Haitian Collection

Castera Bazile came into contact with the Centre d'Art through his work as a domestic servant for DeWitt Peters, the center's founder. Bazile quickly became a professional artist and had a distinguished, albeit short, career. In 1955 he won First Prize in ALCOA's Caribbean International Art Competition, and won the $1,000 First Prize in the 1957 Holiday Magazine competition. In 1962, at the age of 39, Bazile contracted tuberculosis and died a few years later. In vodou, the lwa (spirits) are closely related to nature and are believed to reside in springs, rivers, and trees. Sometimes vodou followers make pilgrimages and offerings to these types of sites to show their devotion to the spirits. Worship for Loco, the spirit of vegetation, is often associated with the worship of trees, especially the mapou or silk-cotton tree, sometimes called the ceiba. The towering mapou, one of the tallest types of trees in Haiti, is considered sacred. In this painting, a man climbs a mapou while other individuals watch. Offerings have been placed in the straw bag he carries, which he will then hang from the tree. The man in the foreground holds an ason (sacred rattle) that is used to summon the spirits. Other offerings have been placed at the bottom of the tree, including coins and a candle under a bila (tent). The man's makout (straw bag) and the miniature straw hats on the ground also associate this offering with Azaka, the spirit of agriculture. As in many other vodou ceremonies, drapo (ritual flags), and food (indicated by the two cocks that will be sacrificed) play an important role.

In 1944, Castera Bazile was working as a servant for DeWitt Peters, the founder of the Centre d'Art. Taken with what he saw, Bazile began to paint in 1945. He was one of the few artists to paint murals in the Saint Trinité Episcopal Cathedral in Port-au-Prince in 1950-51. Bazile won both acclaim and international awards for his works. He stopped painting in 1962 and died three years later from tuberculosis. Although Bazile was known as a devout Catholic, he was also familiar with vodou, and often addressed both in his religious paintings. Here the artist conflates the Christian devil and hell with Ogou, the god of war and metal, one of the vodou lwa (spirits). Ogou is a deity of fire and his sacred color is red. He is associated with St. Michael and St. George. These saints are shown slaying a winged demon or dragon in popular Catholic chromolithographs found throughout Haiti. In Bazile's painting, men and women are led down a winding path where they will be plunged into a pit of fire, also filled with such winged demons and dragons. The devil watches from above. Surrounding him are pots filled with offerings, Ogou's sword, painted drums, and an ason (sacred rattle), all associated with vodou. Triptychs (literally three folds) have been used for altarpieces since medieval times. This painting may have been part of a triptych, which would account for its unusual shape. Bazile commonly created color contrasts, such as with the bright orange, red fire against the muted blues and browns of the background in this work.

Every year, just before the beginning of Lent, carnival is celebrated in Haiti, just as it is in New Orleans. It is a time when all the rules of behavior and propriety can be broken. The poor can be arrogant and the rich can go slumming. Blacks put on white masks and whites come to dances in blackface. Costumes are daring, elaborate, and often are two costumes in one-male on one side and female on the other. Carnival time is a time when the infamous tricksters of West Africa are about: Anansi, Legba, and Eshu Elegbara. They are forever strolling through the peaceful communities with a hat on that is one color on one side and another on the other side. In the wake of these playful antics, arguments break out as to the description of the stranger who has just passed by. Among other things, carnival time is a ritualized enactment of the relationship between the powerful and the powerless. Benoit's Carnival dance suggests an atmosphere where social class is a major issue. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and yet 6 to 7 percent of the population is extremely wealthy. Skin color is a class marker-for wealthy mulattoes who align themselves with the French, the lighter the skin, the higher the status. Careful attention to the figures in Benoit's painting suggests that one or two mulattoes have come to the dance.

Born in Port-au-Prince, Benoit was one of the first to join Le Centre d'Art after it opened in 1944. A taxi driver, Benoit wandered into the gallery one day to look around. He later came back with a crude pottery jug that he showed DeWitt Peters, the Director, telling Peters that a friend had painted it and asking if the Centre would purchase it. Peters did and gave Benoit a piece of cardboard to take to his friend so that he could paint a picture upon it. This arrangement, cardboard for finished paintings, continued until Peters insisted upon meeting the artist. Benoit departed to retrieve the artist only to return and shyly admit to Peters that it was he who had painted the pottery and all of the pictures. Benoit's delicate style, his insistence on detail, and his insights into Haitian daily life made him one of Haiti's most popular and beloved artists. Benoit's striking painting, Calice, is all about the vodou poto mitan (the sacred center pole in a vodou temple). Benoit's painting depicts fecundity as an earth power, a force that pushes up from down under. The tuberous body of an ancestor, transformed by time below the earth, sinks roots deep into the soil and, at the same time, pushes up new growth. From the belly springs a thick umbilical cord through which flows the life-sustaining wisdom and power of the ancestors. The chalice (used in the sacrament of The Lord's Supper) becomes a large flower, bursting with new life, receiving its energy and sustenance from the earth--a powerful combination of both Roman Catholic and Haitian imagery.