When Christopher Columbus landed on the island Hispaniola, Arawak Indians and Taïnos' Art was already reigning through the symbols of their religious faiths, moreover claimed to be at the origin of vévés; drawn elements on the ground during the voodoos worship.
However, the Haitian painting takes its real flight after the Independence in 1804, especially by the creation of the Royal Academy of Painting at the Cap Haïtien by the King Henri Christophe, where the English painter Richard Evans was invited to teach. From then on, a multitude of academies and schools of art, as the School of Port-au-Prince in 1816 created by the President Pétion, or the Academy of Painting and Sculpture by the Haitian artist Lochard in 1880. Voodoo and history as subjects prevailed in the Haitian painting, in particular under the Emperor Soulouque between 1830 and 1860.
However, the 19th century remains influenced by the European style, imported by the rich white families and conveyed by the uncountable copyists until the 1930s and especially the 1940s to perceive the beginnings of a Haitian artistic identity as itself.
The arrival of the American watercolorist Dewitt Peters in Haiti marks an important artistic bend. By opening the Center of Art of Port-au-Prince in 1944, he teaches the modern art as well to the intellectual elite as to the self-taughts, to whom he offers the opportunity to express their creativity. And so Haitian Art, so-called “Naïve Art”, is born: flat and lively colors, popular subjects, prosperous landscapes, religion and scenes of life, whose main actors are Saint Brice and Hector Hyppolite, both priests voodoo, André Pierre or Philomé Obin to name a few.
The apparition of this new art arouses the admiration of many personalities, like Aimé Césaire, Jean-Paul Sartre and André Breton.
In 1951, the wall decoration of the episcopal cathedral of the Holy Trinity of the capital, entrusted to many popular painters, such as Rigaud Benoît, Philomé Obin, or Préfete Duffaut, propels the Haitian art in its highlight. From then on, tourists stream and rush on the naive painters' paintings, who exhibit in the greatest galleries of New York or Paris.
Of the Naive School ensues an artistic delta of the following generations, where the Cap Haïtien School founded by Obin or the School of Jacmel created by Duffaut, develop new artistic techniques. For example, this last one's work is focused on the gravity by mixing uniformly sky and earth. We also notice the ascendancy of animal and plant subjects. Other painters as Bernard Sejourné and Jean René Jerome, then Philippe Dodart and Emilcar Similien refer to another school: the School of Beauty, with which the aestheticism aims at honoring the grace and the elegance of the woman under a surrealist prism.
At the same time, Dewitt Peters is subjected by the iron crosses forged realized by the smith Georges Liautaud, to whom he suggests to turn to the sculpture. Thus, he keeps the tradition of the so-called “Steel Oil Drum Sculptures" (“Bosmétal") alive, which is characterized by ornamental elements on wrought iron, or materials of recovery, tins of fuel oil, etc., still inspired by Voodoo.
Indeed, Loas (Voodoo spirits), priests and vévés are the most recurring religious elements, with the musicians of Rara (Voodoo music), to which are added the other more important subjects: scenes of life, fantastic flourishes, plant elements or political references.
At the beginning of 1970s, a new marginal artistic movement, called Saint Soleil, appears to Soisson-la-Montagne, eastern Port-au-Prince. On the initiative of the painters Jean-Claude Garoute (Tiga) and Maud Robart, this current gathers a whole community of self-taught rural artists together, whose will of demarcation of the Naive School - which seems sunk in a commercial perspective - and of creation brings them towards a unique imaginary art, profoundly anchored in the Voodoo. Great artists come to light as Paul Dieuseul or Prospers Pierre Louis, whose works hint at supernatural religious, with spirits' faces often surrounded with animals and with symbols of offerings, on extremely rich and colored motifs.
This peculiarity instigates particularly the curiosity of André Malraux who, back from Haiti, dedicates a whole laudatory chapter on the Haitian Art in his book L'Intemporel in 1976. According to him "the painters of Saint Soleil speak about the same unknown language […] Each picture was manifestly aleatory […] not much tachism. An intense chromaticism, sometimes earthy as at the Voodoo painters, Hyppolite and Saint Brice.".
So, several artistic movements live and prosper in Haiti, in a popular artistic breeding ground for the most creative, more than ever topical. Indeed, the current Haitian painting stands between the Naive, Impressionistic, Primitive, Abstract, Representational, Hyperrealistic, Surrealistic or Unrealistic styles.
The sculpture turns out just as much as possible, whether it is on iron, wood, earth, stone, clay, papier-mâché or materials of recovery. Following the example of the Painting and the Steel Oil Drum Sculpture, the different themes approached by the sculptors, such as Jean Salomon Horace, Lionel Saint Eloi, Joseph Nacius, Camille Jean Nasson, are often in correlation with religion, politics, nature or humanity. Moreover, there are many multidisciplinary artists, who conjugate painting with sculpture, plastic arts, poetry, theater or music, as Lionel Saint Eloi or Mario Benjamin, singular contemporary.
Of its fruitful journeys in Haiti, Malraux kept in memory a nation of extraordinary painters; Today we can say that the island abound of artists, whose works, although in different styles, concur in a point that is the artistic identity of the country. Omnipresent on walls, tap-taps, workshops, galleries or exhibitions, it reflects unquestionably the biggest wealth of Ayiti, never exempted from its world success.
The cut iron, called Steel Oil Drum Sculpture, is a singular art in Haiti, native of Croix-des-bouquets (suburb of Port-au-Prince). It is an art of the recovery: the tins of fuel oil are on the base of the work. Once got back, the artist cuts the lid and melts it, then he splits it in all its length to obtain a big plate of metal which he melts then on the fire to eliminate any residue of oil and painting. The metal become enough supple so that the artist can jump of all his weight above and obtain a flat surface of 1.80 x 86 cms.
Thanks to a fragment of rail of railroad, he proceeds to the hammering of the plate to return it to make it more easily feasible for a better malleability. Again cleaned the rests of painting, oil and rust, the plate is now ready to pass to the next stage: the drawing.
The drawing of the drawing comes real in the chalk according to the imagination of the artist, which draws generally its inspiration from the voodoo and its Loas spirits, in the mythical creatures (as sirens) or in the daily life (birds, trees, musicians). The artist proceeds then to the delicate stage of the cut of the drawing. He obtains then an openwork sculpture which it is necessary to him to remodel and to chisel. We evoke the forms with a nail or with an even finer burin: this is what we call the technique of repoussé work.
To end, the artist smooths his work in the sandpaper, signs or not and pass it in the soot. Finally, he varnishes or paints his work with lively and warm colors, before letting the sun dry it. It is necessary to count several days to realize a piece. We often speak about a work of lacemaker, because it requires patience, sharpness and delicacy.
