Page 315 - Perú indígena y virreinal

In many of the images of Christ and Mary we can see syncretic elements. Images of the infant Jesus from Cusco, for example, were adorned with Inca symbols, in images of the Virgin Mary as a child, she was represented as an Imperial Inca princess, whilst the Virgin of Pomata was Candlemas wearing an indigenous feather headdress.
In Peru, as in Mexico, legends abounded pertaining to a much earlier, pre-1492 evangelisation. In 1613, Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala claimed that Saint Bartholomew had visited Peru during the second Inca Cinchi Roca in order to baptize some of the local population. Supposed celestial apparitions were not long in coming either. In 1535–6, during a siege in Cusco by Inca rebels on the Spanish population, there were manifestations of both the Virgin Mary, and later, the Apostle James—Santiago in Spanish—thus securing victory for the Spaniards. This was undoubtedly a case of the Spanish authorities attempting to establish a cult to the Virgin and Santiago in order to quash both the uprisings and the outbreaks of idol worship that were frequent in the ancient Inca capital.
Peruvian religious images were not therefore merely an imitation of European models. Some of them were adapted to better address problems specific to the Americas. Such is the case of the statue of the Crucified Christ in wood and maquey, venerated in the cathedral of Cusco from the end of the 16th Century and known from 1650 onwards as “The Lord of the Tremors” due to the claim that a violent earthquake ceased when the image was paraded through the streets in a religious procession. Paintings and other images promoted Christianity and its iconography throughout the Viceroyalty. Whilst there was some variation, these depictions tended to be of Christ on a black background, surrounded by candles and bunches of local flowers as in the original statue on the cathedral altar.
Another idiosyncrasy of the Viceroy era is the continued presence of images that had been prohibited in Europe since the Council of Trent, a decree signed on the 4th of December, 1563 concerning religious practice and the veneration of holy images, such as three-faced or isomorphic representations of the holy trinity. In the first, the Christian god was shown as having three identical heads whilst in the second, the three elements of the trinity were depicted as three similar human figures. Each had a profoundly significant didactic aim: to highlight the equivalence of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Their survival in the Americas in spite of the Catholic churches prohibition might be explained as a pedagogical strategy to explain one of the most complex elements of Christian faith to the native Indian population as well as avoiding a falling back to pre- Columbine polytheistic practices. Another curious example of Andean heterodoxy is that of the blunderbuss-toting angels. The devotion to these seven archangels, banned in Europe, appeared in Peru thanks to the presence of the armed celestial militias, or mosquetes. They saw themselves as a representation of Spanish military power, although they were also an example of cultural syncretism as promoted by missionaries who were keen to replace Andean spiritual cosmology with Christian archangels.
Logically enough, it was also deemed important to establish a following of indigenous and naturalised New World saints. Once beatified or canonised in Rome, these figures became especially popular among the Creole population. The names that stand out are Toribio de Mogrovejo, Luis Beltrán and Francisco Solano, but, above all, two Dominican saints from Lima: Rosa de Lima and Martín de Porres. Saint Rose of Lima—the first person from the Americas to be canonised—was portrayed after her death by Angelino Medoro, a painting that became the iconographic model. Clemente X canonised her in 1671, naming her as the patron saint of the Spanish Americas, and therefore a role model for the Christian faith in the New World. Her depiction, along with that of Carlos II, became the symbols that defended the dogma of the Eucharist. Saint Martín de Porres was not canonised until the 20th Century, and perhaps for that reason was not portrayed as frequently as Saint Rosa.
The synthesis of Christianity and local beliefs did not mean however that the Peru of the Viceroys was in any way removed from the semiotic language that was so popular in Europe at that time, such as the use of emblems and allegory. Its lofty intellectual content led it to the art genre typical of religious festivals as well as to the decoration of the great monasteries. This was the case, for example, of the emblematic paintings that adorn the Claustro de los Naranjos or “Cloister of the Orange Trees”—a spectacular convent for Dominican nuns in Arequipa. These pieces were based on the Pia Desideria prints by the Belgian Jesuit, Hermann
Hugo (1624), one of the most important books of the counter-reformation, centred on the path to mystic perfection. Also worthy of mention are murals in Father Francisco de Salamanca’s cell in the Convento de la Merced in Cusco, inspired by the Christian emblems of Diego Suárez de Figueroa in his Camino del Cielo, or Path to Heaven, from 1738.
the silverware splendour
Cristina Esteras Martín
The abundance of mines rich in silver and gold in America meant that, in both the pre- Hispanic period and during the Viceroyalty, both precious metals were in common use, either as coins or transformed into objects to satisfy the many needs of a diverse and complex society, in both its civil and religious aspects.
The very nature of these two precious metals is defined in the old phrase “lustre, shine, nobility and resplendence”, aspects they clearly excel in. These four qualities are often summed up in one word, “splendid”, so much so that any exemplary piece, be it religious or secular, is given that classification. However, in the case of the Hispanic Americas, any reference to “the splendour of silverware” is to immediately identify it with the Baroque period as there was a generalised belief that only in this period did the silversmiths art reach such lofty heights. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, as it is tangibly plain to see that silverware across the Americas in general, and specifically in Peru, had their moments of real splendour from the mid-17th Century until the end of 18th, whilst it should not be forgotten that the craft had had an extraordinary trajectory during the first hundred years of the colonial period that had begun in 1535, when Spanish silversmiths that had arrived from the Old World were charged with allying Hispanic and European aesthetic taste to the considerable experience of the indigenous population in order to make possible, both at that time and in subsequent centuries, the overwhelming triumph of this glorious art form. Pieces such as the renaissance platter in the church of San Juan Bautista in Malaga, or the chalice made from gold mines in Carabaya in the Peruvian Colca Valley and later presented to the parish church of Santa Maria in Merida, in the Southern Spanish province of Badajoz—both of which are exhibited here—are, alongside countless other examples both famous and unknown, evidence of the vast artistic importance of this period.
From the mid-17th Century onwards, people started to become aware of work from the Americas, and the aesthetics governing the silver and goldsmiths’ production took a new direction, without losing sight of the vision and tastes of the dominant Spanish culture. From then onwards, “native” became a desirable attribute with the appearance of a new concept of decoration that had not only a distinct vocabulary, one that incorporated flora, fauna and the facial features of indigenous people, but also one whose interpretation would be transformed by the implementation of a new syntaxes, in which the novelty of a “native” subject matter became replaced by an original “re-interpretation” of European mannerist motifs, as well as a new approach to composition, characterised by an aesthetic denseness (the so-called “fear of the empty space”) and the very size of pieces. Such characteristics can be fully appreciated in notable baroque works such as the templete or small shrine, for the Corpus Christi, commissioned in 1731 by Bishop Serrada for Cusco Cathedral, the imposing monstrances in the convents of Saint Catherine and Saint Claire in Cusco or the splendid chalice with is gold and enamel encrusted pall in the church of Tarifa in Cadiz, Spain. The prestige of these silversmiths was shared by others working in the Andean cities of Trujillo, Huaráz, Ayacucho and Arequipa, and in Puno, in the High Plateaux. Neither should Lima, capital of the Viceroyalty, be overlooked, where production was of such a high artistic standard that it established the fashions to be followed in the whole colonial region.
Some of the pieces produced by these workshops, when the baroque period was in full swing, are present in this exhibition, from the original Depósito Eucarístico or “Communion Receptacle” in the form of a pelican, belonging to Arequipa Cathedral, the arqueta or chest from the parish church of Peralta in Navarra, Northern Spain, the sacras and the lectern from
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