Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
Set along the broad avenues that fill the relatively open spaces on the western edge of Habana Vieja, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes is the most impressive and spectacular of Havana’s museums and by far the largest art collection in the country, with its collection divided between two completely separate buildings, two blocks apart. The museum stands head and shoulders above the vast majority of its city rivals, smartly presented and properly curated, with no unnecessary clutter. The large and rather plain-looking Art Deco Palacio de Bellas Artes showcases a history of exclusively Cuban art, offering a detailed examination of the history of Cuban painting and sculpture, including everything from portraits by Spanish colonists to Revolution-inspired work – though pre-Columbian art is notably absent. Artists from the rest of the world are represented in the Centro Asturiano, with an impressive breadth of different kinds of art, including Roman ceramics and nineteenth-century Japanese paintings.
No English translations have been provided for any of the titles in either building, which can be a hindrance to fully appreciating some of the works on display – particularly in the ancient art section, where it’s not always clear what you are looking at. Both buildings have bookshops where you can buy good-quality, Spanish-only guides to their collections, invaluable if you have an interest in the context and background of the paintings.
Centro Asturiano
In contrast to the Art Deco simplicity of the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the interior of the stately Centro Asturiano, on the east border of the Parque Central, is a marvel to look at in itself. Housing the international collections of the Museo de Bellas Artes, this grandiose building is plastered with balcony-supported columns and punctuated with carved stone detail. The entrance hall with its wide marble staircase is a real knockout, punctuated by thick pillars and, looming above, spacious balustraded balconies from which you can admire the stunning stained-glass ceiling.
The exhibits are divided up by country of origin, with the largest collections by Italian, French and Spanish artists, on the fifth, fourth and third floors respectively. There are one or two standouts among the more mundane British, German, Dutch and Flemish collections, all on the fifth floor, such as Kermesse by Jan Brueghel (the younger), one of the only internationally famous artists in this section. The painting depicts a peasant scene with all sorts of debauchery going on, a focus typical of his work.
Elsewhere you can see ancient art from Rome, Egypt, Greece and Etruria, including vases, busts, and most notably the coffin from a 3000-year-old tomb; a small room of nineteenth-century Japanese paintings and, sketchiest of all, a haphazard set of Latin American and North American paintings.
Palacio de Bellas Artes
No other collection of Cuban art, of any sort, comes close to the range and volume of works on display in the beautifully lit, air-conditioned Palacio de Bellas Artes, a two-minute walk north along Agramonte from the Parque Central. The collection spans five centuries but has a far higher proportion of twentieth-century art, though given the dearth of colonial-era painting around the island the museum can still claim to best represent the country’s artistic heritage.
The best way to tackle the three-floor, chronologically ordered collection is to take the lifts up to the top floor and walk around clockwise. From a set of relatively ordinary colonial-era portraits and landscapes there is an abrupt leap into the twentieth century, the most substantial and engaging part of the collection. Among the most famous of the paintings is Gitana Tropical (Tropical Gypsy) by Victor Manuel García (1897–1969), one of the first Cuban exponents of modern art. His evocative yet simplistic portrait of a young native American woman is a widely reproduced national treasure. Paintings by other Cuban greats such as Wifredo Lam (1902–82) and Fidelo Ponce de León (1895–1949) are succeeded by art from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s respectively, and then finally a section dedicated to works produced since 1979. This includes installation art, sculptures and, in the work of Raúl Martínez (1927–95), an example of a very Cuban take on pop art.
To see anything from this century, check the single room on the top floor by the lifts, where temporary exhibitions are hung, or visit the bookshop (the best in the city for books on Cuban art, with a decent selection of posters too) on the ground floor, where you’ll also find a simple café and the pleasant open courtyard, dotted with a few modern sculptures. Before leaving, check the notice board in the entrance hall for upcoming events in the museum, often in its 248-seat theatre.
Plaza Vieja
Animated and chock-a-bloc with visitors, Plaza Vieja, at the southern end of Mercaderes, more than any of the other old town squares, hums with the energy not just of a tourist attraction but as somewhere to come for a drink, a meal or to while away some time, for Cubans as well as foreign tourists, though certainly there are more of the latter. To a lesser but significant extent the square still reflects its original purpose as a focus for the community, with some of the buildings around its colourful borders still home to local residents and others occupied by educational and cultural institutions. This has been one of the most redeveloped spots in Habana Vieja over the last decade, distinguished with a central fountain, a museum, a planetarium, a photography gallery, an arts centre and primary school, a rooftop camera obscura and some decent shops, restaurants and several excellent cafés. The only significant edifice yet to be restored is the Art Nouveau Palacio Cueto in the southeastern corner. Built between 1906 and 1908, it became a stunning hotel in the 1920s and is set to be one again if the renovations ever finish, having started over a decade ago.
Despite its name, this is not the oldest square in Havana, having been established at the end of the sixteenth century after the creation of the Plaza de Armas. It became the “Old Square” when the nearby Plaza del Cristo was built around 1640, by which time Plaza Vieja had firmly established itself as a centre for urban activity, variously used as a marketplace and festival site. Most of its beautifully restored, porticoed buildings, however, were built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, long after its foundation.
Ciudad en Movimiento
The annual street dancing festival takes place in La Habana Vieja for 4-5 days in April. The atmosphere is burning and soulful, with dancers in colourful costumes and people crowding the streets to take part in the celebrations. The impromptu performances are fun and lively, often taking part all over the streets in Old Havana but also other random places such as parks and museums.
Santería and Catholicism
Walking the streets of Havana you may notice people dressed head-to-foot in white, a bead necklace providing the only colour in their costume. These are practitioners of Santería, the most popular of Afro–Cuban religions, and the beads represent their appointed orisha, the gods and goddesses at the heart of their worship.
With its roots in the religious beliefs of the Yoruba people of West Africa, Santería spread in Cuba with the importation of slaves from that region. Forbidden by the Spanish to practise their faith, the slaves found ways of hiding images of their gods behind those of the Catholic saints to whom they were forced to pay homage. From this developed the syncretism of African orishas with their Catholic counterparts – thus, for example, the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, the patron saint of Cuba, embodies the orisha known as Oshún, the goddess of femininity, in part because both are believed to provide protection during birth. Similarly, Yemayá, goddess of water and queen of the sea – considered the mother of all orishas – is the equivalent of the Virgen de Regla, whom Spanish Catholics believed protected sailors. Other pairings include San Lázaro, patron saint of the sick, with Babalu-Ayé, Santa Bárbara with Changó, and San Cristóbal with Aggayú. There are some four hundred Afro–Cuban orishas in all.