Academic Sessions: Liverpool 2002
Colonial Art in Latin America
Convenors:
Valerie Fraser (Department of Art History and Theory, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, England, vfraser@essex.ac.uk)
This session will seek to explore the diversity of the visual arts in Latin America during the colonial period. To say that the culture of colonial Latin America was extraordinarily heterogeneous is not to ignore the fact that it was founded on the domination of indigenous American and African people by the Europeans; but just as these three populations were not homogeneous in themselves, neither was the art they produced. The aim is to be inclusive in terms of media (painting, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, jewellery, furniture, etc) and of the racial and cultural background of artists and patrons. Recent research is revealing how some of the many distinctive categories of colonial art can be explained in terms of very specific local or regional conditions: rivalry between different groups (between creoles and peninsulares, for example); the ambitions of surviving members of an indigenous nobility; the availability of a particular material or technical skill; the continuity of an indigenous sacred geography.
So What was New? Sculpture in Spain and Mexico in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Marjorie Trusted (Victoria & Albert Museum)
Almost immediately after the conquest of Mexico in the early sixteenth century, the Spanish began to build churches in their new world, as well as make, have made, or import from the Iberian Peninsula, devotional sculpture and altarpieces. These works are sometimes difficult to attribute or date; perhaps more intriguingly it is frequently hard to state whether the artists responsible were native Indians schooled and supervised by members of the religious Orders, or were Spanish artists who had travelled over from Europe seeking work, or whether the works themselves were imported from Seville. To what extent was the imagery, style, form, and colour of painted sculpture in fact derived from native Mexican or Guatemalan traditions, combined often strangely but fruitfully with Christian iconography? Certain subjects, such as the archangel Michael, may have been considered particularly appropriate by the conquistadors, but may also have accorded with existing pagan figures and ideas. I shall be looking at individual works of art in or from Mexico, and discussing what they might mean in their colonial context.
Native appropriation of the European grotesque in the art of sixteenth-century Mexico
Eleanor Wake (SLLC/Birkbeck College, University of London)
The introduction of European art forms into New Spain gave exceptional presence to the Renaissance grotesque. Understood by the invader as a decorative tool and therefore ‘safe’ at a thematic level, native artists were encouraged to copy its designs directly from illustrations in imported books onto the walls of their new churches and other public buildings. Clear from many examples of grotesque friezes of the period, however, is that in the hands of native artists the source material underwent a process of reworking. This is usually seen to occur in the form of inserts of native origin and/or the manipulation of European motifs to give a native reading, suggesting that the same artists were not approaching the grotesque as an ornamental assemblage but something more akin to the pictographic texts of their own tradition. In this context, references to mythology and ritualized activities such as singing and dancing can certainly be recognized. The excellent preservation of the mural paintings and grotesque friezes in the Augustinian monastery church at Ixmiquilpan (Hgo.) shows that at this site the same European original was manipulated several times to create a set of friezes which not only read as a (‘christianised’) native warrior song, but appear to function at the level of a choreographed performance around the walls of the ritual arena which is the nave itself.
Las cabezas mascaras en la arquitectura religiosa de Arequipa, Perú entre los siglos XVII y XVIII
Beatriz Cáceres-Péfaur (Universidad de los Andes Mérida, Venezuela)
This paper will be delivered in Spanish. Notes in English will be available
The last third of the 17th century and first half of the 18th century represents a period of church construction in Arequipa using volcanic stone. This material lends itself to carving and stimulated the creative imagination of the local craftsmen, who incorporated a variety of thematic motifs - some of European origins and others rooted in pre-hispanic iconography - into the decoration of the church facades. This tendency has been called mestizo baroque. Among the details the masked heads or speaking figures stand out. In these, puma heads spout volutes from their open jaws in a form of visual representation of indigenous myths and legends. These examples are most obvious in the churches of Yanahuara and Cayma built in the indigenous settlements of the same name, in the Jesuit church of the Compañia and in others built during this period. The interpretation of their significance could be an example of religious syncretism. Of Arequipeñan origins, the influence of this style extended to other places in the altiplano region.
Movers and Shakers: Highlighting regional identity through the iconography of the colonial Peruvian earthquakes Christs of Lima and Cusco
Adrian Locke (Royal Academy, London)
The decision by Pizarro not to develop Cuzco as the colonial administrative capital, which led to the founding of Ciudad de los Reyes in 1535, exacerbated an already present schism in colonial Peru. This meant that there was little communication between the coast and the highlands. Whereas Cuzco retained an essentially native Peruvian identity emphasised by the presence of substantial Inca ruins Lima consciously developed a European character. The emergence of two cults associated with earthquakes, El Señor de los Temblores in Cuzco, and El Señor de los Milagros in Lima, in the 1650s epitomises the differences between both cities. Temblores of Cuzco cathedral was constructed using an indigenous technique and was rapidly assimilated into a network of regional shrines closely associated with the pre-Columbian sacred landscape of the region consequently becoming the dominant regional Christian cult. The mural of Milagros (of the Nazarenes convent) was a minor cult until a surge of popularity in the twentieth century elevated it to its position as the city\'s major shrine. Subsequent histories of Milagros have failed to prove that it was associated with the pre-Columbian shrine of Pachacamac.
