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COLONIAL PERIOD 1521-1821 Evangelization And early Colonial Art

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Page 1: Colonial Art- Art 216

COLONIAL PERIOD

1521-1821Evangelization

And early Colonial Art

Page 2: Colonial Art- Art 216

Conquest & Negotiations

Serge Gruzinksi: “The Conquest- a clash of completely different world views as well as a military undertaking- entailed

not only the political and economic transformation of the former Aztec

Empire but also unleased one of the most terrible iconoclastic campaigns in history. Buildings, sculptures, feathered

costumes, pictorial manuscripts, and untold objects of unexceptional beauty

were all destroyed as evidence of pagan beliefs. Nevertheless, a few distant

Indians hid or even continued to make prohibited images well into the

seventieth century , especially in remote areas..”

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Evangelization Through Art

• Catholic friars introduced many ceremonies and rites all throughout the regions of Latin America, that substituted the religious ceremonies the Amerindians had for their pagan religions.

• However, the main problem the friars faced was that often Indian conversions were, at best, superficial. New converts often understood Christian doctrine poorly incompletely.

• The conversion efforts of the friars in New Spain yielded a syncretism, where although the Indians practiced the new faith with a relatively adequate understanding of its Doctrine, they integrated many native symbols into it, as well as internal and external pagan religious customs.

• New forms of art emerged in workshops, schools and secular and religious spaces in the former Tenochtitlan (now renamed Mexico City).

• The 16th century would be a period of tremendous creativity and innovation. The hybridization of art and culture will create the foundation for our present day Latin American cultures.

• The great art of the early colonial period was mainly sponsored by caciques- indigenous rulers or by European friars.

• The task of creating art for the new order fell primarily into the hands of the Franciscans.

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Indian Jerusalem For many friars, the New World offered a historic opportunity to fulfill centuries of religious speculation through the completion of millenarian prophecies of the Bible.

Millennialism is the medieval doctrine, based on prophecy in the Book of Revelation or Apocalypse, that Christ would return to earth to reign for a thousand years of peace and righteousness, to be followed by the Last Judgement at the end of the world.

It was predicted that all the people of the world would be converted to Christianity , and that the Holy City of Jerusalem would be permanently freed from the infidels. Thus was born the idea of creating an Indian Jerusalem in the New World.

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The Franciscans

• Followers of the original principles of Saint Francis.

• They were used to living entirely on public charity and in small communities.

• Their emblem is the 5 wounds of the stigmata

• Five Holy Wounds that were, according to the Bible, inflicted on Jesus during his crucifixion: wounds in the wrists and feet, from nails; and in the side, from a lance.

Left: Five wounds Right: Stigmata’s blood and the cord.

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The Franciscans • First to arrive to Mexico in 1524

• They were known as the “Twelve Apostles”

• Remarkable for their number of converts but also they were writers, linguists, teachers, able organizers and men of peace.

• They believed they were similar to Christ’s Apostles, who set out to preach all over the world.

• Although in the early years the friars did not speak Nahuatl, they won the respect of the Indians with their honesty, sincerity and loving attention.

• They ate the same foods as the Indians and protected the Indians from abuse of the conquistadores.

1570. The Twelve Apostles. Mural painting in the Monastery of Huejotzingo, Puebla,

Mexico

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The FranciscansPedro de Gante • He dedicated to teaching the Indians to read

and speak Spanish, to sing and play musical instruments.

• He founded a school where Indian children learned manual arts and crafts, carpentry, painting, building, carving, metalsmithing, featherworking.

• educated students in stone carving and European style of architecture- needed to build churches

• He learned Nahuatl and wrote a Nahuatl Catechism.

• He opened the first chapel, called San José de los Naturales, to teach doctrine and preach the mass to the crowds of gathered Indians.

• He dedicated his life to the evangelization of the Indians.

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The Dominicans

• The second set of friars to arrive in 1526.

• Unlike the Franciscans strategy of evangelization, the Dominicans were more conservative in administering the sacraments.

• In terms of constructing convents, the Dominicans showed a marked tendency toward the sumptuous and spectacular, which suggests that they had a peculiar and contradictory way of interpreting their vows of poverty

• Symbol is a stylized cross

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The Augustinians

• The 3rd group to arrive to the New Spain.

• Like the Fransicans, the Augustinians considered the New World an early paradise free from sin, a Garden of Eden where they hoped to create a City of God, which was the Utopia of Saint Augustine. They were both the most liberal orders in administering the sacraments and the most apocalyptic, since they viewed the work of conversion as a cosmic battle between Christ and Satan for the souls of the Indians.

