Puerto Rico The Arts

For a small island, Puerto Rico lays claim to a remarkably impressive tradition of art and culture. The Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (www.icp.gobierno.pr), founded in 1955, has worked over the last 60 years to preserve Puerto Rico’s cultural heritage for the public. This organization runs many of the island’s museums. Check their online calendar for a list of upcoming events.

History. San Juan’s new Museo de Arte De Puerto Rico is the island’s manifestation of a rich tradition of visual art. Most Puerto Rican artists have been strongly influenced by the island, and their works tend to focus on the nature, history, and culture of Puerto Rico. The first prominent Puerto Rican artist, José Campeche, was born in 1751 in San Juan as the son of a freed slave. Despite the fact that he never left Puerto Rico to train in the European schools, Campeche became an internationally renowned artist. Some of his most important works include: San Francisco, San Juan Bautista, and La Sacra Familia. The next prominent Puerto Rican artist, Francisco Oller, studied in Paris and was deeply influenced by the 19th-century Impressionist movement, particularly the work of Paul Cézanne. Upon returning to Puerto Rico in 1853, Oller used these European styles to portray nationalist scenes of Puerto Rican lands and people. In addition to depicting Puerto Rico’s flora and fauna, Oller also painted works of social commentaries about life on the island, including El Velorio (The Wake; 1893), a representation of a child’s wake. Oller’s hometown, Bayamón, maintains a museum devoted to the great painter , and many of his works can be found in San Juan’s Museo de Arte.

As Puerto Rico’s economy began to flourish in the 1940s, so did its art scene. Around this time, the government began subsidizing poster art, graphic arts that dealt with social and political themes on the island. Later this material was used to produce announcements for cultural events and festivals. Prominent poster artist and painter Lorenzo Homar worked with fellow artists to found the Centro de Arte Puertorriqueño (Center for Puerto Rican Art), designed the symbol for the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, and established and ran a graphic arts workshop at the Institute. Pennsylvania native Jack Delano was captivated by the spirit and poverty of the island when he visited Puerto Rico in 1941; since then, Delano has published several books of island photography.

Today. Though he was born in Brooklyn, Rafael Tufiño Figueroa moved to La Perla at an early age and is considered to be one of the island’s most important contemporary artists. Tufiño used his background as inspiration to paint scenes of poverty in Puerto Rico. In one of his most famous works, La Perla (1951), Tufiño uses strong colors and lines to depict life in San Juan’s most infamous slum. Luquillense artist Tomás Batista (1935) is one of the first Puerto Ricans to become famous for sculpture, primarily woodwork. Trained in New York and Spain, Batista has spent much of his artistic time creating busts of notable Puerto Ricans whom he had admired during his childhood, such as Eugenio de Hostos and Ramón Emeterio Betances. Batista has also created many of the statues adorning plazas in cities around the island, including Río Piedras, Ponce, and Luquillo.

Arts And Crafts

The sheer number of artisans at any island festival demonstrates that artesanía is alive and well in Puerto Rico. One common form of folk art is the santo, a small religious figure carved out of wood by a santero. The tradition of making santos began in the 16th century, when Spanish Catholic colonizers placed saints on their mantels to protect their homes from harm (see Santos de Palos). Santos vary greatly: larger ones are placed in churches while smaller ones remain in the home. A high-quality santo is more complex yet still carved out of one piece of wood. Santos can be found at many tourist shops in Old San Juan as well as at almost any crafts fair.

Another popular Puerto Rican craft is the vejigante mask, a colorful mask with horns worn during carnaval celebrations. Some historians believe that vejigante mask-making originated in Spain, where the vejigante represents the Moors who fought with St. James. Others believe that it came from Africa with the slaves. Regardless, the art form now integrates both African and Spanish influences in a uniquely Puerto Rican tradition. There are two types of vejigante masks, each associated with a regional carnaval celebration. In Ponce, the masks are made out of papier-mâché and contain larger horns painted with bright colors, frequently red and black (the colors of Ponce) or yellow and red (the colors of the Spanish flag). In the small northern town of Loíza the masks are made out of coconut shells and have smaller horns, teeth made out of bamboo, and exaggerated features to frighten spirits. Both types of masks are worn with a coverall outfit featuring wide sleeves designed to look like wings. Several stores in Old San Juan and Ponce sell authentic vejigante masks, which start at around $25, but be prepared to shell out more for masks that are larger, have more horns, or are made by famous artists.

