🎨Indigenous Americas Art | Colonial Art Explained | Art History Lecture 2 (Unit 5, Lecture 3)🎨

0:02 and Welcome to our lecture over Colonial art in Mexico and Peru so we've already looked at this artwork to help set up Tiner ston and the Aztec empire however now let's look at it for under Colonial Mexico and how Remember by 1521 the Spaniards had essentially taken over this Empire um unfortunately most most or many indigenous Americas Americans North Central and South America had died um from disease yes by guns and by Warfare but like we talked about with the Aztec lecture is they just didn't have any of the immune immunity against

0:47 small pox Etc which really wiped through the population and so by 1521 where essentially the Spanish of conqu it's the Spanish conquest of 1521 um they've established their their Rule and so we have this concept of the Viceroy and so this is a person who's appointed to rule a country is the Deputy of The Sovereign in this case in modern day Mexico we're looking at Antonio Mendoza and he was established as the vice Roy of this region under Emperor Charles I of of Spain and he commissions this artwork the frenti piece of the Codex Mendoza so technically it's a colonial Mexico piece but it was made by Aztec artists they

1:33 realized after burning every single record that existed that the azex had created that then suddenly they wanted to retain or at least create a textbook of some of their history now it never made it to Spain it was actually seized by Pirates and it was brought to France where it was later sold but this was about 20 years after the conquest of the new world and it was actually done like I said by by these native scribes but under the supervision of missionary priests and they added in these Spanish annotations that we see and we have the Aztec glyphs versus the Spanish annotations um the first section of notes copied several works that were created before the Spanish conquest and then they were destroyed it really

2:19 describes this detailed history of of choon and the history of present day Mexico City it includes information about its founding rulers including the last ruler montazuma and the second section has a summary of tributes given by these 33 provinces that sent their tributes to the capital of the Aztec Empire and then the last section details the everyday life of these native Aztecs basically from birth until death and so it's almost like a textbook of the Aztec in which the the Spanish had unfortunately conquered and decimated by disease um there's other there's there

3:04 many codecs that were created during this time period here are some other ones some focus on the destruction of the native population others try to have tried to copy much of the the native artworks the indigenous artworks um okay so let's talk about Miguel Gonzalez the virgin of guad loop so we are pretty familiar with this imagery being from Texas luckily I'm sure you've seen this imagery and so we we are more familiar with it you also have that assigned video over it but let's let's talk about what the history of it so this work was

3:50 made by one of the best known painters of of these shell inlay paintings these encontrados now here's where we get into the colonial era being this mix of essentially different different cultures across the globe so we have these major Powers we have Spain we have Britain we have um the Portuguese who have traveled across the globe and so these ideas as well as these artworks and these goods are making their way into other parts of the globe so what do I mean by that so this shell inlay creates this luminescent work Lumin incent work here excuse me light all these little

4:36 shells and those actually come over from more of our southeast Asia influence so these had been this idea of incorporating this shell work into art had been used within southeast Asia and so now and as well as East Asia but especially Southeast and so the shell inlay was already popular and these ideas are taken over into Mexico where then they start to create these shell inlay artworks so here's our example of this globalism we think that globalism is is relatively new but really I mean we're looking at an artwork from 1698 CE where we're already seeing indications of this and so yeah here's our our shell inlay it creates this luminescent quality you can imagine how it shifts

5:22 and changes in the light Etc okay all right so let's talk about this story so this is the legend of Juan Diego and in 1531 he was on this on this hill where this hill called tip came he was a indigenous American and he was near this Shrine to this pre premodern or pre colonialism um pre-colombian goddess and in 1531 he was he was up on top this hill whenever the legend is that the Virgin Mary Jesus's son revealed herself to him at top of this hill and she spoke to him in

6:08 his native tongue and she made the hilltop flowers bloom and Juan Diego gathered up these bloomed flowers and put them in like he takes his the the cloth that he's wearing this like shawl and he Scoops up these flowers as proof that he saw the Virgin Mary and he brings them down and shows them to like the the Bishop here the Archbishop he held this bundle of flowers in his cloak and when he dropped these flower he opened up his cloak and the flowers dropped on the ground in front of the Archbishop and there on his cloak was the image of the Virgin Mary further proof of this miraculous event that occurred and so the virgin of the gual loop is showing this miraculous event so

