Mexican Colonial art

In Northern Europe, images of Saint James the Greater depict the saint as a pilgrim with staff, prayer book and brimmed hat decorated with a scallop shell. On the Iberian Peninsula, however, the saint is generally portrayed very differently – on horseback trampling a cowering Moor underfoot. This image, and others involving Christian saints intervening in battles, was transferred to Africa and then on to the Americas. Within years of the first American conquests, the Moor under the hooves of the triumphant Saint James was portrayed as an Amerindian. Although it is often assumed that these depictions represent an unfeeling celebration of Iberian victory, the reality is more complex.

This essay explores how cultural exchange and evolving emotional responses to conversion and colonisation led both Iberian and indigenous artists to quite literally carve victory out of defeat. It also looks at how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century outsiders responded to these altered heroes of the Reconquista, and at the continuing consequences of Iberia’s attachment to martial myths.

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.

The study of nanban lacquer has often regarded the connections between Japan and Europe. But in the late 1500s and early 1600s, Colonial Mexico had a direct artistic interaction with “Portuguese Asia”, which led to local appropriations of nanban lacquer. Albeit Nanban lacquer pieces have hardly survived in Mexico, the best proof that they were known in Mexico are enconchados (mother-of-pealr inlaid paintings), whose frames’ palette, designs, and use of mother-of-pearl take after nanban lacquer.
Enconchados date from the 1660s, yet they reached their peak ca. 1690-1700. They were made in Mexico City by painters using oil and tempera on wood or canvas. Mother-of-pearl is inlaid and covered with layers of painting and varnish.
Despite technical and chronological differences between nanban lacquer and enconchados, the latter allow us to reflect further on the scope and implications of the artistic relationship between Japan and New Spain. The nanban phenomenon was one of the earliest cases of artistic globalisation, since not only involved Asia and Europe, but the Americas as well. Enconchados were highly regarded both in Mexico and Spain, which suggests that the importance of their role in the taste for nanban lacquer is yet to be fully appreciated.

Essay discussing the mobility of painting in 18th-century Mexico based on the analyses of three groups of works that were produced in Mexico and exported to Europe (particularly Spain): (1) 2 monumental paintings depicting the newly established Corpus Christi convent in Mexico City for Indian cacicas (noblewomen) that were shipped to king Philip V; (2) a series of landscape paintings by Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz sent to Malta and Spain; (3) a newly discovered painting by Antonio de Torres commissioned for the Franciscan convent church of San Luis Potosí that was shipped to Spain in the 19th century.

The first in-depth analysis of the advocation of the Virgin of the Macana--a devotion promoted by the Franciscans of Mexico in the eighteenth century connected to the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico. The essay illustrates a range of previously unpublished images, and provides fresh observations on the construction of devotional images in a colonial context.

Una reinterpretación de una de las obras más afamadas del pintor colonial mexicano Cristóbal de Villalpando, su "Vista de la plaza mayor de México". De acuerdo con ella, el cuadro puede ser visto como un argumento visual en defensa de la respuesta de la conducta del virrey Conde de Galve frente al motín popular del 8 de junio de 1692 en la ciudad de México, que resultó en el incendio del Palacio Real y las casas del Cabildo en la plaza mayor de la capital. La pintura se habría concebido como un obsequio para el rey de España que reivindicaría al virrey de las acusaciones de corrupción e ineptitud de sus enemigos políticos.

A reinterpretation of one of mexican colonial painter Cristóbal de Villalpando's most famed works, his "View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City". According to this, the picture can be seen as a visual argument in defense of Viceroy Conde de Galve's response to the popular riots of June 8th, 1692, in Mexico City, that resulted in the burning of the Royal Palace and the house of the City Council  in the capital's main square. The painting would be intended as a gift for the King of Spain and as a vindication of the viceroy against the accusations of of corruption and ineficacy promoted by his political enemies.

Written and painted at the Real Colegio de Santa Cruz Tlatelolco in Mexico City, the encyclopedic Florentine Codex (1575‒77) is a magnificently illuminated manuscript created collaboratively by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and his team of as many as twenty-two indigenous authors and artists. It is the single most reliable source of information about Aztec life before and after the conquest of Mexico. Modeled after ancient Roman and medieval encyclopedias, the manuscript’s twelve books present the information in two columns of text (one Nahuatl, the other Spanish) and in its hundreds of painted images. These “three texts” transmit complementary, but more often than not conflicting messages about a given topic. As a site of multiple literacies, the codex raises questions of authorship, identity, and viewership. The Florentine Codex was not only a product of intercultural dialogue but was intended for mixed audiences in New Spain (colonial Mexico) and Europe. Shortly after its completion, the manuscript was sent to Europe where it was acquired by the Medici family by 1587. Today, it is housed in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy and was registered with UNESCO as a vital example of documentary heritage in 2015.

