Paintings, sculptures, and retablos for ecclesiastic institutions count among the favorite religious objects of art historians working on colonial Spanish America. Ananda Cohen Suarez, Associate Professor of Art History at Cornell University, chose for her book a particular artistic genre from rural areas: mural paintings in colonial Andean churches and chapels. Based on a Ph.D. thesis, the study aims to show “the cultural and political relevance of church murals as visual documents that articulated local histories and social memory through the strategic use of religious iconography” (4). The focus is not on the analysis of this kind of imagery as catechetical media for indigenous parishioners but rather on revealing its “embeddedness” in Andean culture and society.
Cohen Suarez's book tries to overcome Eurocentric approaches, and she is skeptical of recent labels such as “mestizo Baroque.” Instead, she wants to better understand the process of cultural creation in local contexts that draws on European and indigenous patterns alike. Even if European prints often served as blueprints for the design of colonial Andean images, the resulting works were by no means simple replications. Drawing on various literary religious genres, textiles as well as archival sources, the author tackles the hybridity of Andean murals as “social documents.” In contrast to the murals of Mexico, where Mesoamerican iconographic traditions were blended with Spanish ones, murals in early modern Peru rarely took up pre-Hispanic motifs. However, they conserved certain artistic practices and materials. Further illuminative passages in the introduction deal with the specificity of pinturas en la pared compared to the mobility of canvas paintings, and the methodological consequences associated with it.
The first chapter provides information on the technical and stylistic aspects of painted walls in the Andes from pre-Hispanic to late colonial times. Very few early modern muralists are known by name. Much more evident are the iconographic models adapted by local artists stemming from Flemish and South European prints. The transatlantic and local circulation of artistic items and ideas influenced the creation of colonial visual culture.
For the four central chapters of her book, Cohen Suarez prudently chose a sample of case studies located in the provinces south of Cuzco, dating from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. The second chapter deals with wall murals in the church of Andahuaylillas that depict the different paths to the afterlife. The author compares that painting with its major source, a Flemish engraving by Wierix. Of great value is the examination of the life and works of Juan Pérez Bocanegra, priest of that parish and author of an important ecclesiastical manual (1631).
In chapter 3, the author compares “textile murals” in chapels and churches, for example, in Checacupe, Oropesa, and Chinchero. This mural technique is treated in the historical context of its colonial creation: Cuzco's Bishop Manuel de Mollinedo (1673–99) had promoted the rebuilding of ecclesiastic buildings after the earthquake of 1650, and the traffic of precious textiles from Europe influenced their design. The motif of Christ's baptism is the focus of the fourth chapter, which illustrates how “muralists grounded these compositions within local geographies through the conflation of the Jordan River with local lakes of origin (pacarinas).” While European prints influenced the composition of Cusi Guaman's work in the church of Urcos, the choice of materials and colors reflected the Andean landscape. Murals of that kind in other churches present similar reorganizations of European images, depending on the local conditions, sources, and symbols.
The last chapter analyzes four murals at the church of Huaro in the political context of late colonial Peru. They were created by maestro pintor Tadeo Escalente in 1802, about 20 years after the Tupac Amaru Rebellion. Indeed, during that rebellion some churches became sites of violence, and, after its repression, visual representations related to the Inca past were forbidden. Cohen Suarez contends that the eschatological imaginary in the depictions of the Last Judgment and of Hell “were strategically deployed to narrate histories of social upheaval” (146) in order to deter future subversions. However, such a supposed hidden message of social critique cannot be substantiated for the period around 1800; it is more probably an ‘invented tradition’ from the twentieth century.
Despite such discrepancies, the critic has enjoyed this well-written and amply illustrated contribution to Andean colonial history. The book focuses on murals in rural parishes of the Cuzco region and, by considering the social, commercial, cultural, and historical contexts, uncovers a variety of meanings connected to these religious images that go beyond their function as visual ‘tools’ for evangelization. The author provides a sophisticated, balanced discussion of case studies, drawing on a wide range of sources and on the pertinent historiography from various disciplines, carefully woven into the art-historical narrative. Her innovative interpretations foster reflections on “local modes of visual consumptions” in colonial contexts (184).
Hopefully the book will stimulate further research in other Andean regions, such as Charcas and Chile. Its insights might be fruitfully extended to other media and types of knowledge when researching processes of “cultural translation” (Peter Burke) in early modern Spanish America.