6:54 we have these roundles that surround the Virgin Mary describing this story okay so this is the most one of the most revered symbols in Mexico she becomes the patroness of New Spain okay now she always is going to stand on this Crescent Moon let's go into some of the details so the with the sun rays behind her this Cloud the Moon is also under her or the Crescent Moon's always under her feet and that comes from Revelations 121 the last book in the Bible a great sign appeared in heaven a woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head sometimes we see those stars but just note that we're we're pulling from this

7:40 imagery in the tech in the Bible and so this image becomes extremely popular there's this miracle that occurred and so many made it for many many were made for exporting across the globe and so still today the Virgin aguad Loop is really popular so remember like I was talking about where I had this one of these foremost experts a professor during my undergrad and she explained how when we come back to our high our Aztec mythology that we discussed and we talked about coat lequ and how she's this mother goddess and she's ultimately the mo one of the most important goddesses it's from her that H po even came from so she's the most revered so consider how there's already

8:28 this importance on a mother goddess then we have this miraculous event of another mother essentially a mother of a god of of Jesus who has who is shown to an indigenous one Diego an indigenous individual and in his native tongue and so there's this connection this this transference of this idea of the importance of the mother goddess can now be done with the virgin of guadaloop where this makes words it's familiar where the the same ideas and Concepts and this um of this reverence for this mother goddess can be seen with the virgin of guadaloop so that's one of the main reasons of why this imagery became so

9:14 popular and was so embraced by the indigenous population because it was familiar it's like the goddess qu liqua of this mother goddess giving birth to the most important figure the patron deity the Aztec whereas here we have the Virgin Mary who's given birth to Jesus the most important figure and founder of Christianity so you can see where these stories the similarity would would help this idea to spread so much because it's familiar the surrounding frame here is original to this artwork and it is arguably more Baroque um so we have these elements coming through

10:03 I don't want I'm see now that I have a discrepancy with my date sorry 1698 I don't know where my my 16th century came from anyway and so there is our the virgin of guadaloop so now when you see that imagery if you weren't familiar with the store already now you are okay so let's talk about the Spaniard and Indian producer misito as part of our Costa paintings this is attributed to Juan Rodriguez hes we're if we're looking just from a formal analysis we're somewhat in this more Baroque style we're early 18th century so we're just coming out of the Baroque from the previous Century with our not quite tenebrism but

10:49 the lack of a background a little bit of our dramatic lighting um but these these Costa paintings here's a a different version these Costa paintings were made they were patronized by the by the Spaniards in in Mexico and so they typically compris of 16 scenes and these are representations of family groups and what it's seen as is this idea of a new cast system being developed so the idea of the cast system stems from India it's been around for about 3,000 years it was made illegal in the 1900s but in unfortunately in some areas it's still really practiced and it's the this idea of this social hierarchy we'll talk about this when we get to South

11:36 Asian but it's this hierarchy in which you're designated to your social class for life and all future lives that you're reborn into it unless you create you do what you're supposed to do in that life and you help to build up this Good Karma to move up into the so into new social classes in the next life I'm very much generalizing here we'll we'll go into this in another unit but it's is also primarily based on skin color and that the higher in the cast system um and these are from ancient text like I said at least 3,000 years where this was established in India where the lighter the skin color the higher up in the cast system and the darker the skin color the lower in the cast system you are and so we're pulling this idea of this

12:22 designated and I quotation marks social hierarchy is if you were doing a scientific study of a social hierarchy and so they're creating this cast system within Mexico these Costa paintings and so in this case the idea is the dilution of this pure Spanish blood with the lighter skinned Spaniards being at the top and then they've categorized the mixing of different Bloods between like the Spaniards and the um Natives and as well as there were about 200,000 West African slaves brought into Mexico too so if we're coming to our one of the evils of History the transatlantic slave trade we have

13:08 America about 3700 th000 Cuba you you may be familiar with Jamaica and then the Caribbean 2.7 million Brazil creates a similar cast system under the Portuguese with 3.1 um million um but we have about 200,000 West African slaves that are shipped to Mexico and so like other images like I didn't go into this with our portrayal of moaz Zuma but these were made as quotation marks of the scientific study of native populations and shipped out to Europe to show these these natives as well as this new cost system that's being

13:54 developed and so with these ones it's this let's talk about what this Spaniard and Indian produced a mystico in which the mystico is a the product of a gentleman marryed an indigenous woman and so they designate these different names to describe different cultural backgrounds mixing together and so it's this unfortunate designation of these social classes Spaniards and a mulata so in which the Spanish are trying to create this whole cast system in which they're sending out for this European interest of seeing these these new people this ethnic mixing

