Hacienda Aurora

In one of his most famous landscapes, whose genesis is found in the context of the Spanish-American War, Oller depicts one of the many sugar-cane plantations, or haciendas, that proliferated during the second half of the nineteenth century, when the industry was the island's main source of income. The Hacienda Aurora, located in the northern town of Carolina, was where Oller and his family sought refuge during the U.S. invasion of the island in 1898. It may have been then when Oller painted this scene, which shows the plantation's processing plant, at the time out of service for more than a decade.
Considering Oller's position against slavery (abolished in Puerto Rico in 1873), it is plausible that inn this work he is celebrating the end of a structure that depended for its functioning on slave labor. The ruins seem small in the immensity of nature, which includes a view of El Yunque and the mountain range around Luquillo in the distance, crowned by an immense sky that occupies most of the composition, in which sunlight is the true protagonist.