The Florentine Codex initiative leverages the Getty’s expertise in digital scholarship and vocabulary standards 1) to publish the Digital Florentine Codex (DFC) giving scholars, for the first time, full digital access to the illuminated manuscript and its transcriptions and translations, including via text and illustration search functionalities; 2) to produce a scholarly digital publication on the codex’s Book 12 dealing with the conquest of Mexico; 4) to create 4,000 Getty vocabulary entries in English, Spanish, Classical Nahuatl, and contemporary Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl drawn from the codex; and 3) to author a white paper on lessons learned from the production of the Digital Florentine Codex using the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF). 


TEAM

Sponsor:
Mary Miller, Director, Getty Research Institute

Heads of the Initiative:
Jeanette Favrot Peterson, Research Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara
Diana Magaloni, Deputy Director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Kim Richter, Senior Research Specialist, Getty Research Institute
Kevin Terraciano, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

Team Members:
Eduardo de la Cruz Cruz, Nahuatl Consultant, Uniwersytet Warszawski and Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas
Rebecca Dufendach, Research Specialist, Getty Research Institute
Bérénice Gaillemin, Research Specialist, Getty Research Institute
León García Garagarza, Research Specialist, Getty Research Institute
Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Senior Project Manager, Getty Research Institute
Joshua Fitzgerald, Graduate Intern, Getty Research Institute
Alanna Radlo-Dzur, Research Specialist, Getty Research Institute
Sandra Xochipiltecatl, Independent Contractor
Elijah Zavala, Year Up Intern, Getty Research Institute

Collaborating Scholars:
Berenice Alcántara Rojas, Professor, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City
Baltazar Brito Guadarrama, Director, Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City
Federico Navarrete, Professor, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City
Lisa Sousa, Professor, Occidental College, Los Angeles
Stephanie Wood, Professor, University of Oregon, Eugene

Getty Team:
Greg Albers, Digital Publications Manager, Getty Publications
Michele Ciaccio, Managing Editor, GRI Publications
Patricia Harpring, Managing Editor, Getty Vocabularies
Anne Helmreich, Associate Director, Digital Initiatives, Getty Research Institute
David Newbury, Enterprise Software Architect, Getty Digital
Lily Pregill, Systems Architect, Getty Digital
Lela Urquhart, Senior Communications and Development Specialist, Getty Research Institute
Robert Sanderson, Semantic Architect, Getty Digital
Jonathan Ward, Data Standards Editor, Getty Vocabularies

User Experience Research:
Ahree Lee, User Experience Researcher and Strategist
Catherine Bell, User Experience Designer

Former GRI Team Members:
Michelle Aranda Cos, former Getty Marrow Undergraduate Intern, Director’s Office
Allison Caplan, former Graduate Intern, Director’s Office
Hande Lara Sever, former Graduate Intern, Web and New Media Department
Francisco Lopez-Huerta, former Multicultural Undergraduate Intern, Director’s Office
Emma Turner-Trujillo, former Research Assistant, Director’s Office
Abigail Robertson, former Graduate Intern, Web and New Media Department

Institutional Collaborators and Partners:
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana 
The Seaver Institute
University of Utah Press

In recent studies, particular heed has been paid to the links between the painting in America and the European artworks present there, as well as the channels through which they reached there. Scholars have mainly focus on the connections with the artistic production of the ports of Seville and Antwerp, where some workshops and artists specialised on paintings destined to the Overseas trade. This lecture will deal with the still little-known production of painters based in Madrid for export to the global markets, and particularly with the side production of some mayor masters working at the Royal court. Some aspects of this production and trade have already been analysed by Statsny for the Viceroyalty of Peru. Through some known examples of works from Madrid in American territories, by courtier painters as Vicente Carducho (c. 1575-1638), Francisco Rizi (1614-1685) and Juan Carreño (1614-1685), we will discuss an eventual specialised production for export as well as propose different modalities and agents that could have participated on their diffusion and trade.

Empire Lines podcast episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4oU25hzWm2u7qr6QSq42xE

Juan Luis Burke reorders urban spaces in colonial Mexico, through Cristóbal de Villalpando's 1695 painting, View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City.

The Plaza Mayor sits at the historical heart of the sprawling megalopolis of Mexico City. Previously the ancient Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, it became the Mesoamerican capital of the Spanish Empire in the 16th century. With his expansive, bird’s eye view, Cristóbal de Villalpando depicts everyday encounters between classes and clashes against the colonial urban order for the viceroyalty's eye. Now housed in England, this colonial commission shows the Plaza as a marketplace of imperial ideas, revealing co-option and cooperation between indigenous Mexicans, Asian merchants, and European and Spanish colonisers. Five hundred years after the fall of the ancient Aztec imperial capital, Tenochtitlán, the Plaza Mayor in Mexico City remains a site of protest today.

PRESENTER: Dr. Juan Luis Burke, Assistant Professor of Architectural and Urban History at the University of Maryland.

ART: View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City, Cristóbal de Villalpando, (c.1695).

IMAGE: ‘View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City'.

SOUNDS: Victrola.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.

Sic errat in votis. Studia i szkice ofiarowane Profesorowi Zbigniewowi Anusikowi w sześćdziesiątą rocznicę urodzin. Europa i świat w czasach nowożytnych, red. Małgorzata Karkocha, Piotr Robak, Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego 2017, s. 99–119.