Catedral de la Habana

Date: 1953

Medium: Linocut

Dimensions (cm.): 31.0 x 41.8

Alternate titles: Catedral de La Habana rumbo al mercado; Catedral de Cuba

Published edition: Unknown

Contemporary publication: Made (but not used?) for an intertitle in the film La rosa blanca,  (dir. Emilio Fernández, 1954)

References: Academia de Artes 1818; Exposición de Homenaje 494

Commentary:  Méndez used an intricate graphic style for the 1954 film La rosa blanca. The prints for the film reconstruct scenes from the life and travels of the nineteenth-century Cuban revolutionary writer, José Martí (1853-1895), and Méndez employed a graphic style that corresponded to the era in which Martí lived. The prints are among the most detailed that Méndez ever produced, with delicate, fine lines and accurate perspective. Catedral de la Habana (Havana Cathedral), Puente de Brooklyn (Brooklyn Bridge), and Vista de Zaragoza (View of Zaragoza) reveal Méndez’s skill in delineating architectural form and texture as well as his ability to create atmospheric effects. 

Méndez rendered the Cathedral of Havana and surrounding buildings with great precision – the artist seemed to delight in the profusion of Baroque decoration, each brick and stone depicted in such a way as to emphasize the strong shadows produced by the tropical sunlight. The minute, shimmering strokes used for the sky and ground suggest the tropical heat of Havana. A woman wearing a crinoline, a small child by her side, walks across the plaza in one direction, while a heavily laden, barefoot worker trudges away from them. A horse and carriage cross the plaza, and woman in dark clothing heads toward the entrance of the cathedral. A few other people stand in the shadows. With these few small figures Méndez created an almost subliminal narration of the social realities of Marti’s Cuba, suggesting the injustices that the poet struggled to overcome. The ornate cathedral is a backdrop for the subtle depiction of social stratification and the importance of religion and wealth in nineteenth-century Cuban society. (Deborah Caplow)

Catalogue record number: 150