Divinity and decay: the narrative of miraculous renovation and the repair of sacred images in colonial Mexico

Abstract

Miraculous images in the early modern period were continually restored and touched up to ensure their continued decency, relevancy, and efficacy as divine conduits. This article focuses on the miraculous narratives that accompanied those artistic alterations, and in particular, on the trope of miraculous renovation that explained the dramatic restoration of several blackened and decayed crucifixes in seventeenth-century Mexico. By unpacking the biography of the Señor de Santa Teresa, Mexico's most famous Cristo Renovado, I reveal how the ‘renovation narrative’ that took hold in the region wove together artistic and religious discourses to explain the formal transformation of indecent statues of Christ. I also show how the story resolved broader concerns regarding artistic decorum, the inherently corruptible media from which the images were crafted, fears of native idolatry held by the clergy, and the struggle between devotees and patrons to control images imbedded within devotional communities.