Finally, Puerto Ricans also excel in the art of mundillo, an elaborate kind of lace originally from Spain. Women spend hours and even days crocheting the intricate lace, which is then used to make baby clothes, doilies, hats, or other items. This tradition is found primarily in the northwestern town of Moca , where visitors can find mundillo makers at work in their homes. You can also stop by the Museo de Arte in San Juan to see the world’s largest piece of mundillo.

Literature

Puerto Rico’s literary tradition originated in the mid-19th century, when people began writing about social and political themes distinct to the island. The first noted Puerto Rican author, Manuel Alonso Pacheco, is best remembered for his work El Jíbaro (1849). This half-prose, half-poetry work discussed the life of rural peasants. Alejandro Tapía y Rivera, contemporary to Pacheco and namesake of Old San Juan’s theater, was known primarily as a playwright but also composed the allegorical poem The Satanic: Grandiose Epic Dedicated to the Prince of Darkness (1874). However, the most internationally well-known author during this era was philosopher, teacher, and political activist Eugenio María de Hostos, who composed everything from social essays to children’s stories. He spent his life traveling throughout Latin America working for reform and the independence of Puerto Rico and Cuba. During this time he wrote his famous book La reseña historia de Puerto Rico (The Recent History of Puerto Rico; 1873).

Puerto Rican literature shifted focus after the American occupation of the island. During the first few decades of the 20th century the so-called Generation of ’98 began writing about the juxtaposition of American influence and traditional Latin American life. Most of these writers, including Cayetano Coll y Toste, José de Diego, and Luis Muñoz Rivera, were better-known for their political work, but a few became renowned for their literary talents as well. In 1898 Manuel Zeno-Gandia penned Puerto Rico’s first novel, La charca (The Pond), a story about the difficulty of life in the countryside.

The literary scene shifted after the Depression with the Generation of the 30s. The movement was ushered in by academic Antonio S. Pedreira, whose book Insularism (1934) looked at Puerto Rican values and culture under the influence of the US. Novelist Enrique Laguerre wrote on similar themes, focusing on the decline of Puerto Rico’s agriculture. Around this time Julia de Burgos emerged as Puerto Rico’s most famous female poet. After personally distributing her first works around the island and then moving to the US, de Burgos attained international acclaim for her English-language poem Farewell from Welfare Island (1953).

In the mid-20th century, Puerto Rican literature focused its critical lens on the lives of Puerto Ricans in New York. Foremost among this trend was Nuyorican Pedro Juan Soto, who authored Spiks (1956) and Usmail (1958). In the latter half of the 20th century, a number of Puerto Rican playwrights started turning the themes of identity into dramatic works. René Marqués gained notice for his play La Carreta (The Oxcart; 1970), which depicts a poor mountain family in Puerto Rico and their immigration to New York. Puerto Rico’s most recent player in the international literary scene is Esmeralda Santiago, a Nuyorican who narrates her Puerto Rican childhood in When I Was Puerto Rican (1993).

Music

From the gentle rhythm of salsa to the relentless beats of reggaeton, this tiny island plays a disproportionately large role in the international music scene.

Salsa

The history of salsa is an unwilling love story between Cuban beats, Puerto Rican rhythms, and New York streets. Both Cubans and Puerto Ricans would like to claim sole inventorship of this contagious music, but most can agree that the popular genre originated among Caribbean immigrant populations in New York in the 1950s and only came to be identified by the term salsa (“sauce,” referring to music that literally spices things up) in the 1970s. Over the last 50 years, salsa has evolved into the most popular form of music in Puerto Rico.