• Doña Isabel, daughter of the Aztec emperor Moctezuma, contributed the land for the first Augustinian convent in Mexico City.

Augustinian emblem: Bleeding heart with crossed arrows

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The JesuitsLast group of friars to arrive. Because they arrived at the end of the 16th century most of their work is noticeable in the 17th and 18th century.

They focused their efforts on the education of the creoles and mestizos. The Jesuits brought a strong intellectual and humanistic ideology that, with the passing of time, would mark indelibly the culture and mentality of the people of Mexico.

Hardly a year after arriving in New Spain, the Jesuits opened their first college

In Jesuit colleges, creole and mestizo children studied everything from basic literacy skills to theology, Latin, rhetoric and art.

After completing their coursework at the college, colonial youth continued their studies in the University.

This monogram consists of the Greek letters iota, eta, and sigma, the first three letters of the name Iesous (Greek for Jesus), the letters of which are also used to spell out the Latin phrase “Iesous Hominem Salvator,” “Jesus, savior of man.”

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Syncretism The friars in their conversion efforts took advantage of coincidental similarities between Christiana and native religions. Since both religious systems featured structures of classifying divine beings, whether Aztec deities or Catholic saints, with special attributes and qualities.

The cult of Tlaloc offers a typical example of syncretism. For Tlaloc, the friars substituted the image of San Isidro Labrador, the protector of the fields and the harvest.

Interestingly, many images of San Isidro actually feature the face of the pagan god Tlaloc.

This indicates that for the natives of certain parts of Mexico, San Isidro and Tlaloc, although dressed differently, represent the same personage.

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TequitquiTequitqui: “Indo-Christian” a style of art of New Spain

It is the Indian redefinition and reinterpretation of European art and architecture. It combines the European artistic tradition with the Indian aesthetic.

Renaissance influence, importation of prints.

Painted by an artist in Texcoco, we have the traditional iconography of Tlaloc rendered flat, in accordance with our traditional codice style.

However, the body of the god, reveal’s the painter’s adoption of chiaroscuro effects, and a contrapposto stance probably derived from the prints of the Apollo Belvedere, a widely illustrated Roman sculpture. A graphic melding of two pagan gods.

Left: Tlaloc from Codex Ixtilxotchitl, 1582 Right: Print of Apollo Belvedere

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The Mass of St. Gregory1539• The oldest dated feather work with a

Christian subject.

• Made by or for Diego Huanutzin, nephew and son-in-law of Moctezuma II to present to Pope Paul III.

• Pope Gregory the Great kneels before an altar and receives a vision of Christ and the symbols of the Passion.

• Based on a Flemish engraving of around 1500, the amanteca eliminated complex architectural details while including subtle patterns in the men’s robes and on the altar cloth that seem more indigenous than Spanish.

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Israhel van MeckenemMass of St. Gregory1490-5Engraving

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Crucifix (cornstalk-paste)

1550, Spain• Aztec technique

• No pagan images in this technique survive

• Early Colonial workshops created Christian images using this method

• an armature of cornstalk and paper was covered with a sort of plaster-made with the whitish heart of the cornstalk, certain orchids, maguey fiber, and a natural glue- and then gessoed and painted.

• Dozens of cornstalk-paste figures of Jesus and other saints were exported to Spain, where they were donated to churches and highly coveted for use in religious processions.

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Battle Scene Church of San Miguel, Ixmiquilpan (Hidalgo,

MX)1569-72Swirling acanthus leaves serve as pedestals for

warriors dressed as jaguar and coyote knights wielding obsidian-edged clubs, who fight centaurs and semi-nude figures carrying bows and arrows. Syncretism: Classical European motifs + Pre-Columbian iconography-including speech scrolls, shields, and trophy heads- predominates.

it is likely that the scenes were based on actual theatrical performances held in the area

Theory 1: local Otomí (who had already converted to Christianity) fighting pagan Chichimecs (who continued to resist the Spaniards).

Theory 2: the victors should be seen as warriors of the Sun, uprooting forces of darkness from a flowery Christian heaven.

Either way, this multivalent mural cycle spoke to the timeworn theme of Good versus Evil and was thus acceptable to the Augustinians.

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Paradise Garden MuralConvent of Malinalco

Malinalco, State of Mexico1571• depict a botanical and zoological garden

intended to offer a description and interpretation of life after death.

