Art Of Colonial Latin America

A lively survey of a critical period of Latin American art.

By the end of the 16th century, Europe, Africa, and Asia were connected to North and South America via a vast network of complex trade routes. This led, in turn, to dynamic cultural exchanges between these continents and a proliferation of diverse art forms in Latin America. This monumental book transcends geographic boundaries and explores the history of the confluence of styles, materials, and techniques among Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas through the end of the colonial era--a period marked by the independence movements, the formation of national states, and the rise of academic art. Written by distinguished international scholars, essays cover a full range of topics, including city planning, iconography in painting and sculpture, East-West connections, the power of images, and the role of the artist. Beautifully illustrated with some three hundred works--many published for the first time--this book presents a spectacular selection of decorative arts, textiles, silver, sculpture, painting, and furniture. Scholarly entries on each of the works highlight the various cultural influences and differences throughout this vast region. This groundbreaking book also includes an illustrated chronology, informative maps, and an exhaustive bibliography and is sure to set a new standard in the field of Latin American studies. --Publisher description.

Explores the formation of public and private collections of Spanish Colonial and modern Latin American art throughout the United States, and the impact of the ever-changing political landscape of Latin American countries.

"This book excavates the unequaled reception of Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens in Latin America in the form of prints made after his works, arguing that colonial artists in the New World forged new frameworks for artistic creativity by conforming to European printed designs"--

Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History is a sourcebook of primary texts and images intended for students and teachers as well as for scholars and general readers. The book centers upon people-people from different parts of the world who came together to form societies by chance and by design in the years after 1492. This text is designed to encourage a detailed exploration of the cultural development of colonial Latin America through a wide variety of documents and visual materials, most of which have been translated and presented originally for this collection. Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History is a revision of SR Books' popular Colonial Spanish America. The new edition welcomes a third co-editor and, most significantly, embraces Portuguese and Brazilian materials. Other fundamental changes include new documents from Spanish South America, the addition of some key color images, plus six reference maps, and a decision to concentrate entirely upon primary sources. The book is meant to enrich, not repeat, the work of existing texts on this period, and its use of primary sources to focus upon people makes it stand out from other books that have concentrated on the political and economic aspects. The book's illustrations and documents are accompanied by introductions which provide context and invite discussion. These sources feature social changes, puzzling developments, and the experience of living in Spanish and Portuguese American colonial societies. Religion and society are the integral themes of Colonial Latin America. Religion becomes the nexus for much of what has been treated as political, social, economic, and cultural history during this period. Society is just as inclusive, allowing students to meet a variety of individuals-not faceless social groups. While some familiar names and voices are included-conquerors, chroniclers, sculptors, and preachers-other, far less familiar points of view complement and complicate the better-known narratives of this history. In treating Iberia and America, before as well as after their meeting, apparent contradictions emerge as opportunities for understanding; different perspectives become prompts for wider discussion. Other themes include exploration and contact; religious and cultural change; slavery and society, miscegenation, and the formation, consolidation, reform, and collapse of colonial institutions of government and the Church, as well as accompanying changes in economies and labor. This sourcebook allows students and teachers to consider the thoughts and actions of a wide range of people who were making choices and decisions, pursuing ideals, misperceiving each other, experiencing disenchantment, absorbing new pressures, breaking rules as well as following them, and employing strategies of survival which might involve both reconciliation and opposition. Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History has been assembled with teaching and class discussion in mind. The book will be an excellent tool for Latin American history survey courses and for seminars on the colonial period.

Rethinking the role of the artist and recovering the work of unacknowledged creators in colonial society This volume addresses and expands the role of the artist in colonial Latin American society, featuring essays by specialists in the field that consider the ways society conceived of artists and the ways artists defined themselves. Broadening the range of ways that creativity can be understood, contributors show that artists functioned as political figures, activists, agents in commerce, definers of a canon, and revolutionaries. Chapters provide studies of artists in Peru, Mexico, and Cuba between the sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Instead of adopting the paradigm of individuals working alone to chart new artistic paths, contributors focus on human relationships, collaborations, and exchanges. The volume offers new perspectives on colonial artworks, some well known and others previously overlooked, including discussions of manuscript painting, featherwork, oil painting, sculpture, and mural painting. Most notably, the volume examines attitudes and policies related to race and ethnicity, exploring various ethnoracial dynamics of artists within their social contexts. Through a decolonial lens not often used in the art history of the era and region, Collective Creativity and Artistic Agency in Colonial Latin America examines artists’ engagement in society and their impact within it. Contributors: Derek S. Burdette | Ananda Cohen-Aponte | Emily C. Floyd | Aaron M. Hyman | Barbara E. Mundy | Linda Marie Rodriguez | Jennifer R. Saracino | Maya Stanfield-Mazzi | Margarita Vargas-Betancourt Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

2017 marked the 250-year anniversary of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish territories. The Jesuits made major contributions to the cultural and intellectual life of Latin America. When they were expelled in 1767 the Jesuits were administering over 250,000 Indians in over 200 missions. The Jesuits pioneered interest in indigenous languages and cultures, compiling dictionaries and writing some of the earliest ethnographies of the region. They also explored the region's natural history and made significant contributions to the development of science and medicine. On their estates and in the missions they introduced new plants, livestock, and agricultural techniques, such as irrigation. In addition, they left a lasting legacy on the region's architecture, art, and music. The volume demonstrates the diversity of Jesuit contributions to Latin American culture. Published works often focus on one theme or region that is approached from a particular disciplinary perspective. This volume is therefore unusual in considering not only the range of Jesuit activities but also the diversity of perspectives from which they may be approached. It includes papers from scholars of history, linguistics, religion, art, architecture, cartography, music, medicine and science.

Traces the development of Latin American art from 20,000 BCE to modern times, from the southern tip of Argentina to the Rio Grande.

Imagining Histories of Colonial Latin America teaches imaginative and distinctive approaches to the practice of history through a series of essays on colonial Latin America. It demonstrates ways of making sense of the past through approaches that aggregate more than they dissect and suggest more than they conclude. Sidestepping more conventional approaches that divide content by subject, source, or historiographical “turn,” the editors seek to take readers beyond these divisions and deep into the process of historical interpretation. The essays in this volume focus on what questions to ask, what sources can reveal, what stories historians can tell, and how a single source can be interpreted in many ways.