Art, Nature, and Religion in the Central Andes: Themes and Variations from Prehistory to Present ‐ by Strong, Mary

Abstract

Strong, Mary (2012) Art, Nature, and Religion in the Central Andes: Themes and Variations from Prehistory to Present, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), x + 356 pp. $60.00 hbk. After analysing eight Peruvian art forms from the late 1960s to the twenty-first century, Mary Strong has identified three linguistic mechanisms that explain the survival and the variation of themes from pre-Inca times: inversion, disjunction and dual subjectivity. The artists of the eight art forms analysed – scissors dance, home altars, carved gourds, ceramics, painted boards, textiles, tinware and stone carving – use the three strategies to communicate different messages to different audiences. The message to their own communities is one of indigenous pride and social protest, whereas that for consumers depends on the targeted buyer. Through inversion, for example, artists depict negative aspects of society as positive ones. Perhaps the most common example of this strategy is to represent the weak as the powerful, and vice-versa. Disjunction, on the other hand, consists of replacing mainstream images, mainly western references, with non-mainstream images, mainly indigenous ones, in order to make the latter acceptable and question the former. Finally, dual subjectivity takes place when the artist uses cultural references that have different meanings for the hegemonic group from those for the subaltern. One of the best examples is the depiction of the Virgin Mary with a triangular skirt, an image that recalls a mountain and thus connotes Pachamama, the Inca earth mother. The structure of the book consists of three parts. In Part I, Strong gives a historical and cultural background of pre-Inca and Inca peoples and defines the themes that characterise the indigenous art of the region. She concludes that the local natural environment and the subsequent Andean cosmology structure artistic themes. The first section is a description of the geographic, social and political systems prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, whereas the second deals with cosmology. The chapter ends with an exhaustive list of the most important natural elements in Andean environment and culture. In Part II, Strong defines the variations generated by the arrival of the Spaniards and two major events in the modern era: massive rural-to-urban migration and Shining Path's civil war. Here Strong describes the historical events that marked the encounter between Spaniards and Andeans and the multi-directional process that defined Andean culture. Like other colonial scholars, Strong proposes that the artistic and cultural similarities that both groups shared allowed them to establish a process of communication in which each felt that the other understood its message, while in fact each was interpreting the meaning in light of its own beliefs. The cosmology of both, for example, was tripartite and consisted of the abodes of above, here and below. However, the western dichotomy between goodness and evil is absent from Andean cosmology. In the latter, supernatural forces have to be good and bad in order to be powerful. Indigenous cosmological principles still appear in modern Andean art; an example is Supay, a mischievous supernatural whom the Spanish missionaries qualified as a devil. At the same time, syncretism is evident in the adoption of Spanish art, such as the Baroque style. Yet Strong believes that the popularity of Baroque is still another paradigm of the coming together of two similar art traditions. Part II also describes the impact of migration and globalisation in indigenous art. Economic crisis and violence have driven Andean artists from rural to urban areas. One result is the de-contextualisation of agricultural rituals, such as the scissors dance. In addition, immigrants who formerly survived from agriculture now depend exclusively on their artistic activity. In this process, art has become a commercial product. Competition with global enterpreneurs who attempt to imitate Andean art and produce cheap products in massive quantities have also resulted in the sacrifice of quality in favor of quantity. However, in Part III, Strong provides specific examples of how Andean artists have used inversion, disjunction and dual subjectivity to preserve art as a manifestation of indigenous beliefs. First, she includes detailed information on each of the eight art forms analysed. Although this section constitutes her most significant contribution to indigenous studies, one of Strong's greatest drawbacks is the lack of images used to illustrate her discussion. She uses her own drawings throughout the book, a good strategy to overcome copyright and cost difficulties, but at times insufficient for the reader to comprehend her arguments. Another downside is the repetition of background information throughout the three parts of the book. The length of the prelude draws attention from the actual analysis of Andean modern art. Nonetheless, Strong's greatest achievement is to explain the agency that has allowed Andean artists to overcome the obstacles that hegemonic powers have thrust upon them.