14:41 across across the globe um particularly back into into Europe and so you have these 16 different gradations on the social scale now they usually show these families as as these happy families arguably we could see where some some arguments are made that oh there's seen in this Christian family setting and then what they've also done is that they've put they've portrayed the indigenous with more European features where they're consider the nose Etc um and that was also that was intentional slim noses or these almond shaped eyes so they they're adding this European lens

15:30 okay so here's Master of the laaz school so we're heading into Peru and this artwork if we look at our we're in our 17th century and so we're actually more in the Baroque Period so this is a arguably Baroque it has Baroque elements consider our tenebrism our lack of a background um of course we're very geographically removed and so there's going to be some differences now I want you to think back to the Council of Trent okay the part of our Counter Reformation and where the Spanish make these decisions um changes to the church or they really designate specific Theology and rules Etc and so they also

16:17 discussing about about art now as part of the the Council of Trent they decided that any depictions of angels okay made are not to be done except unless you're trying to portray Michael Gabriel okay so these Arch angels that are that that are part of Christianity but otherwise you're not to depict any Angels this was a essentially a ban on the depiction of of any normal Angels so this painting is is in direct violation and the Spanish are Catholics is in a direct violation of this new Spanish Doctrine that's been produced but they're so GE

17:02 geographically far away from Spain that they're not going to feel the repercussions of this and so here we have this Angel and so the angel is um now that I'm looking at my notes uh this is the by the master of the laa school but the angel is supposed to be shown as like this he fears God toor means fears God and so what we see is this combination of celestial elements military elements and aristocratic symbols to show this being that represents the Triumph of Catholicism o over the native religions of the new world okay that this Angel has helped conquer the native population he's in his finest um clothing contemporary

17:50 dressed of this Spanish Aristocrats but he's an angel and we know that because of the Wings now look at the depictions of the Wings this isn't like other Angelic depictions of these fluffy wings um that once the Council of Trent came about um were outlawed we weren't allowed to depict these angels instead we have these more native looking Wings consider how we've discussed or you've seen how feathers are an important element within the indigenous culture here and so they're pulling these indigenous elements in this study of these feathers and portrayal of a gun of an angel holding a gun was also extremely would have been extremely

18:37 frowned upon by the Spanish in Spain um that's the arabes is the the type of gun here um to show an angel with this contemporary gun it was first created in the this gun was first created in the 15th century was able to be you push it into your shoulder is it was had accurate aim and so image of these Angels were definitely illegal but they're showing the Conquering of the indigenous by these Spanish within um Peru and so we have the development also of art schools here that are being created we have the laaz school um also note with the use of feathers how feathers were particularly

19:24 important for those higher up on the social hierarchy of the indigenous cultures and so we're showing these very meticulously drawn feathers on um an angel who's high up there Celestial being so high up on the hierarchy there's also the use of Gold Elements and this incredible fabric so we're seeing our elements of depicting different textures being instituted Within These schools in Central America the screen with the siege of Belgrade and hunting scene you'll watch that video over this artwork this one I've added to your

20:10 handout I don't know I I forgot to add it this year and here's our portrait of sorana in De Cruz by Miguel Cabrera so trying to end on a more positive note um so this is a depiction of s hanana inz sister hanana Agnes so we talked about how females during this time period essentially were married or the select few who didn't want to do that became nuns and so here we have sorana inz she becomes this literary figure she's depicted in her Library um she's a member of the Hermits of St Jerome nuns in Mexico City and what she has done and what she's known for is that she helps to institute

20:55 schools for all children and her passion is to make sure that they're they're they have access to an education and what's especially unique is she makes sure that girls equally have access to this education and so she's this heroic figure and so we have a depiction of her almost a hundred years later well sorry she became a none later on 1669 so not quite a 100 and celebrating her um mark on history of trying to help equal access for all to education and so we have our um established art schools here we have our depiction of different textures Etc one unique item that is particular to

21:42 Colonial Mexico is this escudo it's this framed painting born below the neck and it's really only seen in these Colonial Spanish paintings and we have this Christian imagery depicted here with the Virgin Mary before the angel likely the nunciation and yeah so here's one of our she's seen as this literary figure she wrote poetry but her Crusade for equal access to education for all children of different social classes and genders is um pretty remarkable for the time period she even opened up a school okay and there's the end of our lecture