What Starts As Mambo.. Throughout the 1920s Puerto Ricans and Cubans immigrated en masse to New York, and they brought their music with them. In the 1940s, Latin music became increasingly popular and mambo developed as a combination of Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican rhythms with American jazz and big band music thrown in. The undisputed king of this era was Puerto Rican Tito Puente, who founded an orchestra in New York. Other popular Puerto Rican artists of the 1940s included Tito Rodríguez, Charlie Palmieri, and Rafael Muñoz.

..Soon Becomes Salsa. By the 1960s, New York was in love with the Caribbean-influenced music. Big bands used congas, timbales, bass, güiro (an open-ended wooden box with a wooden striker), bells, bongos, maracas, drums, a horn section, and several singers to create a new, rhythmic sound. As the music became increasingly popular, the word “salsa” surfaced. In 1962, Joe Cuba released a song claiming that you need “salsa” to dance; this is the first recognized mention of the word salsa in relation to music. After Carlos Santana released the disc Oye Como Va in 1969, Latin music swept across the mainland, and there was no turning back. In 1976 Billboard published a 24-page article on the salsa explosion, solidifying salsa’s position as a recognized musical genre.

Although it has had its ups and downs in the US, salsa has been a consistent driving force in Puerto Rico’s music scene. In 1962 El Gran Combo brought New York sounds of salsa to Puerto Rico and continued producing hits for the next 30 years. Gilberto Santa Rosa has been another consistently popular Puerto Rican salsa star. Despite the fact that the younger generation is turning to more contemporary music, such as rap and reggaeton, salsa continues to constitute a significant sector of Puerto Rican music. Current popular Puerto Rican salsa artists include Ismael Miranda, Tito Nieves, and Cheo Feliciano.

Reggaeton

Chances are, if you’ve heard of Puerto Rican music, then you’ve heard of reggaeton. In fact, even if you haven’t heard of Puerto Rican music you’ve probably heard of reggaeton. This popular brand of music, a blend of Jamaican and Panamanian reggae, hip hop, bomba y plena, and dancehall music, came to maturity in garage recording studios throughout Puerto Rico during the 90s. This was the music of the post-salsa generation, often referred to as the underground, featuring explicit lyrics and topics ranging from drugs and violence to poverty, friendship, and sex. The music’s overwhelming beat and its catchy melodies have catapulted it to worldwide acclaim, despite initial misgivings of more traditionally minded listeners. Popular artists include pioneering producers Luny Tunes as well as Puerto Ricans Don Omar, Calle 13, Wisin y Yandel, and the ubiquitous Daddy Yankee.

Classical

Danza. For centuries, Puerto Rican musicians were influenced by Spanish classical music traditions. In the mid-19th century, they began incorporating Caribbean rhythms to create danzas, a uniquely Puerto Rican style of minuet or waltz with an Afro-Caribbean slant. Danza spread to urban areas throughout the late 19th century, becoming Puerto Rico’s most popular form of music and one of the first genres of island music to be recognized internationally. Many danzas continue to be popular today, including the island’s national anthem La Borinqueña.

The 20th Century. Puerto Rico’s music scene changed forever when Spaniard Pablo Casals immigrated to Puerto Rico, his mother’s homeland, in 1956. The talented cellist, composer, and conductor founded the renowned Casals Classical Music Festival in 1957, then served as the first conductor of the Puerto Rican Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra continues to perform 48 weeks per year, primarily in San Juan’s Luis Ferré Centro de Bellas Artes . In 1959, Casals recruited a prestigious faculty to teach at Puerto Rico’s first music conservatory, which continues to produce talented musicians today. Other notable contemporary Puerto Rican composers include Roberto Sierra, Ernesto Cordero, and Luis Manuel Alvarez.

