Page - 93 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

Using Latinx Theology’s Lo Cotidiano | 93www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 87–106 in the French capital at the time of the first stirrings of Impressionism, he became very skilled in its form and techniques and is considered one of its foremost even if less well-known exponents.16 He also favored realism espe- cially in subject matter, as El Velorio and other paintings such as El Estudiante (“The Student”, 1874) and La Escuela del Maestro Rafael Cordero (“The School of Teacher Rafael Cordero”, c. 1892) evince.17 Oller is also a Caribbeanist in both form and content.18 El Velorio certainly reflects that trio of stylistic pref- erences: the painting presents the Puerto Rican bakiné,19 a real thing, yet with a special emphasis on the metaphorical, meaning-conveying qualities of light, color, and movement. According to the interpretation that has become normative, Oller was using the content of El Velorio to issue a scathing social and moral judgment of the Puerto Rico of his time while also showing his mastery of the Impressionist art form. Besides the deep resonances that the painting has had for Puerto Rican art due to its style, at eight feet by thirteen feet in size, El Velorio shadows Oller’s other existing paintings. As explained next, the work is monumental literally and, more importantly, content-wise. In El Velorio, one can see the funerary wake of a small child in the late 19th century in a hilly area of Puerto Rico. The child’s body rests on top of a table in the main room of the modest house of a family of rural farmwork- ers. In the island, these farmworkers are called jíbaros and jíbaras (jíbares to be inclusive). The house is made of wood, with dimensions, materials, construction techniques, furnishings, and decoration that indicate a lower economic status: the house is not large or sturdy, and it is sparsely furnished and decorated. The people present are humbly dressed (most do not wear shoes, for example) and many jíbares are wearing pavas and machetes, the cane-field worker’s hat and the large knife used to cut the cane, respective- ly. There are corn cobs and plantains hanging from the rafters. Only trees, hills, and the sky are visible through the doors and windows. Clearly, the owners of this house and almost all those in attendance are poor, working- class people and live in a rural area of the island – jíbares. The wake scene itself is chaotic, meaning that multiple stories are present simultaneously: one can see small children and dogs running; other attend- 16 Taylor 1983, 1–7. 17 Delgado 1998, 43. 18 Sullivan 2014, 1–7. “Caribbeanist” refers to Oller’s preference for themes and techniques identified with the Caribbean, located between North and South America in the Atlantic Ocean. 19 The word bakiné has an opaque etymology and no direct translation to English. The closest referent would be “young child’s wake”. See Alegría 2001 for further information regarding the word.