Arts and Literature of Cuba

Modernist artwork outside Havana’s Palacio del Centro Asturiano (Palace of the Asturian Center), built in 1927 by the architect Manuel Bustos.

Academic art was representational. In other words, the subject of a painting should be clearly recognizable, rather than abstract. The treatment was supposed to be at least generally realistic. For example, the artist had to apply linear perspective, by which objects in the background of the scene become small- er in relation to their distance from the foreground. The colors, too, had to resemble what the human eye would see. A pine tree, for instance, would be green. Even when bright colors might be true to life—as, perhaps, with clothing—academic art dictated that the artist use them sparingly. Nor did bold brush-

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Arts and Literature of Cuba