Postcard From Haiti: December 2024 by Rick Forgham
This final Postcard From Haiti for 2024 takes an observant look at a tender painting by Jasmin Joseph, one of Haiti’s great early sculptors turned painter. In this painting done around 1965, Jasmin tells the timeless story of The Nativity using his unique visual language in which animals take on roles that in the vernacular of most artists would be painted as human figures.
Here Jasmin paints his vision of a “Miraculous Birth” witnessed solely by a herd of gentile sheep, a keeling donkey, a lowly cow, and a horse. There is no human form present in the scene other than the newborn baby. Hovering over the event are two Angels and the Dove of Peace who bathes the sleeping child in a shower of ethereal light. An aura and feeling of peacefulness, gentleness, kindness, and affection radiate from every square inch of the image. Surely this is precisely the message that Jasmin intended to convey through this painting.
Jasmin, who at the age of 19 was discovered by the renowned American sculptor Jason Sealy, began his artistic career by creating small representations of animals out of terracotta clay. Mr. Sealy encouraged young Jasmin to continue developing his technique and before long Jasmin was making a living working as a sculptor selling his works through Le Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince. He continued to work in terracotta until sometime in the mid-nineteen fifties when he discovered that his works were being copied and sold as if they were his original pieces. After some introspection, he decided to pursue a new art form thus becoming a painter. Working in his new medium his favorite subjects remained animals. Over the years he created an impressive oeuvre in which his cast of creatures made profound moral and political statements on his vibrantly painted masonite panels.
As the Holiday season of 2024 approaches, I would like to wish everyone health, happiness, and prosperity for 2025.
Rick Forgham December 2024
