Earthquakes and colonial art in Cusco (Peru)

Editorial Commentary

Perspective dominates the writing on colonial art. Conceptualized as a way of seeing that inherently supports the processes of colonial conquest and control, its use in colonial art is routinely linked to an overseeing and all-powerful ‘colonial gaze’. It is surprising, then, that upon return to the supposed source of this idea, the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, you will find that he continually associates the ‘gaze’ not with perspective but anamorphosis. Undertaking a close study of several inter-related Australian works by the British travel artist, Augustus Earle, in this article I seek to look again at colonial art by placing perspective to one side. In shifting the focus from perspective to anamorphosis, I will be arguing for the need to consider another, often neglected and overlooked aspect to the ideology of the colonial encounter, one based on what Slavoj Žižek paradoxically refers to as a ‘pre-ideological enjoyment structured in fantasy’.

The history of colonial art in the New Kingdom of Granada, which includes present-day Colombia (the primary focus of this bibliography) and parts of modern-day Ecuador and Venezuela, starts with the chroniclers and travelers who registered works of architecture and art through the 19th century. In 1886 the inaugural Exhibition of the School of Fine Arts recognized the artistic value of religious works. At the beginning of the 20th century, the first inventories were made and inquiries about painters and sculptors began. In 1931 Juan Contreras Marqués de Lozoya wrote The History of Hispanic Art (Historia del arte hispánico), which included Spanish America for the first time. By the mid-20th century, foreign professors had visited Colombia to include art from the New Kingdom of Granada in general art history books on the Spanish Americas. Mario Buschiazzo recommended to local authorities and the general public the recognition of original and autonomous works of architecture and the creation of Institutes for Aesthetic Research. The 1960s mark the beginning of the systematic study of art and architecture, and later the iconographic and iconological method was introduced, which led to new interpretations. In 1974 the Colombian government created the National Restoration Center, and in 1975 the Spanish publishing house Salvat published the first Colombian Art History (Historia del arte colombiano), with contributions by several national scholars. The meeting on Latin American Baroque, held in Rome in 1980, guided and stimulated new research. Silvia Arango, in 1990, wrote The History of Architecture in Colombia. At the beginning of the new millennium, art history studies became more specialized. Reviews of the past have led to the careful re-examination of visual models, written sources, and their interpretation. This research has highlighted how the indigenous past, rich in cosmogonies, facilitated the reception of European culture. The first studies on textiles, altarpieces, silverware, jewelry, furniture, ceramics, engraving, and painting, together with analyses of gilders and trade associations, have now been produced. The names of new artists and artistic trades are being discovered. In sister disciplines a similar development has occurred: in architecture, considering new interpretations about constructions and urbanism, scholars have turned their attention to doctrine temples, exchange houses, bridges, and mills. Archaeology is providing useful data for historical research on buildings, urban planning, goldsmithing, and ceramics. Thus, researchers have revealed that the spectrum of artistic production is more complex than originally thought. It was not limited to evangelization through persuasive works, but also supplied the aesthetic and utilitarian requirements of a new society in formation. But colonial art has not yet been properly registered or catalogued. Much remains to be investigated about the artists and their works, and the techniques, materials, and regional contributions are not fully known.

El arte colonial de América Latina desde hace muchos años despertaba el interés de los investigadores polacos, tanto de los historiadores como de los teóricos del arte. Sin embargo, a pesar de su fascinación, muy a menudo aparecieron problemas relacionados con su estudio en las publicaciones polacas del siglo XX, eso fue resultado de las limitadas posibilidades de las investigaciones y de los viajes. El arte colonial interesaba las personas muy conocidas en el mundo científi co polaco como: Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Zbigniew Hornung o Jan Białostocki. También Mieczysław Porębski y Ksawery Piwocki mencionaron algunos monumentos barrocos del mundo americano como los ejemplos comparativos en su trabajo titulado Dzieje sztuki w zarysie (Compendio de la historia del arte). La lista de las publicaciones se cierra con el artículo de Przemysław Trzeciak Architektura nowożytna Ameryki Łacińskiej (Arquitectura moderna de América Latina) del año 1994, que constituye un capítulo del libro Sztuka Świata (Arte Mundial), del volumen siete. Entre los estudios mencionados los más importantes son las publicaciones de Jan Białostocki, quien fue autor de uno los textos más amplios sobre el arte colonial. Él fue también un investigador valorado por los historiadores del arte del otro lado del Atlántico y sus estudios infl uyeron en las investigaciones del arte colonial y contemporáneo de América Latina.

