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The Gospel in Art by the Peasants of Solentiname
Discussions between a Catholic priest and Nicaraguan peasants concerning selections from the Gospel are accompanied by the peasant's paintings of the New Testament stories
66 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
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October 7, 2023
At the southern end of Lake Nicaragua (close to Costa Rica) a little archipelago pokes out of the placid waters. It is called Solentiname. Here, in the 1960s a Trappist priest named Ernesto Cardenal arrived from Granada to work with the islanders (about 750 people); teaching them about Jesus and, interestingly enough, teaching them to paint.
The paintings, full of nature and beautiful colors and many of them depicting religious scenes (with the manger and Nazareth replaced by Solentiname villages and the Romans replaced with Somoza the Nicaraguan erstwhile dictator’s shock troops), became famous. And sparked Nicaragua’s national painting style, “Primitivism”.
Ernesto Cardenal was no ordinary priest. He was also a communist, and a practitioner of “Liberation Theology”, a new interpretation of the Bible that fused Jesus’s teachings with Marxist ideology. “I have come to set the captives free,” so therefore “Workers of the world unite!!”
Some of the peasants of Solentiname went on to attack Somoza’s troops in San Carlos. The dictatorship razed the island. But two years later the Sandinistas, the guerilla group to which Cardenal was sympathetic, overthrew the dictatorship and Cardenal became Minister of Culture. He worked through the 10 years of Daniel Ortega’s godless revolutinon (and was de-frocked by Pope John Paul II); and then left the party in 1994 when he realized the Sandinistas were really no better than the dictatorshp they replaced. His relationship with the Ortegas (Daniel and his evil bride Rosario Murillo) got significantly worse over the years of the 2nd Sandinista dictatorship (the one still ongoing). Cardenal died last year. You can read some of his story here.
The book I’m reviewing here is a picture book “The Gospel in Art by the Peasants of Solentiname”. It is made up of some excerpts from “The Gospel in Solentiname”, Cardenal’s signature work. Interspersed with religious paintings of the peasants.
Couple of (random) thoughts. First, one of the things that the communists had that the conservatives never cared about was connecting with people. Deep in the jungles; across mountain ridges; down into dark canyons — and yes on little archipelagos in the middle of lakes lost in the mists of time and abandon — you could find the communists, and the priests. Ministering to people, meeting them where they were, making common cause with their poverty and oppression. Sometimes (like in the case of Cardenal, and many others) these motivations overlapped.
Which brings me to my second thought; the peasants of Solentiname understood Jesus better than we do. I just got back from a trip to the Holy Land. The Western Wall; Gethsemane; Via Dolorosa; Nazareth. Capernaum. Capernaum was where Jesus decided to start his mission. Capernaum on the side of Lake Galilee. And that is where he recruited his first disciples (Peter and James and Andrew). Capernaum is more like Solentiname than it is New York or Rome or Constantinople. And Peter, well he was more like the peasants of Solentiname than he would have been like the great teachers of Alexandria; fishing the little lake in his hand-made boat. And Judea back then? Oppressed internally by some corrupted religious leaders and externally by the brutal dictatorship of Rome — the peasants of Capernaum would have understood the complaints of the peasants of Solentiname.
Though I have been an anti-communist for my whole life (having watched the Suicide of Venezuela), I nevertheless have sympathy for the work and the figure of Ernesto Cardenal, fifty years ago on an island with no electricity telling the peasants about Jesus and about Revolution. That period in Latin American history was full of such remarkable figures (most of them ideologically wrong but nevertheless quite compelling) — when nowadays we only have corrupt presidents and a sclerotic ‘liberalism‘ that has lost its way, no longer providing answers.
The peasants of Solentiname are still painting, and I recommend you pick up a piece of art. And pick up a copy of Ernesto Cardenal’s work and as you look at the bright colors, re-think the story of Jesus. It may just become fresh again.
The paintings, full of nature and beautiful colors and many of them depicting religious scenes (with the manger and Nazareth replaced by Solentiname villages and the Romans replaced with Somoza the Nicaraguan erstwhile dictator’s shock troops), became famous. And sparked Nicaragua’s national painting style, “Primitivism”.
Ernesto Cardenal was no ordinary priest. He was also a communist, and a practitioner of “Liberation Theology”, a new interpretation of the Bible that fused Jesus’s teachings with Marxist ideology. “I have come to set the captives free,” so therefore “Workers of the world unite!!”
