Arts | Special Issue : Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century

Editorial

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Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century: An Introduction

by Lauren Beck and Alena Robin

Arts 2021, 10(4), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10040076 - 12 Nov 2021

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Abstract

The temporal frame of this Special Issue of Arts—the long eighteenth century—comprises a complex period of development in the Spanish colonies of Latin America that reverberates throughout the region’s visual culture [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century)

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31 pages, 7916 KiB

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Materializing the Invisible: Landscape Painting in Viceregal Peru as Visionary Painting

by Sebastian Ferrero

Arts 2021, 10(3), 57; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10030057 - 26 Aug 2021

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Abstract

Landscape painting in Peru typically does not receive much attention from critical dis-course, even though the adoption of the Flemish landscape by Andean viceregal painters became a distinctive feature of Peruvian painting of the second half of the 17th century. Considered a consequence [...] Read more.

Landscape painting in Peru typically does not receive much attention from critical dis-course, even though the adoption of the Flemish landscape by Andean viceregal painters became a distinctive feature of Peruvian painting of the second half of the 17th century. Considered a consequence of a change in the artistic taste of viceregal society, the landscape was perceived as a secondary element of the composition. In this article, we will analyze the inclusion of the Flemish landscape in Andean religious painting from another critical perspective that takes into account different spiritual processes that colonial religiosity goes through. We analyze how the influence of the Franciscan and Jesuit mysticism created a fertile ground where landscape painting could develop in Peru. The Andean viceregal painters found in the landscape an effective way to visualize suprasensible spiritual experiences and an important device for the development in Peru of a painting with visionary characteristics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century)

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23 pages, 6560 KiB

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Modeling Black Piety and Community Membership in the Virgin of Altagracia Medallions

by Jennifer Baez

Arts 2021, 10(2), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10020037 - 17 Jun 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3254

Abstract

In the third quarter of the eighteenth century, Santo Domingo archbishop Isidoro Rodríguez Lorenzo (s. 1767–1788) issued a decree officializing the day of the cult for the Virgin of Altagracia as January 21 and made it a feast of three crosses for the [...] Read more.

In the third quarter of the eighteenth century, Santo Domingo archbishop Isidoro Rodríguez Lorenzo (s. 1767–1788) issued a decree officializing the day of the cult for the Virgin of Altagracia as January 21 and made it a feast of three crosses for the villa of Salvaleón de Higüey and its jurisdiction, meaning all races (free and enslaved) were allowed to join the celebrations in church. Unrelated to the issuance of this decree and approximately during this time (c. 1760–1778), a series of painted panels depicting miracles performed by the Virgin of Altagracia was produced for her sanctuary of San Dionisio in Higüey, in all likelihood commissioned by a close succession of parish priests to the maestro painter Diego José Hilaris Holt. Painted in the coarse style of popular votive panels, they gave the cult a unifying core foundation of miracles. This essay discusses the significance of the black bodies pictured in four of the panels within the project’s implicit effort to institutionalize the regional cult and vis-à-vis the archbishop’s encouragement of non-segregated celebrations for her feast day. As January 21 was associated with a renowned Spanish creole battle against the French, this essay locates these black bodies within the cult’s newfound patriotic charisma. I examine the process by which people of color were incorporated into this community of faith as part of a two-step ritual that involved seeing images while performing difference. Through contrapuntal analysis of the archbishop’s decree, I argue the images helped model black piety and community membership within a hierarchical socioracial order. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century)

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19 pages, 2123 KiB

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Images and Landscape: The (Dis)ordering of Colonial Territory (Quito in the Eighteenth Century)

by Carmen Fernández-Salvador

Arts 2021, 10(2), 36; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10020036 - 10 Jun 2021

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Abstract

This article explores the role played by images of the Virgin Mary in the ordering of space during the colonial period, as well as in the disruption of such order as a gesture of resistance by subordinate groups. In the Real Audiencia de [...] Read more.

