The image is . By 1923, he had completed his studies in painting. He was particularly influenced by the modes of religious and artistic expression of Cuba’s black population. In 1939, Lam met poet and founder of Surrealism André Breton and became associated with the Surrealist movement, which affected his style. A closely woven, sturdy cloth of hemp, cotton, linen, or a similar fiber, frequently stretched over a frame and used as a surface for painting. In 1941, Lam returned to Cuba. A major early 20th-century painter, Wifredo Lam fused elements of Cubism and Surrealism with African culture in paintings that were exhibited alongside those of Pablo Picasso and other Cubists and Fauvists.A native Cuban, Lam hailed from Chinese, European, Indian, and mixed-African descent, and he was deeply influenced by African spiritual practices such as Santeria. Four part-human, part-animal figures, with exaggerated hands and feet and faces recalling African masks, stand side-by-side. French for “advanced guard,” this term is used in English to describe a group that is innovative, experimental, and inventive in its technique or ideology, particularly in the realms of culture, politics, and the arts. The Jungle is a Cubist Gouache, Paper and Canvas Painting created by Wifredo Lam in 1943. We use our own and third-party cookies to personalize your experience and the promotions you see. The opacity of gouache derives from the addition of white fillers, such as clay or chalk, or a higher ratio of pigment to binder. Biography Wifredo Lam was born in Sagua la Grande, Cuba, on December 8, 1902. In popular writing about psychology, the division of the mind containing the sum of all thoughts, memories, impulses, desires, feelings, etc., that are not subject to a person’s perception or control but that often affect conscious thoughts and behavior (noun). In Cubist fashion, their bodies are fragmented into individual parts that do not seem to fit together logically. 1. See this work in MoMA’s Online Collection. He depicted figures with crescent-shaped faces, recalling African or Pacific Islander masks, against a background of Cuban sugarcane fields. Signed and dated 1945 lower right, oil on ...[+] canvas 43 5/8 x 49 1/2 in. Lam painted The Jungle, his masterpiece, two years after returning to his native Cuba from Europe, where he had been a member of the Surrealist movement. La vie est un songe, Filipacchi 1974 Cuba, 1902–23. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff. Our site uses technology that is not supported by your browser, so it may not work correctly. Umbral (Seuil), 1950, by Wifredo Lam. Gary Nader, Miami. A representation of a human or animal form in a work of art. Yet there’s a big difference between Lam’s dream jungle and … To find out more, including which third-party cookies we place and how to manage cookies, see our privacy policy. The rightmost figure holds a pair of shears, a possible reference to harvesting, while the leftmost figure, with its horse-like features, could be seen to hint at one of the spirits in Afro-Cuban mysticism. Lam was born in Cuba but spent much of his twenties and thirties in Europe, a sojourn that deeply affected his artistic vision. Lam, who had spent three years working with the Surrealists in Paris, aimed for The Jungle to convey the haunting consequences of slavery and colonialism for his native island of Cuba. His father was Chinese and his mother was a Cuban woman of mixed Spanish and African heritage. La Jungla (The Jungle 1943), Wifredo Lam Delectant 2016-12-03T13:23:43-05:00. Wifredo Lam was an Afro-Cuban artist best known for his unique Surrealist aesthetic that combined European artistic movements with the imagery of his native country. Available for sale from MLA Gallery, Wifredo Lam, Untitled (1977), Lithograph, 26 × 20 in In The Jungle, the woman-horse depicted on the left is a figure from Afro-Cuban mysticism that represents a spirit in communication with the natural world. In The Jungle, Lam blends Afro-Cuban and African artistic and cultural traditions with the European modernist movements of Cubism and Surrealism. A work of art avant-garde artists figures in a work of art plastic. These ranged from Abstract “automatic” drawings to hyper-realistic painted scenes inspired by dreams and to! Increasingly fragmented compositions the Circulating film and video Library faces recalling African or Pacific Islander masks, against a of... Cubist gouache, masked figures simultaneously emerge and disappear amid thick sugarcane bamboo... Signed and dated 1945 lower right, oil on... 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