Page 302 - Perú indígena y virreinal

port of Seville began to receive shipments with Peruvian precious metals in ingots, rings, paste and coins, like the one sent by Diego Ordóñez from Jauja in 1534; half a ton of silver as donation to Seville’s Cartuja. Thanks to this, the Peruvian city soon became synonym of well-being, and the expression “¡Esto es Jauja!” (“This is the life!”) referring to a state of wealth and bonanza was born and is still used today. But the shipments of wrought silver continued to be sent by the Spaniards in America, who chose these manufactured precious metals as proof of their economical success and social triumph, as well as a means of establishing emotional links with their homeland (especially with the churches where they had been baptised) and as a way to practice their religious devotions. In this sense it is important to recall that the actual viceroy, don Francisco de Toledo, presented the Virgin of Guadalupe with three silver figures of the Wise Kings, which he probably brought back from Peru. The presents this image received not only from the Spaniards in Peru but from all of America where many, which confirms the need they had to be devout and emotional with what they considered to be the “best”, in other words, with silver and gold works of art.
And when silver is discovered in Potosí some time later (1545), not only was this mining area widely considered the most important one in Peru and even all of Latin America; soon it was spoken of for its enormous wealth, like Bartolomé de Arzáns, a chronicler native of Potosí who in his book entitled Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosí (1736), referred to the Cerro Rico as “body of soil and spirit of silver”, or “magnet of wills”, “monster of riches” and “coin with which you buy the sky”, and making it clear that “this unique work of God’s power, sole miracle of Nature” was “a bugle that sounds throughout the world.” In effect, Potosí and its Cerro became the world-wide symbol of wealth, and in extension so did Peru. Its lands also held many other mines full of precious metals and for all these reasons the expression “¡Vale un Perú!” (“It is worth a Peru!”) was used as a synonym of the best because silver and gold were associated with money and opulence and it was thought that through them, the best was achieved. A few years later (around 1566) the discovery of mercury mines in the Andean City of Huancavelica helped to obtain and refine the silver once the amalgamation method was imposed in 1580. This is how Huancavelica and Potosí became the “two axis where the wheels of your majesty’s kingdom and treasury turn” (Viceroy Mancera, 1648).
Soon Peru’s viceroyal society became conscious of what its lands provided and made use of the silver and the gold to answer its civil and religious needs. This is why an important demand of objects began in the middle of the 16th Century, giving rise to the beginning of the colonial silversmith’s craft, an art that lived on until the 19th Century and saw its declivity with independence.
There are many testimonies of silversmith’s crafts made in Peru during the three centuries of Spanish presence. Some of them are located within its actual geopolitical demarcation, but many others are outside its present boundaries due to the easiness with which any object—even more so if it is wrought in precious metal—can be carried around for many reasons: historical, commercial, collecting, etc. But all the examples known to us are enough to assert without any room for doubt that Peruvian silversmith’s crafts—although not sufficiently valued—are splendid for their artistic quality, quantitative abundance and originality. This last trait is what makes it truly genuine because it is the result of a transcultural experience of Spaniards and natives, an experience of great value both in the technique and in the creativity. The only thing that varied was the aesthetics, influenced by the leading culture’s tastes and concepts—the Spanish one. Only in those areas where native traditions were more firmly rooted—like the south of the Andes and the High Plateau—did their own ways and customs survive during viceroyal times and until our days, allowing the most significant aspects of their cultures to be visible through decorative objects pending from their costumes, like the brooches (tupus y ttipquis), that hold their skirt (accsu) at shoulder length or their shawls (lliclla), or the objects used in festive celebrations (dancing sticks), ritual ceremonies— like glasses to drink chicha (fermented corn) wrought in silver (akillas), carved in wood and ceramic (keros) and whose symbolic value turned them into very valued elements— or the objects used to represent power, like mayors and Indian native authorities’ batons of authority (varayoc). The language codes with which they communicated through signs and symbols also survived through time (especially in silversmith’s crafts and textiles) thanks to the use of the tocapus, “graphemes of Inca writing” in the shape of geometrical
abstract designs with a mnemonic function; to help increase and keep the memory alive through these designs.