Folk

Salsa may be better-known internationally, but the real heart of Puerto Rico’s music scene lies in its folk legacy. First popularized in the countryside, the island’s folk music borrows from Spanish and Moorish traditions. It centers on the décima, a 10-line rhyming verse with six to eight syllables per line. These stanzas can be either traditional songs or improvised, but both usually tell some kind of story about love, tragedy, or life lessons. The most common type of décima is the seis, a simple melody performed with one or two singers, a row of male dancers facing a row of female dancers, and a band consisting of a cuatro (a Puerto Rican guitar), a güiro (a percussion instrument made of a gourd), a tiple (another type of Puerto Rican guitar), and sometimes bongo drums, maracas, claves, and a bass.

Bomba Y Plena

Puerto Rico has two traditional forms of music that originate directly from the island’s African population. La Bomba came from Africa in the late 17th century and became especially popular in the small, primarily Afro-Caribbean town of Loíza. In this complex song and dance, a group of people create a circle around three different drums. Everyone takes turns drumming and dancing in the center; a caller, or main singer, is echoed by the larger chorus as dancers take turns moving to the rhythm of the drums. In some regional variations only women or only men sing, but the basic idea remains the same. The best place to experience bomba music is at Loíza’s carnival in late July . La Plena originated in the southern sugarcane zones around Ponce in the early 20th century and served as a form of protest for peasants of all races. Referred to as a periódico cantado (a sung newspaper) the plena usually discusses, and sometimes satirizes, current events. In a plena, one primary caller sings and then a chorus responds, but unlike the bomba, the plena does not require dancing. The most important instrument for singing a plena is the pandero, a handheld drum that looks like a tambourine without the bells; other common instruments include cuatros, güiros, guitars, accordions, cowbells, and maracas. In the 21st century, the plena has emerged as a popular expression of Puerto Rican culture.

Pop

When the Latin Invasion hit the United States in the late 1990s, most of the invaders came from Puerto Rico. Long popular throughout Latin America, Puerto Rican Ricky Martin hit the English-language market with his hit single Livin’ La Vida Loca (1999). When Martin shook his bonbon at the 1999 Grammys, the world became transfixed, even though Martin had been performing since 1984 as a member of the boy band Menudo, Puerto Rico’s version of the Backstreet Boys. Celebrity couple Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez are also of Puerto Rican descent and started their careers singing in Spanish. The local band Algarete has won many Puerto Rican hearts, although the four Boricuas have not yet made it in the international music scene.

Film

The first Puerto Rican movie appeared in 1912 when Rafael Colorado D’Assoy produced Un drama de Puerto Rico. However, not much came of the island’s film industry until the 1950s, when Maruja was the first film to be distributed in the US. Other important films of the era included Una voz en la montaña (1952), directed by Amilcar Tirado, and Modesta (1956), which won first prize at the Venice Film Festival. Unfortunately, the industry slowly died in the 60s and 70s as Puerto Rican filmmakers instead turned to joint productions in other countries.

Puerto Rico’s film industry did a 180 in 1980 when Jacobo Morales wrote, directed, and starred in Dios los cría (God Created Them). The movie, comprised of five stories that questioned contemporary Puerto Rican society, was well received by critics and fans alike. Morales’s second major film, Lo Que Le Pasó A Santiago (What Happened to Santiago) did even better, winning the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Morales is still considered to be Puerto Rico’s greatest film director.

In the mid-1980s, director Marcos Zurinaga’s first major movie, La gran fiesta (The Great Party; 1986), recounted the last days of San Juan’s Casino, a great meeting spot of the rich and famous. Zurinaga directed two more major films, Tango Bar (1988) and The Disappearance of García Lorca (1997), a mysterious look into the final days of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. Puerto Rico’s most financially successful film of all time was Luis Molina’s 1993 comedy La guagua aérea (The Aerial Bus), which uses the pretext of a crowded flight to New York in the 1960s to explore the multitude of reasons that Puerto Ricans immigrate. Quite a few Puerto Ricans have left their marks on the American entertainment industry, including Nuyoricans Jimmy Smits, Rita Moreno, Jennifer Lopez, Michael DeLorenzo, and Benicio del Toro.

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