In this illuminating study, the knowledgeable, well-read Chilean scholar Isabel Cruz de Amenábar ranges widely to analyze the art, culture, and society of early viceregal Peru and Chile. (She prefers the term “viceregal” to the pejorative “colonial.”) Medieval elements and survivals were particularly significant in Chilean art: “One art by and for God” (p. 37) was the apt phrase. In immediate postconquest Chile, for example, this meant glorifying the miraculous virgins who made Spanish domination possible—the Virgen del Socorro, Virgen de la Merced, Virgen de las Nieves—and placing their images in the churches, convents, and monasteries established in the region. The influence of Spanish masters in sculpture and painting was also strong, particularly Juan Martínez Montañés, El Greco, Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, José de Ribera, Juan de Valdés Leal, and Francisco Pacheco, the latter the great proponent and protector of Tridentine preachments, mirrored in Peru by the painter Angelino Medero. French, Flemish, and Italian masters also made their mark on viceregal art, particularly the Italian mannerists, whose style replaced the more medieval emphasis on miraculous virgins and the cult of Santiago in the immediate postconquest epoch in Chile.
The author believes art was inextricably tied to the attributes of the society in which it developed—the natural and social environments, fashions, modes of dress, customs, formal religious and civil ceremonies, fiestas, literary and intellectual styles, and attitudes toward religion and morality, all described in rich detail. Moreover, the author argues for a cosmopolitan, viceregal artistic unity, linking major centers such as Lima, Quito, Chuquisaca, Potosí, Cuzco, and Santiago in the production and distribution of art works, at least until 1650, when various “local” art schools such as that in Cuzco began to develop, each with its own distinctive characteristics. Readers of this richly textured book will be greatly rewarded by both the depth and breadth of the author’s observations, not only on art but also on the vida cotidiana of the first two centuries of Hispanic Peru in general and Chile in particular. Twenty-four well-reproduced plates provide visual evidence for the author’s interpretations of developments in Chilean art.
