He was a painter. He had an amazing collection of ferns. Another oil lamp. His friendship and the fact that he was our neighbor was my great luck.
Where to start talking about a person, especially to those who will no longer know them? How to give an infinite gift? Or, rather, how to return it? I can’t begin except for your generosity.
One of the main lessons that a young artist can receive is that a single law governs all the arts. That is why it is not unusual for a good painter or a good musician to also be, for example, a good writer. I learned this, or began to learn it (I’m not done yet), when Águedo Alonso told me four words: “Art is One.”
In another text called “Poetic justice” I commented that aesthetic sensitivity, or what they call the sense of composition, is deeply linked to the sense of justice and, ultimately, goodness. This correspondence was very evident in Águedo.
He was born on February 5, in Pinar del Río. When I met him, he was already old and I was thirty years old.
Just by seeing a few of my tiny scribbles, he declared that I was wasting my life and that I had to start painting. My family environment and my friends accustomed me to that type of benevolent affirmations, pilgrim daughters of intuition, which could, or could not, bear fruit later. But what he could not be used to—because it is a rarity—is that the prophet in question took action in the fulfillment of his prophecy.
Not content with having declared myself a painter without having picked up a brush in my life, Águedo invited me to visit him regularly, and put in my hands, without rate or measure, top quality paint and brushes. This changed my life.
My parents and he lived in the countryside, on the outskirts of the town of Punta Brava, in houses that were about half a kilometer from each other. Águedo’s was a two-story white chalet with a spacious lot full of all kinds of plants, lovingly selected and cared for. House and garden were a reflection of the artist’s soul and his deep understanding of peasant culture.
Anyone who crossed its threshold was drawn to the variety of beautiful lamps that gave the house the appearance of an informal lighting museum, and also to Águedo’s own paintings and installations, no less exquisite and varied.
Águedo’s work had several stages; one of them, dedicated to the royal palm, earned him the name “the painter of the palms.” Many Cuban artists have painted the palm, but the palm groves recreated by him have an intensity and romantic suggestion that brings them closer to the evocations of Heredia and Martí. Other stages were “the peasant’s house” and the “Caribbean series”. The painting of his that I prefer belongs to the latter, which is a transfigured city floating on the sea.
During my long visits, in addition to painting, we talked about many things; for example, from Cuban or Pinar del Río traditions, from his trips to Hanoi, to Ulaanbaatar, to Brussels. Sometimes he would show me a treasure or a souvenir from those trips. In Europe and everywhere else he tried to visit flea markets, where he used to find all kinds of beautiful objects.
The first thing he suggested I paint was a lamp. A very complete pictorial exercise, as it included flowers, porcelain, metal, wood, flame and glass. Then another, and another, until we reach five. And that was it. We jokingly call it the five-year plan. From there he decided that he should start exhibiting the paintings that were beginning to appear. In that brief interval I felt, oh wonder, that I could paint things that left me pleased, and that I would never want to stop doing so. Águedo never insisted much on technique, and in fact he did not want me to call him a teacher, since, according to him, he had not taught me anything. That puzzled me. Today I interpret it as the height of his constant generosity. If it hadn’t been for him, I probably would never have painted.
Since I spent the day at his house, until there was no longer enough natural light, I used to have lunch there. We ate simple and tasty things that he prepared himself, while he worked on his paintings, or while he supervised my acrylic rehearsals. I remember that sometimes he would add a little sugar to the tomato slices, saying: “The tomato has its own vinaigrette.” He never let me wash a dish. I didn’t see him do it either.
Once he presented me with a spectacular sweet, an incomparable dessert. True “hidden flower”, as my grandparents would say, of Pinar del Río gastronomy. He explained to me that it was a family recipe, a sweet that was very laborious to make, as it consisted of sour oranges emptied and refilled with grated cheese and coconut snow, covered with a crystallized syrup. The result was a pyramid made up of perfect golden spheres, erected on top of a porcelain fountain. A complex symphony of flavors, worthy of the Sun King’s table. I have never seen such a delicacy again.
I don’t know how many words I would need to express my gratitude for Águedo, or paint his complete portrait. I could also tell many more things about our encounters, but the substance of the eternal does not ask for, nor deliver, more than a brief evocation. I must trust the material of these fragments that affection and nostalgia have chosen.
