Festivals and Daily Life in the Arts of Colonial Latin America, 1492–1850: Papers from the 2012 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum

Abstract

The eight papers in this volume are a welcome addition to the growing literature on festivals, domestic life, and material culture in colonial Latin America. Several of the papers are primarily descriptive, though thoroughly researched. The foreword does not provide much of an interpretive framework for the selection of papers, which are simply divided into two groups: the first dealing with festivals and the second with daily life. It is, however, possible to divide the papers into two groups based on the types of sources the scholars consult and privilege, and the sorts of discourses they identify. The first group identifies the hegemonic narratives expressed by Spanish governors and culture makers in the New World. The second group of papers, likely of more interest to the readers of this journal, delves into more complicated territory and searches for the subaltern and hybrid narratives embedded in colonial and national discourses and expressed in festivals and other forms of visual culture.The papers in the first group rely largely on written reports and visual records created by Spaniards and creoles to document events occurring in the New World colonies; often these records were created to be sent back to Spain. Gustavo Curiel catalogues the extensive mourning rites held in Mexico City to observe the death of Philip IV in 1665, which he asserts were calculated to express utmost loyalty and defend the interest of the Crown. Beatriz Berndt shows that similar sentiments were articulated more than a century later, when government buildings of the same city were outfitted with temporary facades to celebrate the accession of the new king, Charles IV of Bourbon. While other recent scholarship on Spanish American festivals has identified the specifically “Habsburg” and “Bourbon” characteristics of these pageants, the aforementioned selections as well as Kelly Donahue-Wallace’s chapter on festivals held by the Royal Academy of San Carlos (founded in 1783) show that there was a shared festival culture throughout the colonial period. Even Enlightenment institutions like the Academy, created with the intent to reform the art of Mexico in favor of a more classical (and less baroque) style, harkened back to previous state-sponsored festivals for legitimacy. More local festivals, such as those dedicated to St. Joseph the patriarch in Puebla, Mexico, were also calculated to bolster the legitimacy of the colonial government, as is shown by Frances Ramos. In the arena of fashion or vernacular dress, Susan Socolow shows that women’s clothing in Buenos Aires followed European norms and reflected colonial social hierarchies. Yet she declines to problematize the notion of fashion, which could be juxtaposed with the perceived “traditional” nature of indigenous dress.The second group of papers does go further, first with Barbara Mundy’s foray into the indigenous dances, or mitotes, performed at religious and civic events in early colonial Mexico City. As illustrated in the Tlatelolco Codex (ca. 1560), such dances were even performed at the jura, or oath of allegiance to the king of Spain (specifically that made to Philip II in 1557). Dancers wore feathered costumes redolent with pre-Hispanic associations and danced in the name of indigenous elites who jockeyed for power under colonial rule. Yet the costumes had been altered from their earlier forms, and their meanings were also altered by the new colonial situation in which they operated. Such was also the case with the butaca, a hybrid invention in domestic furniture that Jorge Rivas-Pérez shows was based on both the pre-Columbian Caribbean stool (duho) and the Spanish folding chair (silla de caderas). The ritual and authoritarian associations of the earlier seats largely fell away, while the form of the low inclined chair took on connotations of domestic ease in the colonial environment. Lastly, Alexandra Kennedy-Troya’s article delves into the meanings of costumbrista illustration (images of indigenous “types” in typical dress) in the post-independence era. She contrasts the original, nineteenth-century meanings of a set of watercolors with their probable significance as a collection in the early twentieth century. She asserts that the illustrations no longer served as souvenirs of a past (colonial) era but became elements of a burgeoning national identity that attempted to recognize and rectify the status of indigenous peoples.