Painting and explosion of ideals in El Siglo de las Luces by Alejo Carpentier

The purpose of this text is to analyze pictorial references in El siglo de las luces by Alejo Carpentier. In the following pages we will try to show the fundamental role they fulfill in the novel. The exhibition will revolve around three axes: first, a general approach to the painting’s presence in the novel and the character’s characteristics; secondly, a focus on interpretations that emerge from the picture Explosión en una catedral, fundamentally in relation to Esteban’s character; thirdly, the indirect reference made by the narrator to Goya's paintings La Carga de los mamelucos and Los fusilamientos de la Moncloa, and the way in which that reference serves both to reinforce the heroic role of Sofia and Esteban, as well as the revolution consequences that Carpentier expresses.