Source: WTL digitized@ images from Wilfredo Lam; Imagining New Worlds. Ed. Elizabeth T. Goizueta. Boston: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 2014, 121.
Image: "Le Sombre Malembo, Dieu du carrefour" (1943). Oil on canvas. Rudman Collection. Although Lam identifies Malembo as a god of crossroads, also, in the Yoruba religion, malembo leaves are sorcerers' messengers that possess a person's spirit while they are sleeping.
Comments: Note what Goizueta says about Lam's identity conflict (Europe vs. Cuba/New World) when he returned to Cuba in 1941: "Paradoxically, the more Carpentier and other Latin American writers tried to separate themselves from Europe, the more dependent they became on a European mode of expression to claim their new consciousness. Specifically, these visionaries turned to the baroque style, rich in hybridization, adopting and reconfiguring it to fit the new Latin American artistic vision. Hybridization was the key to Lam's nascent signature iconography of the forties: it provided the bridge between surrealism and magical realism" (p. 4).
Humanities Question: Apply Goizueta's statement above to this painting. If necessary, refer to Carpentier's essay: => "About the Latin American Real Maravilloso".