THE STRANGE STORY OF THE PAINTER OF THE JUNGLE
Right: Víctor Delfín and his wife, Haydée. This is the Huallaga as it passes through Tingo Maria. Below: Half naked, the Delfin.
I would like to sincerely thank all the friends I have left in the beautiful city of Tingo Maria for their help and cooperation for the best success of the work I carry on my back, the jungle. It is not cheesy romanticism if I say that the three canvases are full of the hearts of those who have encouraged me with their affection during my stay in Tingo Maria. It has all the tradition that the artist paints his place of work. Da Dürerito, he falls in love forever with Tingo. To all those who helped me more directly or more quietly, I will always keep in mind: Doctor Bucz, Mr. Freeman, Professor Lubbock, the American students, Antonio Abarca, Alfonso Rivera, Mr. Méndez, the painter Ríos, Juan Ampuero, Guido Aráoz, Club América, Alianza Oriental, Escuela Experimental, Ballet, Jockey Club, Tomás Rodríguez, Bernardo del Águila, and forgive me if I omit someone because of my bad memory. See you soon!
J.B.A.
One night when we were a group of friends sitting at the “Oasis” bar in Tingo María, a man of regular height, dark, wearing a white shirt and with a smoking pipe between his teeth, sat down at our table. He introduced himself as Victor Delfin, a former student of the School of Fine Arts in Lima. He was arriving from, he said, the most remote corners of the jungle, and had finally achieved his dream of devoting himself completely to painting.
Thus began one of the most intriguing episodes I remember, a story that proved to me that when a man of rare inner strength sets his mind to something, he achieves it. The man had become a “living hermit” in the green heart of Peru's jungle interland. He lived like a true native.
Then he told us several different and strange things. Among them, that he - driven by his passion for painting - had left Lima with his wife Haydée, and his little son David, to go into the jungle, in a place called “Las Palmas”, six hours downriver from Tingo María. They were in a hut in the heart of the jungle.
-The rest is that of this strange and exciting story,“ said our jungle painter.
He had gone as far as the deepest recesses of the Huallaga - he had even reached part of the Las Palmas hamlet in the jungle hills. He was determined never to leave the jungle.
Victor and Haydée lived with their little son David, a year and a half old.
Dolphin, leaning over the reddish earth of the jungle, his expression stern and severe; Haydee always with the enthusiastic and cheerful gleam of her pretty brown eyes and with her white complexion still tender with mud.
-Yes, those were hard times,“ Victor Delfin recalls, and his wife nods smiling, looking on lovingly. ”Extreme decisions were made,“ she told me. We burned the furniture. We got rid of everything that wasn't useful for painting and living.”
They themselves, at the cost of patient and laborious efforts, built a large hut. Before starting to cultivate coffee, which is the basis of their plantation, they had to cut down the forest and clean it, a thankless task. The confinement could be interrupted many times with dangerous fainting spells, except for a shirt and a pair of pants, they had nothing more than a machete in hand under an oppressive sun that raised the temperature to more than thirty degrees Celsius. For days they fed on inquisitive plants, avocados and oranges.
-We're a little better now,“ says Victor. ”We have some paper blocks and we started painting. We no longer feel imprisoned or limited to rigid “comfort‘.’
-I have brought several sheets,“ Victor adds, ”some of my compositions are completely free. In those hours I paint, and paint, and paint.“
-I don't know if we'll ever get to exhibit the paintings we did for the Charity or the ones I have yet to do. I've been told that things are not going well.“
David -the little son- runs barefoot in front of the hut and calls his mother.
My son was born in the jungle - he lives and for him,“ Haydée says in a dreamy, golden-clean voice. ”He is life. Since we arrived he has not lived or been the color of a hospital.“
The couple met at the “Conde Ají” School. The Count was a stage director in Tingo Maria in a small theater company. The Delfins were recognized by tourists who admired their effort to go into the jungle and live with the natives. An American painter left some special inks that were acquired by the Delfins to continue painting.
Haydée, united by her love, by the forest and by her man, has found in her life the serene, hard days of her life. In the smiling and calm look of the Dolphins, one can see the happiness of those who are convinced that they have found their way among men. They are admired as those who with inner joy fight arm in arm against adversity.