Uncommon wealth

The art history of Puerto Rico

by Leon Nigrosh

THE PEOPLES OF PUERTO RICO. At the Museum of Our National Heritage, 33 Marrett Road, Lexington, through January 10, 1999.

It has been said that the history of a people is often best told through art. This is the case with the exhibition of Puerto Rican art and artifacts on view at the Museum of Our National Heritage. After passing by a colorful, music-filled introductory video we are immediately taken back to the 11th century with artifacts from the Taíno culture, the first inhabitants of what would eventually become Puerto Rico. The Taíno were a communal society that cultivated agriculture, hunted, fished, and had a well-developed religious practice; and its people created magnificent objects in wood, fabric, and stone.

Today we can marvel at examples of expertly carved stone (the wood and fiber works have long decomposed). Among them is a large oval Collar cut from a single piece of stone, which looks similar to the yokes worn by ancient Maya soccer players in their deadly game (deadly because the losing team were executed). In contrast, three tiny steatite effigy pendants have delicate anthropomorphic features that shift between man and frog.

Soon after the Spanish conquistadors arrived, the Taíno were decimated either through constant battles or from European diseases. The survivors either escaped to the interior or were "entrusted" to Spanish settlers.

For the next four centuries Spain dominated the island. Roman Catholicism served as the major religion and an inspirational source for wooden figurines known as "Santos"; about 20 of these saints, which date back to the late 1800s, are on view. Carved and painted by Florencio Caban-Hernandez (1876-1952), a tiny Trinity shows the Father and the Son on either side of the Holy Spirit -- depicted as a flying bird. A six-inch-tall figure by Zoilo Cajigas-Sotomayor (18751962), represents archangel St. Rafael shown holding a fish and sporting wings cut from tin.

The MONH has mounted six wildly colored papier-mâché Vejigante masks. These demon or devil masks are an outgrowth of the African influence brought to the island through the 16th-to-19th-century slave trade. Today, these grotesque, seven-horned beast faces are worn by dancers during Carnival or in any number of street feasts.

The portion of the exhibit referring to the "American Presence Since 1890" represents the Spanish-American War with three rifles, a grave marker, and a color lithograph of the US Battleship Maine being blown up.

The gallery entitled "A New Puerto Rican Identity" is ablaze with color from 19 posters produced at the Taller de Cinema y Gráfica, originally started in 1946 by Chicagoan Irene Delano and later operated by the government's Community Education Division. The posters were made to advertise movies, to announce music programs, or to promote a particular community project and were designed by the island's foremost artists. Many of the works are now collectors' items.

In 1963, Lorenzo Homar designed the poster for the 150th anniversary of Ramon Power y Giralt's appointment as the first Puerto Rican deputy to the Court of Cadiz. Aside from the eye-catching statement, what makes this poster even more interesting is the story behind it. Three years earlier, Homar produced a work, which notes Juan Alejo de Arizmendi's 1803 promotion to first bishop of Puerto Rico. The men in both posters are shown in the same pose, with the left hand covering the right ring finger. Because the bishop had secretly given his Papal ring to Giralt he could not be shown wearing it, and Giralt wanted no one to know it had disappeared.

The exhibit closes with several contemporary Santos produced in the 1980s, along with examples of fine quality lace making. A half-dozen black-and-white photographs by Holger Thoss include portraits of Taíno descendants and pictorial views of both the watersplashed outside and the sunlit interior of the Cave of Indians. Dominating this room is an acrylic painting by Arroyo Rivas of Olokun/ Atabey. In homage to his mixed racial identity, part Taíno and part Yoruba, Rivas combined the water deity of each culture into a large figure of a brown woman, decorated with red and white stripes, sitting under the sea with brightly colored schools of fish swarming about her.

The final object on display, presented with no comment, is the cover of H.R. 856, The United States -- Puerto Rico Political Status Act, 1997. This proposal is similar to one produced in 1993, which asked for a vote on continued "commonwealth" status, independence, or statehood. That vote ended in a stalemate. The current bill is still pending.

The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Call 781-861-6559.