Introduction Carbon-based pigments are a group of dark-colored materials, which are classified according to the starting material used and their manufacturing process. Raman spectroscopy is an ideal technique for the identification of carbonaceous matter. Carbon-based pigments show broad bands between 1,300 and 1,600 cm−1 but they differ in position, width and relative intensity, allowing discrimination between them. The aim of the present study was the identification of carbon-based pigments in four polychrome wooden sculptures from the Jesuit Mission La Trinidad in Paraguay. Results Analysis of the Raman spectral parameters of the polychrome samples and comparison with those of carbon-based pigment references allowed the identification of wood charcoal, lampblack, bistre and a black earth pigment. Complementary analysis by infrared spectroscopy and elemental analysis supported the assignments. Conclusions In this study we have provided new evidence that Raman microscopy is a powerful technique for the discrimination of carbon-based pigments in works of art. This is the first time that bistre, lampblack and a black earth pigment are identified in colonial art. The chemical information obtained on the black pigments contributed to increase our knowledge on available resources and technology used in the manufacture of the polychrome sculptures at the Jesuit Mission. This information is relevant for our studies on Colonial art.

This paper analyzes the book Bibliography of Argentinean Colonial Art regarding the process of institutionalization and consolidation of colonial art studies at the University of Buenos Aires. Following the specificities of its format in the historiographical context of the period, I sustain that the book had a strategic role in the reorientation of artistic studies proposed by the mentioned university’s Institute of American Art and Aesthetic Studies. Besides professional aspirations pursued by its author, expressed in the exercise of the bibliographical review, the book constituted an effective format for the local and transnational scene regarding the consolidation of Buschiazzo's profile as an expert, establishing his own historiographical production space.

This Dialogues section seeks to contribute to the scholarship on Latin American art in Canada and “Latinx Canadian art.” We aim to broaden the historical and current narratives of art and artists from Latin America north of the United States, taking into account Canada’s history of migration and its official bilingual status (French-English), multilingual and multicultural reality, and relationship with Indigenous peoples. Adding to the urgency of studying the presence of Latin American art in Canada, there is also a need to focus on the work of artists and curators with a Latin American background. They are developing languages of expression, practices, and aesthetics that no longer conform to the “Latin American art” category. It is thus essential to highlight the multiple artistic initiatives that are allowing them to gain visibility and recognition within both the local and global artistic milieus. We posit that today it is almost impossible to overlook both the historical and the ongoing presence of Latin American art and artists in Canada and the recent emergence of a vibrant, ever-expanding contemporary Latinx Canadian art scene. This section proposes six groundbreaking contributions that, from coast to coast, offer further data and analysis, case studies, and investigations into museum archives: from Vancouver to Montréal, from pre-Columbian art and material culture to contemporary art, from the Chilean diaspora of the 1970s to more recent migration waves, from curatorial strategies to the classroom.

This chapter examines pictures of the Santal community produced during colonial modernity, first by the British and then by the painters of the Bengal School. It suggests that the conventional academic tropes of understanding these pictures—power and emasculation on one side, and empowering nativism on the other—may not give adequate insight. In fact, the Santals, as mediated through colonial art, were given far more agency and strength than generally acknowledged, while Indian painters, rather than hoisting them as symbols of resistance, actually imprisoned them in an Arcadian past and robbed them of the temporal imperatives to act in the present. The visual story of indigenous groups in colonial India is thus a complex one—first of fear, admiration and avoidance, and later, of recognition, disciplining and cultural captivity.