Pattern and Cultural Identity - Contemporary Traditional Shipibo-Conibo Art discussed from a Contemporary Theoretical Perspective
Renate Dohmen (University of Newcastle)
I will discuss the ceramic and textile decorations of the Shipibo-Conibo Indians (Peru) and their reflection in colonial, anthropological, and aesthetic discourses. Initially seen as ‘harmless’ activity of native women, missionaries encouraged these ‘traditional’ arts, thus unwittingly supporting the very belief systems they otherwise sought to eradicate. Next Shipibo-Conibo art attracted worldwide interest among art collectors and solicited intense anthropological scrutiny in order to crack the ‘code’ of these perplexing and highly accomplished designs. But, while highly appreciated, the style nonetheless remained enigmatic, not yielding its modus operandi even when subjected to tenacious investigations. Furthermore, with their maxim never to repeat designs and with their distinct appreciation of individual creators, the Shipibo-Conibo persistently frustrate expectations of a ‘primitive’ lack of originality and of ‘primitive art’ per se. Sketching cultural contexts and beliefs, the presentation will hence critically examine past ‘tried and tested’ and yet unsuccessful approaches, isolating areas where adjustments need to be made to not totally miss - what is the point though? The issue of Western fantasies of knowability and translatability of cultures will be raised and suggestions made for productive shifts of perspective, framing a polycentric post-colonial approach to the discussion of this visual practice.
Reconsidering Colonial Art in Latin America
Valerie Fraser
Guaman Poma\'s famous image of the encounter between the Inca Huayna Capac and Pizarro\'s envoy Pedro de Candía neatly encapsulates an idea of almost total incomprehension: not only do the two men not speak the same language, they cannot even share a meal because they seem not to agree about the nature of food. Colonial culture was very much more complex, of course, as Guaman Poma was well aware, but the literature on colonial art has had a similar tendency to oversimplification. The traditional art historical categories –of medium, style and subject matter, of influence and invention – rarely fit the material comfortably. This paper explores the mismatch between the historiography and the art itself, and looks in particular at the caste paintings as a metaphor for the complexity of colonial society, and as an example of the problems we face in studying colonial art.
Valerie Fraser (Department of Art History and Theory, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, England, vfraser@essex.ac.uk)
This session will seek to explore the diversity of the visual arts in Latin America during the colonial period. To say that the culture of colonial Latin America was extraordinarily heterogeneous is not to ignore the fact that it was founded on the domination of indigenous American and African people by the Europeans; but just as these three populations were not homogeneous in themselves, neither was the art they produced. The aim is to be inclusive in terms of media (painting, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, jewellery, furniture, etc) and of the racial and cultural background of artists and patrons. Recent research is revealing how some of the many distinctive categories of colonial art can be explained in terms of very specific local or regional conditions: rivalry between different groups (between creoles and peninsulares, for example); the ambitions of surviving members of an indigenous nobility; the availability of a particular material or technical skill; the continuity of an indigenous sacred geography.
So What was New? Sculpture in Spain and Mexico in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Marjorie Trusted (Victoria & Albert Museum)
Almost immediately after the conquest of Mexico in the early sixteenth century, the Spanish began to build churches in their new world, as well as make, have made, or import from the Iberian Peninsula, devotional sculpture and altarpieces. These works are sometimes difficult to attribute or date; perhaps more intriguingly it is frequently hard to state whether the artists responsible were native Indians schooled and supervised by members of the religious Orders, or were Spanish artists who had travelled over from Europe seeking work, or whether the works themselves were imported from Seville. To what extent was the imagery, style, form, and colour of painted sculpture in fact derived from native Mexican or Guatemalan traditions, combined often strangely but fruitfully with Christian iconography? Certain subjects, such as the archangel Michael, may have been considered particularly appropriate by the conquistadors, but may also have accorded with existing pagan figures and ideas. I shall be looking at individual works of art in or from Mexico, and discussing what they might mean in their colonial context.
Native appropriation of the European grotesque in the art of sixteenth-century Mexico
Eleanor Wake (SLLC/Birkbeck College, University of London)
The introduction of European art forms into New Spain gave exceptional presence to the Renaissance grotesque. Understood by the invader as a decorative tool and therefore ‘safe’ at a thematic level, native artists were encouraged to copy its designs directly from illustrations in imported books onto the walls of their new churches and other public buildings. Clear from many examples of grotesque friezes of the period, however, is that in the hands of native artists the source material underwent a process of reworking. This is usually seen to occur in the form of inserts of native origin and/or the manipulation of European motifs to give a native reading, suggesting that the same artists were not approaching the grotesque as an ornamental assemblage but something more akin to the pictographic texts of their own tradition. In this context, references to mythology and ritualized activities such as singing and dancing can certainly be recognized. The excellent preservation of the mural paintings and grotesque friezes in the Augustinian monastery church at Ixmiquilpan (Hgo.) shows that at this site the same European original was manipulated several times to create a set of friezes which not only read as a (‘christianised’) native warrior song, but appear to function at the level of a choreographed performance around the walls of the ritual arena which is the nave itself.
