as well as Albert Bierstadt as two figures who he much admires. Sánchez reserves special praise for the accomplishment of German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich whose work has had a large impact on his development. Indeed Nubes sobre la laguna is a piece that combines both an insistence upon detailed geographic and environmental description with a deep sense of transcental spiritualy. The meditative qualities that we sense in this and so many of Sánchez's paintings must also be related to a personal dedication to introspection as a practitioner of Hatha Yoga.
We might be tempted to connect this work too directly with a specific locale. While the artist is indeed visually invoking his native Cuba, he is also evoking a much wider panorama of the landscapes of the Americas. Sánchez has traveled extensively throughout Latin America. The first time he saw a real jungle was in Brazil and has done extensive on-site research in Costa Rica and Panama; he has also lived for several years in Mexico. Nubes sobre la laguna is therefore a quintessential image embodying the visual, aesthetic and spirituals of the artist. It is a painting of transcendental allusions and presents the visual paradigms through which Sánchez has expressed his artistic goals throughout the mature phase of his career.
We are grateful to Edward J. Sullivan for his assistance in writing the essay for the above lot.
This work represents the type of painting which has come to define the signature style of Sánchez. A low horizon gives way to a profound, almost 'operatic' or even 'baroque' display of clouds. We instantly recognize these cloud forms as completely representative of those moisture-laden tropical clouds which might be seen on a late summer afternoon, presaging, in many cases, a rain storm in the immediate future. Still, there is the sun which drenches the earth in brightness, making many of the individual trees stand out against the mass of jungle-like foliage. We are given a glimpse of a lagoon, almost hidden within the circle of trees. We are just enough above the forest to perceive this quasi-mythical body of water. The entire sensibility as expressed in this painting is one of peace and tranquility--an almost preternatural serenity literally breathes from the surface of the work. While we may be tempted to analyze this and related paintings by Sánchez stricly in terms of his own oeuvre or in terms of certain chapters in the history of modern Cuban painting, we would be misunderstanding the depth of this image if we did not look beneath the surface, as it were, and enumerate some of the other sources and ideas at work here.
Like most important painters, Tomás Sánchez is intimately familiar with the history of art. A product of the superior artistic educational system of Cuba in the 1960s and 1970s, Sánchez emerged from the San Alejandro Academy in Havana, his training there and his intensive studies with the expressionist painter Antonia Eriz (a major force on his artistic development) combined with a thorough knowledge of both the historical and contemporary chapters of western art history. In many of his earlier pieces (1970s) he emulated the expressive force of painters such as Edvard Munch and James Ensor. Later, when the formal qualities he absorbed from these artists lessened as sources for his own work, he continued to develop themes that were based on his engagement with social issues and social protest. In terms of landscape, many of his pieces of the 1970s and even later treated subjects related to ecology and the destruction of the forces of nature by mankind. His mature work is also derived, in part, from his study of the work of past artistic masters. He has looked carefully at many landscape traditions and points to such nineteenth century painters as the American Hudson River School artist Frederick Edwin Church as well as Albert Bierstadt as two figures who he much admires. Sánchez reserves special praise for the accomplishment of German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich whose work has had a large impact on his development. Indeed Nubes sobre la laguna is a piece that combines both an insistence upon detailed geographic and environmental description with a deep sense of transcental spiritualy. The meditative qualities that we sense in this and so many of Sánchez's paintings must also be related to a personal dedication to introspection as a practitioner of Hatha Yoga.
We might be tempted to connect this work too directly with a specific locale. While the artist is indeed visually invoking his native Cuba, he is also evoking a much wider panorama of the landscapes of the Americas. Sánchez has traveled extensively throughout Latin America. The first time he saw a real jungle was in Brazil and has done extensive on-site research in Costa Rica and Panama; he has also lived for several years in Mexico. Nubes sobre la laguna is therefore a quintessential image embodying the visual, aesthetic and spirituals of the artist. It is a painting of transcendental allusions and presents the visual paradigms through which Sánchez has expressed his artistic goals throughout the mature phase of his career.
We are grateful to Edward J. Sullivan for his assistance in writing the essay for the above lot.