Guillermo Collazo

Guillermo Collazo was a Caribbean painter in the late 19th century, and his style is very European. He himself had a heritage of both European Spanish and indigenous blood, and he made a career painting picturesque subject matters, like many other artists at the time. Paintings of the Caribbean were very popular in Europe at the time, as they allowed Europeans to essentially see what they wanted to see without having to make the trip (and probably see things they really didn't want to see in the process, such as enslaved locals and disease). However, Guillermo Collazo's pieces had a heavier influence than just recording landscape to send back to Europe - his stormy scenes not only captivate the extreme weather in the Caribbean, but speak about churning waters politically as well. For example, my personal favorite painting of his, The Siesta.

Guillermo Collazo’s 1886 oil on canvas, The Siesta, brings the viewer into the hazy scene of a woman taking a nap in a sunroom. Collazo paints a dream-like room, almost foggy and sleepy from the viewer’s standpoint. The painting is half portrait, half landscape, illustrating a finely dressed Spaniard woman dozing off in an open-air room, facing a wide entrance to the beach and ocean. She is positioned in her wicker chair to be directly in the sunlight coming through the open-way, giving the whole painting a warm comforting feeling. The inside and outside of the room are covered with various tropical plants, the architecture and openness of the room allows space, and the colors are vibrant and warm, all indicating hot weather. The atmosphere of painting is hot. While the artist paid careful attention to detail – for example the print on the Oriental rug below the sleeping woman – Collazo consistently uses soft lines and slightly whites out the image to create a sense of heat. The relaxed pose of the sleeping woman, and the sunshine reflecting off her face indicate that she sat down to enjoy the breeze coming off of the ocean, rested her eyes, and dozed away in the relaxation of the setting.

As calm and soothing as the painting first appears, it has many elements that make the viewer question just how relaxing this scene is. To start, the room is very large and the only furniture visible is the chair in which the woman sleeps. The large open doorway, and the staircase directly outside the room show that the room is on the first floor or the building, and that the area outside the room is more likely to be a terrace outside an entrance to the house than a balcony off of a bedroom. This woman has chosen a peculiar space to nap, unless it is simply the only large view of the ocean in the house. Her positioning to the left center of the painting strongly suggests that she chose her location simply for the gorgeous view outside. Still, even the woman alone appears to be relaxed but tense at the same time. While her upper body is slumped in the chair and clearly at rest, the lower half of her body keeps its posture; Her leg remains neatly crossed over the other. She is a woman of status; otherwise she would not bother to look so composed and feminine. However, this only adds to the odd location of the room. Why sit properly when one is alone in a sitting room to enjoy a view. Furthermore, he body is turned toward the water in the chair, while the chair faces the interior of the room. It could also be possible that she was posing for a portrait, and in the heat she fell asleep, so Collazo painted her as he pleased.

Secondly the room is hardly clean. Leaves are strewn about the entrance, both inside and outside, and the rug is ruffled and disturbed rather than laying flat on the ground. Since the ornate rug, the lavish architecture of the room and the woman’s attire all indicate wealth, it seems odd that the setting would be so messy, especially if it was the location of portraiture. Maybe the artist was aiming to paint the scene as it actually was. Maybe this portrait/landscape is symbolism for the calm that follows a tropical storm. Maybe the artist has a message in the mixture of rest and mess. This could be that the wealthy that were living in the Caribbean had a blind eye to the troubles of the area and the people around them. It could be a message of carelessness. It could symbolize the Spanish people’s struggle with the Spanish American War about to break out. At the point in which Collazo painted The Siesta, the Spanish Empire was declining, and Cuba, the location of the painting, would shortly declare independence from Spain. It is highly likely that a woman of wealth in Cuba would be a Spaniard. In yet another message, the painting could indicate that no home is safe from the dangerous storms of the Caribbean, no matter how lavish.

The more one learns about the time and location of the painting, the more possibilities open up for it to symbolize more than an elegant woman dozing in front of pretty scenery.

Lopez Nuñez, Olga. Guillermo Collazo in Cobas Amate, R. et al (Eds.) Guia Arte Cubano. Seville, Spain: Escandón Impresores, 2003.