What is Cuban art?
'''Cuban art''' has been known since the 16th century. <!--Colonial era-->In the 16th century, painters and sculptors began arriving from Europe. They made [[decoration]]s (including paintings and [[sculpture]]s), in Cuban churches and public buildings. By the mid-1700s, [[native]]-born artists were painting in Cuba, in the [[Europe|European]] [[tradition]] of painting. <ref name = CA&NI>Martinez, Juan A.;'' Cuban Art & National Identity: The Vanguardia Painters, 1927-1950''; University Press of Florida, 1994; {{ISBN|0-8130-1306-2}}</ref> <ref name = CArt>Poupeye, Veerle; Caribbean Art; Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1998; {{ISBN|0-500-20306-7}}</ref> [[File:José Nicolás de Escalera - La Santísima Trinidad.JPG|thumbnail|right|''Yeyo Yeyo'', José Nicolás de Escalera, ca. 1770. Collection of the National Museum of Fine Art, Havana.]] Many works of [[The arts|art]] were left behind by [[José Nicolás de la Escalera]] (d. 1804). For many of those works, there is [[proof]] that he was the one who painted those.<ref name = CA&NI/><ref>Cernuda Arte: José Nicolás de la Escalera; http://www.cernudaarte.com/artists/jose-nicolas-de-la-escalera/ retvd 2 6 16</ref> [[Vicente Escobar]] (d. 1834) was a ''[[mestizo]]'', and he did [[portrait]]s;<ref name=PortraitPaintings/> His paintings were popular with Cuba's [[elite]] (or people with [[wealth]] or [[political]] power).<ref name=PortraitPaintings>Art Experts; Vicente Escobar y de Flores (1762-1834); http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/escobarydeflores.php {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150419081723/http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/escobarydeflores.php |date=2015-04-19 }}; retvd 1 31 16</ref> He opened [the first, or] one of the first painting [[workshop]]/[[studio]]s in Cuba. He later [[graduation|graduated]] from the [[Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando]] in Madrid.<!--is portraiture was firmly in the European Classical style but had a distinctive freshness and energy.--><ref>Cernuda Arte: Vicente Escobar; http://www.cer