Peruvian silver colonial artworks also stand out for the generosity of the metal used, for the pieces wrought here in Peru are, as Fray Juan Meléndez said, “so solidly made that any of them weighs more than six of their equivalent ones wrought with the same size in Europe, where appearance is more important than value” (Tesoros verdaderos de las Indias, 1681–1682). This same author speaks of the rich silversmith’s crafts that decorated Lima’s cathedral in those days, explaining it was adorned “with very rich fronts (...), crosses, oil lamps, processional candlesticks and silver wax tapers”, a sumptuousness that entered both temples and houses. This is not odd considering Lima was the seat of the vice-royal Court, a perfect place to show ostentation. Already in 1595, a traveller by the name of Carletti wrote in his work entitled Razonamientos de mi viaje alrededor del mundo about something that seemed common among Lima’s population: the overabundance of silver, so much so that, for example, merchants accumulated it and jealously kept it and once they had managed to “store up 300 or 400 ingots of silver, they would stack them up and cover them with a mattress that they would use as a bed”. The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega himself, a privileged witness, wrote in overwhelmed tones: “The mines promise so many riches that, in a few years, iron will be worth more than silver. This prediction I make in the year a thousand five hundred and fifty four and fifty five.” (First Part of los Comentarios Reales... de los Incas, 1609).
The art of the silversmith developed practically at the same time as the mining activity. Both the Spanish and the native populations started to demand silver objects once the more important cities, such as Cusco (1534) Lima (1535) Arequipa (1540) or Potosí (1561), were founded and consolidated, although this art did not attain its full strength until the difficult times of the civil war were over and peace came to the territory with the viceroy of Toledo’s government (1570). He managed to brilliantly maintain this strength and growth until the end of the 18th Century and in some places like Arequipa, until Peru’s independence. Other hand-wrought silver workshops began to slowly emerge all over viceroyal Peru, some standing out like the ones in Trujillo, Huánuco, Huamanga (Ayacucho) or Puno, or the ones in Alto Peru like La Paz, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Oruro o Chuiquisaca (Sucre) and the ones in the Jesuit missions of Moxos and Chiquitos.
They stood out among all the silver colonial art workshops for their singularity and for their role in spreading the aesthetics emerging from the new society in Lima. As capital and heart of the Viceroyalty, any novelty (often influenced by Spanish trends, although later on it would also borrow from Asia) would appear there before anywhere else, and the opulence of its Court determined not only the inhabitants in Lima, but all the Peruvian people who set their eyes on the events taking place in the capital.
Cusco combined the strong pre-Hispanic tradition of its Inca population with the new Spanish guidelines giving rise to a truly original silver artwork that not only attended the demands of the city and its valley but had a much larger significance; being a centrifugal source, its strength was felt all the way to Lake Titicaca. Arequipa also proved to have a strong personality and prestige; it was the most important and better studied south Andean silver craft workshops in Peru, its hand-wrought silver reached an extraordinary technical and artistic level and it was the “hinge” along with the workshops in Puno and La Paz.
It is a known fact that Peruvian society tried to imitate and recreate the events and lifestyle of the metropolis. It is also logical that the continuous emerging artistic experiences and aesthetic concepts were transferred from the main capital to the rest of Peru. That is why “our” stylistic tendencies were reflected in Peruvian works of art. But what must be very clear is that Peruvian silver colonial artworks do not necessarily have to be synchronous with our European times, so foreign to it, and therefore does not merit to be considered anachronistic for it is indeed timeless. The world of the religious and the profane began to adapt and create the formal structures of the Spanish heritage until they created peculiar and unique models belonging to the Peruvian world. And religious objects, due to their own function and nature, had to respond to pre- established models in the essential and therefore be far more conservative than the ones belonging to civilian hand-wrought silver, where it was easier to innovate in both structural and decorative aspects, especially since the Bourbon dynasty began to govern, true importers of the French tastes.
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