New Mexico's Spanish Catholic Past Ramón A. Gutiérrez La Conquistadora: The Autobiography of an Ancient Statue, by Fray Angelico Chavez (Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1954), 96 pp. In the years following the initial voyage of Christopher Columbus seeking a western route to the riches of the East Indies in 1492, Spain rapidly established a far-flung empire. By the 1560s Spain's sovereignty extended from Madrid to Manila. Its expeditionary forces had captured the wealth of the Aztec and Inca Empires and explored much of what became known as the Spanish Borderlands of North America, that southern third of what became the United States extending from Florida to California. The Kingdom of New Mexico, established in 1598, is the oldest and most enduring of Spain's settlements in the United States, antedating the founding by the English of Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth colony in 1620. The person who chronicled New Mexico's Catholic history most intensively during the twentieth century was Fray Angélico Chávez. In his lifetime he published twenty-three books and more than six hundred articles describing different facets of Catholic experiences here under Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. rule. The focus of this essay is on Chavez's 1954 book, La Conquistadora: The Autobiography of an Ancient Statue, in which he narrates the history of New Mexico's Christianization through the eyes of a wooden statue of Our Lady of the Rosary, brought by the Franciscan friars in 1625. Fray Angelico performs as a ventriloquist, giving the statue her feminine voice, which in turn she uses to narrate her triumphs and travails as New Mexico's virgin, queen, and mother over a span of more than three centuries. Chavez occasionally wrote with the female pseudonym as "Ann Jellico" assuming the persona of a woman, making his work by today's standards rather queer and campy. Males assuming female personas in [End Page 61] European and American literature is hardly unusual; what is, is that a piece of wood does. Chavez was born in 1910 to Fabian and Nicolasa Roybal in Wagon Mound, New Mexico and baptized as Manuel Ezequiel. When ordained a Franciscan friar in 1937 he chose Angélico as his clerical name to honor Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, the Catholic patroness of Los Angeles, California. Fray Angélico was born into an ancestral line he traced to members of one of the first Spanish colonizing parties to enter New Mexico in 1598. A year after Angélico's birth his family moved to San Diego, California where his father worked as a carpenter building the pavilions for the Panama-California Exhibition inaugurated in 1915 to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. New Mexico's exhibition there, modeled after Acoma Pueblo's Franciscan church, became the pavilion that attracted the fair's largest crowds and subsequently inspired Santa Fe's city fathers to refashion the town's architectural style from Victorian to Spanish colonial in the 1930s. Some scholars opine that young Manuel's exposure to Spanish neocolonial architecture in San Diego and later Santa Fe may have inspired his fascination with the region's Spanish past. As a child Angelico was educated by the Sisters of Loretto who undoubtedly encouraged his pursuit of a clerical career. At the age of fourteen he enrolled at St. Francis Seraphic Seminary High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, moving to the nearby novitiate of the Saint John the Baptist Province of the Order of Friars Minor in 1929, obtaining a bachelor's degree in theology at Duns Scotus College in 1933. On returning to Santa Fe he was ordained a Franciscan priest at St. Francis Cathedral on May 6, 1937. He was the first native-born New Mexican ordained by the Order of Friars Minor begun by St. Francis of Assisi in 1210, having been educated entirely in Catholic schools by priests and nuns. Angelico Chavez became a prolific writer at a young age, first of poetry while he was still in high school, eventually adding essays and tomes on colonial art, history, and imaginative fiction to his literary repertoire anchored in themes derived from New Mexico...

