Today I learned about the death of César Leal Jiménez

I wonder what God is up to up there in heaven, taking them one after another, like bowling pins. Could it be an act of compassion? Does it pick them up before the demolition is complete and crushes us?

Raysa White ©

Today I learned that César Leal Jiménez, the artist, had died, and I felt a great pain. The heavyweights and stalwarts are leaving us, those with grit and substance, the ones who, with their mere presence, bear the weight of a country in ruins. I wonder what God is up to up there in heaven, taking them one after another, like bowling pins. Could it be an act of compassion? Does it pick them up before the demolition is complete and crushes us?

César and I, in the last few months, maintained almost daily correspondence. We share the same anguish, the same helplessness of seeing how our little golden cup, Cuba, crumbles irreparably. An island that was synonymous with beauty and vigor is now an empty shell where the population ages and dies in silence. Where the structures—both physical and moral—dissolve until they collapse. And in the meantime, the usual ones, those who handle the nation’s destiny as if it were a damaged chessboard, continue playing their crude game, indifferent to the fate of the knights, rooks, and pawns that fall into oblivion.

Originally from Sagua la Grande, the land of our Wifredo Lam, César Leal Jiménez graduated as a journalist and painter, but he was much more than that. His art transcended the canvas, his teaching left marks on entire generations of visual artists. He passed through the classrooms of his province, left his mark on the iconic San Alejandro Academy, and rose as a master of abstractionism, a creator who knew how to fill despair with color and life.
But Cuba, that ungrateful mother who devours us so many times, ignored him in his final hour. We expected no less.

We know how the censorship of the mediocre works, how they punish those who dare to think, to dissent, to say out loud what others barely murmur. César, like so many others who have wielded the weapon of decency, has been exiled from official recognition, condemned to the land of ostracism, where those who are uncomfortable, those who with their talent challenge the imposed mediocrity, end up.
But here we are, those of us who still have memory. And from the depths of my being, I send a message to César:
Wherever your soul may be, you will not be forgotten. Your work and your good name will live on in those of us who value your creativity, your courage, and your integrity. Because the work of an artist and their legacy are much more important than perpetuating policies and defending ideologies. And because in the end, those who try to erase history end up being erased by it.
Rest in peace, César. We will remain here, resisting oblivion.