Angels in the Americas: Paintings of apocryphal angels in Spain and its American viceroyalties
Item
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Title
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Angels in the Americas: Paintings of apocryphal angels in Spain and its American viceroyalties
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:d8e2472d436a:10276
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identifier
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10350
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Creator
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Hernandez Ying, Orlando Amado,
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Contributor
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Eloise Quinones-Keber | James Saslow
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art history | Latin American history | Religious history | angel | apocryphal | art | colonial | Latin America | Peru
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Abstract
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Around the mid seventeenth century paintings of individual angels became popular in the Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain (essentially present-day Mexico and Central America) and the viceroyalty of Peru (originally most of South America excluding Brazil). However, the names and representations of individual angels found across the Spanish Empire do not correspond to the few narratives that appear in the Bible, which only mentions the angels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael by name. Some of these series of paintings include angels labeled as Jehudiel, Barachiel, and Uriel, who are mentioned in Jewish texts such as the Talmud and the Cabala, as well as other texts written around the first century but considered apocryphal or non-canonical by the Catholic Church, such as the Book of Enoch. Although these images were relatively popular in Spain and Mexico, their representation was far more abundant in South America.;This project investigates the multiple theological sources of angel veneration in the early modern period in Italy and Spain. Tracing these literary sources illustrates how the Jesuits, supporters of the angelic cult, found inspiration in mystic Jewish tradition for their religious ideas, around the same time that Jews were being exiled or convicted across the Spanish Empire.;This investigation also documents and compares the variants of angelic representation in Spain and the Americas. Pointing out their commonalities and differences demonstrates the creativity of the artistic circles of each viceroyalty in developing particular styles and trends based on the exposure to similar European sources but adapting them to different local tastes and necessities.;As other scholars have suggested, the existence of many series of paintings of apocryphal angels in the Americas attests to Catholicism's use of these images as a cross-cultural tool to evangelize the Indians in the Spanish dominions by making connections between Christianity and indigenous religious belief. I suggest that these symbols, originally belonging to the conquerors, gradually became symbols of hispanicized American societies, and in Peru, of the hispanicized Indian nobility. The angels as protectors of territories also embodied an early form of local pride, which would later evolve into national pride and eventually lead to independence from Spain. Through this dissertation, I add a more complex reading of these paintings that goes beyond the scope of the arts of resistance and the amalgamation of Judaic, Christian, and indigenous religious elements. This study thus reveals a much more complex and layered syncretic product that reflects the adoption and re-adaptation of these symbols by Spanish-American colonial society.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Art History