(анти)колоніальні стратегії художнього мислення Євгена гребінки В поемІ «богдан»

Santa Fe is a town seemingly obsessed with its past. Around every corner are reminders that the founded Santa Fe as a colonial capitol ten years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The adobe architecture and narrow winding streets maintain an Old World image that contrasts with the sprawl of most Sunbelt cities. Much of its tourist appeal rests on its ability to showcase ancient cultures and historical charm. Moreover, Santa Fe must contain the most museums of any city of 62,000. No less than eleven crowd its plazas, including the Museum of New Mexico, the Indian Arts Museum, the Museum of International Folk Arts, and the Georgia O'Keefe Museum. In the summer of 2002, yet another museum opened its doors. The Colonial Arts Museum displays traditional art made by New Mexican craftspeople between the seventeenth and the twenty-first centuries. Sponsored by the Colonial Arts Society, which writer Mary Austin helped to found in 1925, the new museum is the first in this southwestern tourist destination dedicated exclusively to Spanish art and culture. In a state that broadly advertises its tri-cultural heritage-Indian, Spanish, and Anglo-the Colonial Arts Museum seems long overdue. Why, in a city so dependent upon its history and so eager to open museums, did this one show up just now? Charles Montgomery's The Redemption explains the history of northern New Mexico's cult of remembrance and much more.

A segment at the end of the manuscript known as the Annals of the Kaqchikels, never published nor translated until 1999, provides new data about the construction, between 1584 and 1596, of Solola’s parochial church, the new main reredos, the sculpture of the Virgin of the Assumption, the «monumento» for Good Thursday, the organ, the silver lamp for the Holly Sacrament, and the main bell. All this new information is correlated with other documents and research on colonial art.

Unlike most city histories, this book focuses exclusively on the city's connections with colonialism and slavery. Rotterdam, the second-largest Dutch city, is one of Europe's leading ports. Its maritime expansion was intrinsically linked to Dutch colonialism, including slave trading and colonial slavery in the Americas, Africa and Asia. This painful history sits uneasily with the city's modern cosmopolitan image and its large population of 'new Rotterdammer' with colonial roots. The present volume provides a summary of the research that has documented this history, with chapters on the contribution of colonial trade to economic development; the city's involvement in slavery; the role of the urban political elites; the impact on urban development and architecture; the 'ethical impulse'; colonial art and ethnographic collections; colonial and postcolonial migration; and finally the resonance of this history in postcolonial Rotterdam.

Painted cloth: colonial art and the diversity of fashion at the Blanton Museum of Art

HIS BOOK goes far beyond the subject which its title indicates.1 It pretends to be not only a diplomatic history but a social history of Chile, an interpretation of its present, and a prophecy concerning its future. Unfortunately Professor Pike is not equal to the gigantic task that these ambitions and multiple aims involve. Though he has collected an immense bibliography, reading (or at least filing) everything that has been written about Chile whether of much, little, or no importance, he lacks critical judgment and does not discriminate. For instance, concerning the study of our War of the Pacific, he bestows great importance on the pamphlet Adi's al septimo de iinea (315, footnote 1). This is equivalent to studying the history of France by reading The Three Musketeers or the life of Moses by viewing Cecil B. de Mille's film, The Ten Commandments. All of the bibliography, moreover, is impaired by an almost grotesque lack of critical sense, which leads one to believe that Pike has read only the titles of the works he quotes. We find that a prominent Christian Democrat, Alejandro Silva BascuiTan, is classified as a neofascist (415, footnote 1) because he has written an article on the corporate state according to the encyclical Quadrigesimo Anno. Even more fantastic is the case of the architect and expert on colonial art, the late Alfredo Benavides Rodriguez; Pike, without wavering, calls him a Hispanist and a neofascist. Why? Because (you '11 be dumbfounded) Benavides is the author of an article called On Spanish Imagery and Hispanoamerica. (This absurdity may be found on page 418, footnote 16.) Other Hispanists and neofascists mentioned by Pike are Ricardo Latcham and Mariano Pie'on-Salas. Amongst the racialists and antinatives listed by the author is Emilio Rodriguez Mendoza, who in 1900 wrote that the epic poem