Castas Paintings

Pioneering study about casta painting in English, which accompanied the first exhibition of the genre organized by a US institution. The essay contextualizes the paintings historically, socially and artistically, and includes new archival documentation and unpublished images.

Facsímile del manuscrito de Joaquín Antonio Basarás titulado "Origen, costumbres y estado presente de mexicanos y filipinos" (1763, Hispanic Society of America, Nueva York). Basarás fue un mercader vasco radicado en México. Su texto ofrece un caudal de datos sobre la vida cotidiana en la Nueva España y Filipinas en el siglo XVIII; incluye 106 aguadas de las castas de México, tipos populares, lugares de esparcimiento, fruto y otros productos de la tierra. El estudio introductorio por Ilona Katzew inserta al manuscrito en su contexto histórico, social y artístico, y ofrece un minucioso análisis de las imágenes. Se destacan el análisis de ciertos temas como las castas, los desposorios indígenas, los mitotes (o danza de Moctezuma), y las vistas corográficas de México. El estudio es de utilidad para especialistas de varias disciplinas interesados en la Ilustración hispánica, la historia de la Nueva España y de Filipinas. Se anexa el estudio introductorio y la transcripción completa del manuscrito, con aparato bibliográfico y apéndice documental. Español.

The book/facsimile transcribes for the first time the manuscript by the Basque merchant Joaquín Antonio de Basarás y Garaygorta titled "Origen, costumbres y estado presente de mexicanos y filipinos" (1763, Hispanic Society of America, New York). The original manuscript includes 106 watercolors that describe various aspects of life in Mexico, including local flora, fauna, traditions, and places, as well as the caste system. This source is a treasure trove of information about the material culture of eighteenth-century Mexico. The introductory study by Ilona Katzew offers an in-depth analysis of the text, placing it within its social, historical, and artistic context. Of particular relevance is the author's analysis of the imagery--including mitotes (Moctezuma's dance), depictions of Indigenous weddings, and corographic images of local sites in Mexico. Exquisitely illustrated, this source will be useful to scholars from various disciplines interested in New Spain and the American Enlightenment.  Included here is the Introductory chapter is attached, as well as the full transcription of the original manuscript, as well as a bibliography and primary documentary appendix. Spanish language.

This essay focuses on a unique Mexican folding screen (biombo) created in Mexico in the 17th century depicting a mitote (Moctezuma dance), Indian wedding, and flying pole (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). The text expands the author's earlier analysis of the screen (Casta Painting, 2004;  Una visión del México del Siglo de las Luces, 2006), placing it within the context of Amerindian and viceregal festive traditions.

Soon after the conquistador Hernán Cortés defeated the Mexica (commonly known as the Aztec) in 1521, their capital, Tenochtitlan, with its striking ceremonial center, was transformed into a Spanish city, the new locus of Spanish power and the setting for the emergence of a host of new political and religious rites. While in many ways these festive apparatuses introduced new forms of ritual and advanced a key new message—the willing submission to the Catholic prince—the indigenous communities of Central Mexico had had ample experience with highly ostentatious forms of ritual since pre-Hispanic times. This essay examines a number of texts and images that underscore the participation of Amerindians in festive rites in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Mexico. Panegyric texts such as those describing the entry of a new viceroy or the ceremony of allegiance to a new monarch were carefully constructed to spread the idea of good governance. Native participation remained a fixture of many of these celebrations; how indigenous participants were represented and by whom are more complicated questions that are addressed in this essay.

In the eighteenth century, the increasing scientific obsession with origins and the transferability of skin color created an environment in which norms and deviations were discussed in more global and hierarchical terms. Portraits of albinos and spotted blacks (individuals affected with vitiligo) circulated and were discussed among a wide sector of society – from civil and ecclesiastic authorities to scientists and philosophers. This essay considers the proliferation of this type of imagery on both sides of the Atlantic in light of the racial theories of the time that attempted to explain human variation and human deviation; it also addresses the role of images in spreading knowledge across cultural boundaries – from the colonies to Europe and vice versa.

Link:
https://brill.com/view/title/25200

Exerpt from PhD, 2008. An iconological analysis of the visual work produced by Carlos Julião, an Italian military officer who served the Portuguese empire in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His illustrations were inspired by the human diversity composing the 'people-scape' of the Portuguese ‘conquests’ that he encountered in the empire. His figurative compositions reveal the racial hierarchy and new identities emerging in the context of colonisation. Particularly in Brazil, where such diversity was greater and people were labelled according to their degree of miscegenation.
The images will be analysed in two contexts. The first is under the Enlightenment ideals, as interpreted under the light of Iberian perceptions, traditions and policies towards non-Christian cultures. Secondly, the images will be analysed in the context of the political discourse operating in Portugal and Brazil in the twentieth-century when they were first exhibited to the public.. The event took place in the context of the theory of Luso-Tropicalismo, put forward by Brazilian Gilberto Freyre and formed around positive perceptions of Portuguese colonisation.
Implied in the theory of Luso-Tropicalismo was the notion that racism was absent from the Portuguese territories, given the high degree of miscegenation that had occurred in colonial history. Through the educational system and the media, this historical interpretation permeated to the population, thus creating the myth of the absence of racism in the Portuguese empire. A myth that persists in general perceptions of history, in Portugal and elsewhere, and which is still to be seriously deconstructed. Carlos Julião’s illustrations, however, offer a visual testimony to the documentation that deconstructs this historical myth, revealing the preoccupations of the metropolis with the subaltern majority they broadly referred to as the ‘infected races’

Ce dossier vise à montrer certains documents d’identification judiciaire avant l’introduction des systèmes d’identification plus sophistiqués. On pourra constater que l’utilisation
de la filiation, de la photographie et des systèmes anthropométriques s’est faite parallèlement au Mexique et en Europe, particulièrement en France avec Alphonse Bertillon.
Nous présentons ici cinq documents qui illustrent une époque durant laquelle la description physique des individus, le portrait photographique et l’amélioration des techniques
d’identification personnelle faisaient partie de la construction visuelle du monde judiciaire mexicain.

Much has been written about how Frida Kahlo’s artistic production revealed the intense emotional and physical pain that she endured throughout her life. Subjects such as the tragic bus accident that she survived as a teenager, or her troubled relationship with famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, have informed numerous biographical readings of her work. And though her indebtedness to the colonial traditions of ex-voto and retablo paintings has been noted, little has been said of her relationship to other aspects of Mexican visual culture. This article contextualizes Kahlo’s oeuvre within the genres of eighteenth-century casta painting and nineteenth-century costumbrismo, genres that were preoccupied with depicting socio-racial and socio-familial relationships and with representing Mexico’s miscegenation, or racial mixing.

Se ha escrito mucho sobre la producción artística de Frida Kahlo que revela el sufrimiento emocional y físico que perduró durante su vida. El trágico accidente que sobrevivió cuando era joven, y también su relación tormentosa con el famoso muralista mexicano Diego Rivera, han informado varios escritos biográficos sobre el artista. Aunque autores han tomado en cuenta la dedicación de Kahlo a la tradición colonial del ex-voto y pinturas retablo, poco se ha publicado de su relaciones con otros aspectos de la cultura visual mexicana. Este artículo analiza las obras de Kahlo en relación a dos géneros artísticos mexicanos, las pinturas casta del siglo dieciocho y el costumbrismo del siglo diecinueve, categorías que fueron conocidos, tal como las pinturas de Kahlo, por representar las relaciones familiares y raciales y la complejidad del mestizaje.