• Aztec Afterlife: Mictlan and the Heavens

• The Aztec heavens were described by Sahagún as places of fertility and abundance, full of flowers, fruit and trees.

• Maya and Aztec thought believed that the souls of the dead were converted into chalchihuites (precious green stones) and after 4 years would be transformed into flying creatures (birds, butterflies and bees) and return to earth.

• In Augustinian thought the birds symbolized the liberated souls of totally spiritual individuals.

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Flora and FaunaMost of the plants and animals depicted are native to Mexico:

Monkeys (ozomatli): depijcted are spider monkeys that are hanging from the branches of a cacao tree.

In Mesoamerican cosmogonies, monkeys were ancestral to mankind and endowed with vitalizing, creative powers.

Given their nimble grace, songlike hoots, and manual dexterity, they were perceived as the originators of the performing and visual arts, including the elite profession of scribes and painters.

The Christian connotations toward the monkeys and apes were negative. They symbolized the sinners and since apes appeared to parody human actions, they represented the lustful nature of man, or man in a state of degeneracy.

Pineapple, tunas, nopal, morning glory, tlacuache (possum), coyotl, snakes, parrots, hummingbirds, monkeys, speech scrolls, celestial symbols, etc.

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Folding Screen with the Conquest of Mexico (front), Mexico, late 17th century (biombo)

Various scenes of the conquest play out over the ten front panels, among them the meeting of Cortés and Moctezuma, the siege of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, and

the assassination of Moctezuma. Origin of folding screens: China- major importation from Chiana to Europe in the 17th

and 18th centuries.

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On the back of the screen, the transformation of the Aztec capital into the orderly Spanish colonial city replete with the city’s numerous churches and plazas invites the viewer to meander among the streets, searching the legend at the bottom left for familiar sights within the city’s boundaries.

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Castas in Mexico In the years following the conquest

of Mexico, most people fell into 3 distinct ethnoracial categories: Nahuas (indigenous people), peninsular Spaniards or Africans (both enslaved and free)

By the 17th century, these categories broke down quickly and castas were being defined. Some estimates place the total number of castas in the use in colonial Mexico at sixty or more.

casta is an Iberian word meaning “lineage”, “breed”, or “race.

In the early versions of Casta paintings people usually fall within one of the 16 racial classifications

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Castas Peninsulares (people of Spain) Indian Mestizo (Spanish + Indian) Castizos (Mestizo + Spanish) Mulattos (Spanish + African) Zambos (Afircan + Indian) What does this painting tell you

about how Metizo and Indios lived?

Miguel Cabrera. De Metizo y de India; Coyote. 1763. Mexico City, Mexico. Oil on Canvas

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Defining Race

Each of these castes was entitled to privileges or were restricted within the society because of its caste.

Casta paintings typically depict a couple along with one or two children, an inscription describing the enthnoracial make-up of the mother, father and the child(ren).

Miguel Cabrera. De Español y Negra, Mulata. 1763 oil on canvas

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Everyday LifeThese paintings suggest the

differences in social classesTypical Clothing

• It also tells us, what kind of clothes people could and could not wear

• Only pure-bred Spanish people could wear silk and real pearls

• What is the difference between this Indigenous woman and the one from before?

Flora & FaunaFood and Architecture

Miguel Cabrera. De Español y de India; Mestiza. 1763 Oil on canvas, Mexico City, Mexico

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Purpose & Significance

Influence of the Enlightenment Spanish fascination with race Maintenance of social & political

control Souvenirs of the “New World” Interest in Daily Life

(Costumbrismo) Documentation of Flora & Fauna

Miguel Cabrera. De Español y Mulata; Morisca. 1763. Mexico City, Mexico. Oil on

Canvas.

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Mural of the annunciation Convent of san juan bautista, Cuauhtinchan, pueblaAnonymous 1569

Over the door in the cloister, there is a curious mural painting of the Annunciation to Mary by the archangel Gabriel. The Christian image taken from a medieval engraving is flanked by an eagle and a jaguar painted in typical prehispanic Codex style.

The eagle represents the god Huitzilopochtli, the Sun of the Day and jaguar is Tezcatlipoca, The Sun of the Night. The two elements as a couple represents the duality of light and darkness, and the warriors called Eagle or Jaguar Knights had the sacred charter to maintain the Life of these deities and the balance of the Universe through warfare and sacrifice.