This article explores the role played by images of the Virgin Mary in the ordering of space during the colonial period, as well as in the disruption of such order as a gesture of resistance by subordinate groups. In the Real Audiencia de Quito of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, civil and religious authorities used miraculous images of the Virgin Mary as aids in the founding of reducciones, which assured the imposition of Christian civility upon the Native population. Legal records suggest that in the second half of the eighteenth century Indigenous communities deployed similar strategies as a means of asserting their own concerns. Native actors physically manipulated Marian images in times of conflict, moving them around or apprehending them either to legitimize their desertion of colonial settlements or to resist forced relocation. In both the early colonial period and in the eighteenth century, the key strategy of shaping sacred landscapes was implemented in both Andean and Christian traditions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century)

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16 pages, 1692 KiB

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Served on a Plate: Engraved Sources of San Diego de Alcalá’s ‘Miraculous Meal’ for the Franciscans of Santiago, Chile (ca. 1710)

by Catherine Burdick

Arts 2021, 10(2), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10020030 - 29 Apr 2021

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Abstract

There exists a consensus in academic literature regarding the centrality of engraved prototypes for the production of colonial paintings in the Spanish Americas. In Peru, these artistic models were written into legal contracts between painters and clients. An examination of the notarial contracts [...] Read more.

There exists a consensus in academic literature regarding the centrality of engraved prototypes for the production of colonial paintings in the Spanish Americas. In Peru, these artistic models were written into legal contracts between painters and clients. An examination of the notarial contracts produced in Cusco from 1650 to 1700 suggests that prototypes in a variety of formats were not only central to artistic professional practice, but that adherence to their images may have provided one motive for entering into such agreements. This study leans upon the centrality of Flemish print sources to confirm the attribution of a partial canvas at the Pinacoteca Universidad de Concepción, Chile as an episode of the series on the life of Diego de Alcalá (c. 1710) in Santiago, Chile. Commissioned from Cusco by the Franciscans of Santiago, the status of the hagiographic cycle as the most extensive ever produced on the subject of this missionary saint dictates that a multiplicity of sources was necessary for its creation. By identifying two engravings that served as its models, this study recovers the subject of this painting as a miracle that sustained Diego during an arduous journey. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century)

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17 pages, 4424 KiB

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At the Core of the Workshop: Novel Aspects of the Use of Blue Smalt in Two Paintings by Cristóbal de Villalpando

by Mirta Insaurralde Caballero and María Castañeda-Delgado

Arts 2021, 10(2), 25; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10020025 - 14 Apr 2021

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Abstract

During the seventeenth century, the use of smalt and indigo became increasingly common among painters’ workshops in New Spain. The unprecedented importance of these two blue pigments in oil painting may be explained by artistic and geopolitical circumstances. This article expands on the [...] Read more.

During the seventeenth century, the use of smalt and indigo became increasingly common among painters’ workshops in New Spain. The unprecedented importance of these two blue pigments in oil painting may be explained by artistic and geopolitical circumstances. This article expands on the use of blue smalt—a byproduct of glass production and a material that lacks in-depth study in viceregal painting—by focusing on the technical analysis of El Triunfo de la Eucaristía and La Asunción painted by Cristóbal de Villalpando (ca. 1649–1714), which are part of the collection of the Museo Regional de Guadalajara (Mexico). The technological and material study of both paintings, situated within the trade and circulation of painting materials at the turn of the eighteenth century, shows how the painter deployed techniques rooted in his predecessors while incorporating particular technical adaptations. The authors examine cross-section samples of Villalpando’s paintings with optical microscopy, Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), and Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and were able to identify different qualities of smalt as well to suggest a possible provenance. These analyses evidence novel aspects in the painting tradition of workshops in New Spain that ultimately reverberated in practices of the long eighteenth century. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century)

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23 pages, 8883 KiB

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The Retablos of Teabo and Mani: The Evolution of Renaissance Altars in Colonial Yucatán

by C. Cody Barteet

Arts 2021, 10(2), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10020023 - 06 Apr 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4751

Abstract

From the turn to seventeenth through the early eighteenth century, three retablos (altarpieces) were created in Yucatán that relied on a similar Renaissance design. The retablos located in the ex-convents of Mani and Teabo all adopt the Spanish sixteenth-century Renaissance style of the [...] Read more.