Las cabezas mascaras en la arquitectura religiosa de Arequipa, Perú entre los siglos XVII y XVIII
Beatriz Cáceres-Péfaur (Universidad de los Andes Mérida, Venezuela)
This paper will be delivered in Spanish. Notes in English will be available
The last third of the 17th century and first half of the 18th century represents a period of church construction in Arequipa using volcanic stone. This material lends itself to carving and stimulated the creative imagination of the local craftsmen, who incorporated a variety of thematic motifs - some of European origins and others rooted in pre-hispanic iconography - into the decoration of the church facades. This tendency has been called mestizo baroque. Among the details the masked heads or speaking figures stand out. In these, puma heads spout volutes from their open jaws in a form of visual representation of indigenous myths and legends. These examples are most obvious in the churches of Yanahuara and Cayma built in the indigenous settlements of the same name, in the Jesuit church of the Compañia and in others built during this period. The interpretation of their significance could be an example of religious syncretism. Of Arequipeñan origins, the influence of this style extended to other places in the altiplano region.
Movers and Shakers: Highlighting regional identity through the iconography of the colonial Peruvian earthquakes Christs of Lima and Cusco
Adrian Locke (Royal Academy, London)
The decision by Pizarro not to develop Cuzco as the colonial administrative capital, which led to the founding of Ciudad de los Reyes in 1535, exacerbated an already present schism in colonial Peru. This meant that there was little communication between the coast and the highlands. Whereas Cuzco retained an essentially native Peruvian identity emphasised by the presence of substantial Inca ruins Lima consciously developed a European character. The emergence of two cults associated with earthquakes, El Señor de los Temblores in Cuzco, and El Señor de los Milagros in Lima, in the 1650s epitomises the differences between both cities. Temblores of Cuzco cathedral was constructed using an indigenous technique and was rapidly assimilated into a network of regional shrines closely associated with the pre-Columbian sacred landscape of the region consequently becoming the dominant regional Christian cult. The mural of Milagros (of the Nazarenes convent) was a minor cult until a surge of popularity in the twentieth century elevated it to its position as the city\'s major shrine. Subsequent histories of Milagros have failed to prove that it was associated with the pre-Columbian shrine of Pachacamac.
Pattern and Cultural Identity - Contemporary Traditional Shipibo-Conibo Art discussed from a Contemporary Theoretical Perspective
Renate Dohmen (University of Newcastle)
I will discuss the ceramic and textile decorations of the Shipibo-Conibo Indians (Peru) and their reflection in colonial, anthropological, and aesthetic discourses. Initially seen as ‘harmless’ activity of native women, missionaries encouraged these ‘traditional’ arts, thus unwittingly supporting the very belief systems they otherwise sought to eradicate. Next Shipibo-Conibo art attracted worldwide interest among art collectors and solicited intense anthropological scrutiny in order to crack the ‘code’ of these perplexing and highly accomplished designs. But, while highly appreciated, the style nonetheless remained enigmatic, not yielding its modus operandi even when subjected to tenacious investigations. Furthermore, with their maxim never to repeat designs and with their distinct appreciation of individual creators, the Shipibo-Conibo persistently frustrate expectations of a ‘primitive’ lack of originality and of ‘primitive art’ per se. Sketching cultural contexts and beliefs, the presentation will hence critically examine past ‘tried and tested’ and yet unsuccessful approaches, isolating areas where adjustments need to be made to not totally miss - what is the point though? The issue of Western fantasies of knowability and translatability of cultures will be raised and suggestions made for productive shifts of perspective, framing a polycentric post-colonial approach to the discussion of this visual practice.
Reconsidering Colonial Art in Latin America
Valerie Fraser
Guaman Poma\'s famous image of the encounter between the Inca Huayna Capac and Pizarro\'s envoy Pedro de Candía neatly encapsulates an idea of almost total incomprehension: not only do the two men not speak the same language, they cannot even share a meal because they seem not to agree about the nature of food. Colonial culture was very much more complex, of course, as Guaman Poma was well aware, but the literature on colonial art has had a similar tendency to oversimplification. The traditional art historical categories –of medium, style and subject matter, of influence and invention – rarely fit the material comfortably. This paper explores the mismatch between the historiography and the art itself, and looks in particular at the caste paintings as a metaphor for the complexity of colonial society, and as an example of the problems we face in studying colonial art.