Some of the peasants of Solentiname went on to attack Somoza’s troops in San Carlos. The dictatorship razed the island. But two years later the Sandinistas, the guerilla group to which Cardenal was sympathetic, overthrew the dictatorship and Cardenal became Minister of Culture. He worked through the 10 years of Daniel Ortega’s godless revolutinon (and was de-frocked by Pope John Paul II); and then left the party in 1994 when he realized the Sandinistas were really no better than the dictatorshp they replaced. His relationship with the Ortegas (Daniel and his evil bride Rosario Murillo) got significantly worse over the years of the 2nd Sandinista dictatorship (the one still ongoing). Cardenal died last year. You can read some of his story here.
The book I’m reviewing here is a picture book “The Gospel in Art by the Peasants of Solentiname”. It is made up of some excerpts from “The Gospel in Solentiname”, Cardenal’s signature work. Interspersed with religious paintings of the peasants.
Couple of (random) thoughts. First, one of the things that the communists had that the conservatives never cared about was connecting with people. Deep in the jungles; across mountain ridges; down into dark canyons — and yes on little archipelagos in the middle of lakes lost in the mists of time and abandon — you could find the communists, and the priests. Ministering to people, meeting them where they were, making common cause with their poverty and oppression. Sometimes (like in the case of Cardenal, and many others) these motivations overlapped.
Which brings me to my second thought; the peasants of Solentiname understood Jesus better than we do. I just got back from a trip to the Holy Land. The Western Wall; Gethsemane; Via Dolorosa; Nazareth. Capernaum. Capernaum was where Jesus decided to start his mission. Capernaum on the side of Lake Galilee. And that is where he recruited his first disciples (Peter and James and Andrew). Capernaum is more like Solentiname than it is New York or Rome or Constantinople. And Peter, well he was more like the peasants of Solentiname than he would have been like the great teachers of Alexandria; fishing the little lake in his hand-made boat. And Judea back then? Oppressed internally by some corrupted religious leaders and externally by the brutal dictatorship of Rome — the peasants of Capernaum would have understood the complaints of the peasants of Solentiname.
Though I have been an anti-communist for my whole life (having watched the Suicide of Venezuela), I nevertheless have sympathy for the work and the figure of Ernesto Cardenal, fifty years ago on an island with no electricity telling the peasants about Jesus and about Revolution. That period in Latin American history was full of such remarkable figures (most of them ideologically wrong but nevertheless quite compelling) — when nowadays we only have corrupt presidents and a sclerotic ‘liberalism‘ that has lost its way, no longer providing answers.
The peasants of Solentiname are still painting, and I recommend you pick up a piece of art. And pick up a copy of Ernesto Cardenal’s work and as you look at the bright colors, re-think the story of Jesus. It may just become fresh again.
October 8, 2012
In 1966, the Catholic priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal traveled to the Solentiname archipelago in the south of Lake Nicaragua, and there founded an intentional Catholic community. The islands became an outpost of liberation theology, which was then sweeping through Latin America, and the birthplace of a remarkable artistic flourishing. The local people developed a distinctive primitivist style of painting that remains highly influential in Nicaragua, and the songwriter Carlos Mejía Godoy journeyed there to compose his song-cycle La Misa Campesina (The Peasant's Mass). In the worship services, Cardenal replaced the traditional sermon with a participatory Bible study, which was tape-recorded and later published as the 4-volume The Gospel in Solentiname.
This very brief book pairs passages from the Bible studies with some of the luminous, primitivist paintings of the Bible passage under discussion. If you're (like me) not likely to dive into the full Gospel in Solentiname this book is a fine introduction to Solentiname's version of liberation theology. And the paintings are fantastic.
This very brief book pairs passages from the Bible studies with some of the luminous, primitivist paintings of the Bible passage under discussion. If you're (like me) not likely to dive into the full Gospel in Solentiname this book is a fine introduction to Solentiname's version of liberation theology. And the paintings are fantastic.
July 21, 2018
This is a condensed version of the much longer Gospel of Solentiname reflections (which occupy several hundred pages). Instead, this book takes a few dozen brief extracts and combines them with relevant art made by the community. This is a great combination of art, prayer, and radical Christianity.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews