Mural painting and social change in the colonial Andes, 1626--1830
Item
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Title
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Mural painting and social change in the colonial Andes, 1626--1830
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:e7bfb38d405c:11298
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identifier
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11774
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Creator
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Cohen, Ananda,
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Contributor
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Eloise Quinones Keber
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Date
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2012
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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 | Andes | Colonial Art | Murals | Peru | Pre-Columbian Art | Visual Culture
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Abstract
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Mural painting in colonial Peru (1534-1824) grew out of both indigenous Andean and European pictorial traditions that coalesced into a hybrid art form deployed to serve a variety of functions. Unlike paintings on canvas and panel, for which there existed no precedent in the Pre-Columbian Andes, mural painting was practiced in South America for at least 2,000 years before the Spanish invasion in 1532. Murals produced in the post-conquest period retained continuity with pre-Columbian traditions in terms of their technical aspects, while their iconography and style shifted dramatically to suit the needs of the Spanish colonial enterprise. First and foremost, colonial Andean mural painting served as an important visual tool in the religious conversion of indigenous peoples by encasing the interiors of churches with didactic illustrations of Catholic doctrine. In addition to their religious aspect, however, murals also transmitted social and political values to their local communities.;This dissertation thus focuses on the intersections of mural painting and social transformation in the highland Cuzco region of Peru. It offers case studies of several Cuzco-area mural programs that span from the mid colonial period to the early years of independence: the churches of Andahuaylillas (ca. 1626), Urcos (mid-17th century), Pitumarca (18 th century), Huaro (1802), and the wheat mill murals of Acomayo (1830s). Despite their wide temporal distribution, the murals under discussion are united in their intimate engagement with their local contexts. The present study examines subtle shifts in iconography, style, and the creation of multivalent religious imagery as important strategies undertaken by muralists to obliquely reference the sociopolitical issues with which indigenous communities were engaged. It draws on field research, archival documents, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century religious texts, and secondary source materials from art history, anthropology, and ethnohistory in order to offer new interdisciplinary perspectives for the study of colonial Andean mural painting.
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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
