The black virgin

Art in America, March, 1998 by Eduardo Costa

Few art works are as conceptually interesting as the Black Virgin, whose creation, probably in the 18th century, was cutting-edge in relation to traditional Christian iconography. Breaking a tradition that forced black believers to adore white icons, images of the Black Virgin have evolved in Latin America with the blending of Catholicism and African cults. A well-known example is the Virgin of Regla, Havana's spiritual patron, worshiped in a colonial church across the Bay of Havana. A Precarious ferry takes believers, who are mostly white or of mixed blood, and tourists to the image. The icon is a naive generic doll with jetblack face and hands, clothed mostly in light blue fabric with silver embroidery. The color of her skin and clothing is one reason why the Virgin of Regla is associated with lemanja, the Yoruba god of the ocean in the West African tradition. lemanja, even when she emerges in a dream, wears light blue or light green clothes and beads -- analogues for the ocean -- and she is, of course, black.

Little more than 2 feet tall, the Black Virgin sometimes appears with the Child, who is lily-white. The Black Mother and White Child express a popular ethnographical insight: genetically, whites come from blacks. This reflection accords with the theory, now sustained by most anthropologists, that black Africa is in the origin of all races.

Though physically small, the Black Virgin has had an immense social impact. While familiar throughout most of Latin America, she manages to surprise and deeply move African-Americans, Afro-Europeans and other people who dislike oppressive orthodoxy. Valerie Cassel, a nonreligious African-American who is the director of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and who was in Havana for the Biennial, noted that she never saw a black icon in Catholic, Pentecostal or Baptist churches. The creolization of religion in general affected her profoundly. The Black Virgin's popularity in Cuba reveals the country's receptivity to other cultures and helps to explain the extraordinary inclusiveness of the Havana Biennial.