Printing experienced an interesting journey along the colonial stage; the first xylographic shapes known until our days can be traced, although in a minimal quantity, on XVIII century, chalcography and its variant, the aquatint with the participation of burin, was the most acclaimed technique.

Along the following century, lithography achieves its most brilliant note, appearing related to a productive and already emblematic area: tobacconists, not disclaiming a quality of visual review that restores with extraordinary beauty the charming of that Havana.

The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars fueled the arrival to the island of Gallic artists, because our country was already well known through the notable Baron of Humboldt. One of the early comers was Hipólito Garneray in 1807, this event started the most important movement of Cuban plastic as evidential document.

None of the arriving printmakers were consecrated artists and as curious thing, all of them were good drawers and lithographers, maybe because it was then a recently-created technique. At the Havana-based workshops, the artists undertook a vast and varied labor, introduced popular models, creating at the same time marvelous pieces with landscapes and views in such a way that imagery acquired unparalleled levels of permanence, there was in this moment a regular use of illumination although, the use of colors arrived around the middle of XIX century.

The first printmaker known in Cuba was the flamenco-originated Juan Carlos Habré, whose workshop existed among 1707 and 1727. It focused on printing above all, gaining fame on this occupation, but he possibly had also knowledge about drawing and aesthetic in general.

Manuel Antonio Parra and his son Antonio Parra are considered also pioneers, being excellent printmakers, later on, Federico Mialhe, responsible for attractive productions worked as lithographies in Havana by Luis Marquier, belonging to the album Isla de Cuba.

Mialhe`s works are noteworthy as customs scenes, confirming his deep domain over the academic drawing, specially the chiaroscuro.

In other words, all these foreign artists took advantage of their stay in the island to group illustrative images of the village. Having a sharp looking, but not revoking creativity, they captured the spirit of a city sprightly by the daily work of its citizens, attempting and managing to specify in a wise way, the details of its environment.

As previous materials, the views of San Francisco de Asís Church (1764) and Plaza de Mercado (1765) drawn by Engineer Elías Durnfort are stored, published in London by Edward Rooker. The incredible domain of perspective laws and the architectonical drawing appreciable in these pieces together with its undoubted historical value transformed them in real patrimonial jewels.

The urban view, substantial genre of Cuban printing, didn't diminish the beauty offered by rural ambiences, althougth it`s simply unique the general view captured from the entrance of the Havana Port by Leonardo Barañano, taken to lithography by Eduardo Laplante, well-known in Cuba and abroad for his lithographies to illustrate in 1857 Los Ingenios book penned by Germán Cantero.

Without printmaking we wouldn't have the romantic image of our capital in its colonial stage, former small village surrounded by walls, current magnificent city, classified as one of the most beautiful of the world.

Published by Trabajadores Newspaper.