Cocos 1893

Editor: Here we have Francisco Oller’s “Cocos,” painted in 1893, using oil on canvas. What strikes me is the painting’s raw and almost tactile quality, due to the artist’s application of visible impasto. What's your take? Curator: Considering Oller's context, let’s explore how "Cocos" reflects the colonial dynamics of its time through the depiction and consumption of resources. These coconuts represent a primary agricultural product of Puerto Rico. How does the very *materiality* of the painting--the thick application of oil paint--connect to the tangible reality of agricultural labor and the value placed on the physical yield from these lands? Editor: I see your point. The very texture, the impasto, gives a weight, a substance, to the coconuts that transcends the simply representational. It’s almost… oppressive. Curator: Exactly! The work becomes a comment on commodity culture itself, its relationship to exploitation of natural resources and the people involved in their extraction. We can consider what he includes—and pointedly *excludes* from the still life to examine how these decisions reflect an artistic statement. Is Oller focusing our attention on the means of sustenance and, perhaps, social inequity, more so than the inherent beauty of a tropical fruit? Editor: So, it’s less about still life, and more about the social "life" that makes the scene itself possible? The coconuts as product rather than object? Curator: Precisely. Thinking materially pushes us beyond aesthetic appreciation and into social commentary. What at first appears to be simply arranged fruit opens up avenues to consider both natural abundance and social dynamics that often dictate its accessibility and consumption. Editor: That shifts my perspective completely. I now see “Cocos” as a critical observation of Puerto Rico's economy at the time. The heavy paint embodies the weight of colonial expectation, of resource extraction and commodification of its lands. Curator: Right, and hopefully that changes our interaction with and understanding of what's happening on the canvas!