Arts and Religions of Haiti: How the Sun Illuminates under Cover of Darkness by LeGrace Benson (review)

LeGrace Benson’s Arts and Religions of Haiti: How the Sun Illuminates under Cover of Darkness is a sweeping and lavishly illustrated study that incorporates decades of primary research and interviews on the art and artists of Haiti. Benson organizes her ambitious book around the concept of “Long Conversations,” a living network of mutable communication at the geographic, political, and cultural crossroads of the Caribbean, making Haiti’s arts and religions an incredibly complex Creole mix. The book is divided into seven sections, of various lengths, that describe “the religious environment historically and geographically surrounding the artists,” situating the art “within the environment both as illustration and as expression of it” (xxxiv). Benson shows how Haitian art arises out of a multifaceted environment of understandings, communications, and worldviews, taking the reader beyond what the disciplines of art history or religious studies alone could offer.

Sections 1 and 2 introduce the religions that coexist within Haiti. Benson argues that Haiti’s religious environment is ubiquitous and all-encompassing: “Kreyol religious sensibilities exert a shaping force on the creation of the arts, whether ostensibly secular, or commercial or evidently religious” (7). Alongside Vodou and Roman Catholicism, “trace” religions reside within this matrix, whose influences have ebbed and flowed variously over time, including indigenous Taino practices, various denominations of Protestant Christianity, Freemasonry, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and a wide range of superstitions and magical practices. Secularism, European Humanism, and Enlightenment philosophy are also present, though Benson argues throughout that while many Haitian artists would describe themselves as nonreligious, most “produce works that reveal a dedicated mindfulness to what they regard as Ayiti Pwòfon (Deep Haiti), with its Long Conversations reaching back to Africa, maintained in the traditional religious practices of Vodou and in aspects of Alchemy and varieties of magic” (12).¹

Benson might sometimes seem to overextend her argument, especially in documenting “trace” presences of Taino beliefs, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism. She reminds us however, that art and religious practices are always in a living state of change, and remnants can be found “in narratives retained or invented from or for the Long Conversation” (20). For example, beyond what can be documented from Taino material evidence, of which Benson includes several fascinating archeological artifacts, contemporary artists, such as Josie Joseph and Franklin Joseph, have created a Taino imaginaire—“a romance of Ayiti” pre-Columbus—to invoke political resistance through representations of the Taino and their symbols (20). More problematic to document and prove, Benson suggests Islamic influences for some Haitian images of Djab (devil) and human-animal composites as well as patterning found in paintings and sacred flags, both historic and from more contemporary artists such as A. J. Auguste and Maxon Scylla. Throughout, Benson brings scholarly sources into dialogue with artwork and interviews gathered from communities across Haiti. If some connections seem tenuous, this is partly because oral tales, memory, and creative practices can communicate and produce meaning that exists beyond what is officially documented within the historic record.

Section 3, “Freemasonry and Its Close Relations,” provides clear evidence for the impact and contributions of Freemasonry and its other “close relations” to Haitian visual arts and religious practices. In doing so, Benson accomplishes for Haitian art history what David Bejelajac and others have achieved in the field of US art history. Painter Philomé Obin was a Freemason, but artists outside the organization also integrated the symbols of Freemasonry, mesmerism, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, and other mystical practices. More than just a secular mystical society, Benson argues, Freemasonry has become intertwined with Vodou in its use of symbols. Freemasonry is also especially prevalent in representations of Haitian history, as it was associated with the abolition of slavery and, more recently, seen “as a mark of ethical dignity” (40). For some artists, such influences arrive through Long Conversations that connect their creative practices back to...