Woman and Art in Early Modern Latin America

Abstract

For students of colonial art and women’s history this book is a godsend. It proves how an interdisciplinary and feminist approach to history can enrich our understanding of the connections that people made, the role that women played, and the meaning of gender in cultures of the past. Twenty-five years of intensive study of women and gender history in Latin America have barely scratched the surface of the wealth of information available in the visual arts. The attention paid to the study of the Tablas de Mestizaje is among the few indications that art has stimulated historical interpretation. The volume under review further legitimizes the study of art as a venue of more than aesthetic value. None of the essays in this book looks at art in a vacuum. While some follow a line closer to conventional fine art analysis of form, color, balance, and other elements of composition, all willingly embrace history to contextualize their subject.The editors see a progression in the understanding of the gendered meaning of conquest and settlement born out in the representation of women. They describe this progression in the titles of the four parts of the collection: “Reconnaissance,” “Taking Possession,” “Consolidation,” and “Fulfillment.” These categories are assumed to guide the reader into believing there was a development of cognitive experience expressed in art, which the articles in each section illustrate. Readers will agree or disagree with the editorial hypothesis, but it establishes a theoretical framework that may prove useful in triggering fruitful debate. In this reader’s opinion, not all articles in each section fulfill the programmatic scheme, but this is a minor point. In the introduction Kellen Kee McIntyre explains the main goal: to understand how the visual representation of women defined female identity across time and in different locations. It is clearly a manifesto for art historians and historians of all persuasions, and one that should be welcomed.Of the 17 articles, 3 deal with the Andes. New Spain and early republican Mexico take the lion’s share of the collection. The visualization of women falls into three main categories: Marian devotion, female saints, and female religious. Articles on heraldic images and the investigation of painting authorship stand slightly out of this visual classification without weakening it. The kaleidoscopic thematic variety of the essays is an invitation to the reader rather than a distraction. A quick run-through some of the themes will point to the intriguing directions of research represented.A feminist critique of traditional understanding of pre-Hispanic figurines plants seeds of doubt in male archeologists’ perceptions of the female body, while the study of Tlazolteotl’s figure as an emblematic purifier speaks to understanding the pre-Hispanic psyche. The symbolic meaning of Marian representation in male convents addresses the need that early sixteenth-century convents had to establish a rapport with the neophytes under their care, as well as their own liturgical understanding of Mary’s role in the mendicant community. A study of the effect of Christianity on the representation of indigenous goddesses argues that nudity was proscribed and that the indigenous postconquest paintings of their own goddesses dressed up signify a desire to be considered civilized. This implies an imposition as much as an appropriation of Spanish values. This theme seems to be buttressed and contested, at the same time, by a study of the influence of Coya portraits and Andean beliefs in Pachamama on the representation of Mary.Unquestionably, paintings and prints projected ideals of femininity that could be “guided” to promote a desired concept of womanhood. This is easily perceived in religious works either in oil or on paper. A print of a dismembered feminine body could signify women’s vulnerability but, more so, the perils of a slave rebellion. Political and social critiques could be embodied in allegorical paintings of lactating women, while the stark reality of indigenous wet nurses would be ignored. Beyond the representation of saints and religious women, the female imagery that developed the notion of nation or identity from the late eighteenth century to the late nineteenth century shows a change from using Guadalupe as a national emblem to the creation of a female figure that would represent the new nation at midcentury and later under the Díaz regime. No theme is alien to this group of essays: the encounter visualized as a painting of the meeting of Cortés and Moctezuma, the representation of virtue in the eighteenth century, and the triumph of the church envisioned in symbolic women’s figures stand shoulder to shoulder in this dense volume.I thoroughly enjoyed reading these essays and welcome the volume in the hope that it encourages greater attention to the potentially rich crop of information and interpretation encoded in art.