From the turn to seventeenth through the early eighteenth century, three retablos (altarpieces) were created in Yucatán that relied on a similar Renaissance design. The retablos located in the ex-convents of Mani and Teabo all adopt the Spanish sixteenth-century Renaissance style of the Plateresque. Further, the retablos are connected by the inclusion of caryatid framing devices that establishes a strong affinity among the works. Two of the retablos are located in Mani: the Retablo of San Antonio de Padua and the Retablo of Nuestra Señora de Soledad (or sometimes called the Dolores Retablo). At Teabo is the Retablo de Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús (or Las Ánimas). This paper explores the relationships among the retablos by considering their iconography and their styles to address the retablos’ dates and their current locations. While offering insights about these retablos, this contribution also provides a rich discussion of the thriving artistic industry that was present in Yucatán. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century)

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13 pages, 932 KiB

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Picturing the River’s Racial Ecologies in Colonial Panamá

by Bart Pushaw

Arts 2021, 10(2), 22; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10020022 - 01 Apr 2021

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Abstract

This article explores the local histories and ecological knowledge embedded within a Spanish print of enslaved, Afro-descendant boatmen charting a wooden vessel up the Chagres River across the Isthmus of Panamá. Produced for a 1748 travelogue by the Spanish scientists Antonio de Ulloa [...] Read more.

This article explores the local histories and ecological knowledge embedded within a Spanish print of enslaved, Afro-descendant boatmen charting a wooden vessel up the Chagres River across the Isthmus of Panamá. Produced for a 1748 travelogue by the Spanish scientists Antonio de Ulloa and Jorge Juan, the image reflects a preoccupation with tropical ecologies, where enslaved persons are incidental. Drawing from recent scholarship by Marixa Lasso, Tiffany Lethabo King, Katherine McKittrick, and Kevin Dawson, I argue that the image makes visible how enslaved and free Afro-descendants developed a distinct cosmopolitan culture connected to intimate ecological knowledge of the river. By focusing critical attention away from the print’s Spanish manufacture to the racial ecologies of the Chagres, I aim to restore art historical visibility to eighteenth-century Panamá and Central America, a region routinely excised from studies of colonial Latin American art. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century)

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26 pages, 8949 KiB

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Lady of the House: Augustina Meza (ca. 1758–1819), Print Publishing, and the Women of Mexican Late Colonial Art

by Kelly Donahue-Wallace

Arts 2021, 10(1), 12; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts10010012 - 05 Feb 2021

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Abstract

Using archival records of the Sagrario Metropolitano and material analysis of extant prints, the paper presents the life and work of the only known woman printmaker in viceregal New Spain, María Augustina Meza. It traces Meza and her work through two marriages to [...] Read more.

Using archival records of the Sagrario Metropolitano and material analysis of extant prints, the paper presents the life and work of the only known woman printmaker in viceregal New Spain, María Augustina Meza. It traces Meza and her work through two marriages to fellow engravers and a 50-year career as owner of an independent print publishing shop in Mexico City. In doing so, the paper places Meza’s print publishing business and its practices within the context of artists’ shops run by women in the mid- to late-eighteenth century. The article simultaneously extends the recognized role of women in printing and broadens our understanding of women within the business of both printmaking and painting in late colonial Mexico City. It furthermore joins the scholarship demonstrating with new empirical research that the lived realities of women in viceregal New Spain were more complex than traditional, stereotypical visions of women’s lives have previously allowed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century)

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