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Art of the Americas to World War I
Course: Art of the Americas to World War I > Unit 4
Lesson 2: Viceroyalty of New Spain- An introduction to New Spain
- Hispaniola’s early colonial art, an introduction
- Prints and Printmakers in Colonial New Spain
- The Bug That Had the World Seeing Red
- The Medici collect the Americas
- Virgin of Guadalupe
- Virgin of Guadalupe
- Defensive saints and angels in the Spanish Americas
- Elite secular art in New Spain
- Classical Architecture in Viceregal Mexico
- Hearst Chalice
- Puebla de los Ángeles and the classical architectural tradition
- La Casa del Deán in Puebla
- Mission churches as theaters of conversion in New Spain
- St. Michael the Archangel in Huejotzingo
- The convento of Acolman
- Murals from New Spain, San Agustín de Acolman
- Atrial Cross, convento San Agustín de Acolman, mid-16th century
- Atrial Cross at Acolman
- The Codex Huexotzinco
- Miguel González, The Virgin of Guadalupe
- Frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza
- Images of Africans in the Codex Telleriano Remensis and Codex Azcatitlan
- The Convento of San Nicolás de Tolentino, Actopan, Hidalgo
- Bernardino de Sahagún and collaborators, Florentine Codex
- Remembering the Toxcatl Massacre: The Beginning of the End of Aztec Supremacy
- Featherworks: The Mass of St. Gregory
- A Renaissance miniature in wood and feathers
- A shimmering saint, St. John in featherwork
- “Burning of the Idols,” in Diego Muñoz Camargo’s Description of the City and Province of Tlaxcala
- Map of Cholula, from the relaciones geográficas
- Engravings in Diego de Valadés’s Rhetorica Christiana
- The manuscripts of Luis de Carvajal
- Baltasar de Echave Ibía, The Hermits
- Mission Church, San Esteban del Rey, Acoma Pueblo
- Sebastián López de Arteaga, Marriage of the Virgin
- Cristóbal de Villalpando, View of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City
- Talavera poblana
- Biombo with the Conquest of Mexico and View of Mexico City
- Screen with the Siege of Belgrade and Hunting Scene (Brooklyn Biombo)
- Screen with the Siege of Belgrade and Hunting Scene (or Brooklyn Biombo)
- The Virgin of the Macana and the Pueblo Revolution of 1680
- Miguel de Herrera, Portrait of a Lady
- José Campeche, the portraitist of 18th-century Puerto Rico
- José Campeche y Jordán, Portrait of Governor Ramón de Castro
- José Campeche, Exvoto de la Sagrada Familia
- Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz, Christ Consoled by Angels
- Mission San Antonio de Valero & the Alamo
- Nativity group, from Guatemala
- Jerónimo de Balbás, Altar of the Kings (Altar de los Reyes)
- Miguel Cabrera, Virgin of the Apocalypse
- Cabrera, Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
- Casta paintings: constructing identity in Spanish colonial America
- Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo, attributed to Juan Rodriguez
- Church of Santa Prisca and San Sebastian, Taxco, Mexico
- Crowned nun portraits, an introduction
- Crowned Nun Portrait of Sor María de Guadalupe
- Escudos de monjas, or nuns’ badges, in New Spain
- Christ Crucified, a Hispano-Philippine ivory
- Saintly violence? Santiago in the Americas
- What does the music of heaven sound like?— St Cecilia in New Spain
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Saintly violence? Santiago in the Americas
Santiago on Horseback, 16th century, polychromed and gilded wood (Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City, Mexico)
A conversation between Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris, Steven Zucker, and Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(jazzy music) - [Beth] We're here in
the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City looking at a
large polychrome wood sculpture of Saint James on a horse. - [Lauren] Saint James
or Santiago in Spanish is a really important saint
on the Iberian Peninsula and then brought here
to the Americas early on after the Spanish Conquest in 1521. - [Beth] He's associated with
helping the Spanish conquer, whether they were conquering the Muslims, who were living on the Iberian Peninsula, who were living in what is today Spain, or whether they were conquering
the indigenous populations in what is today Mexico. - [Lauren] What we're
seeing here in the sculpture is Saint James on his
steed, who's rearing upward and he's got his right
arm raised with a sword as if he's about to attack. The horse's hooves are actually on top of what is today a wooden box
that would have been decorated with either Muslims or
Amerindian population. - [Beth] He's wearing a gold uniform created in a technique called estofado. - [Lauren] You'd have one
artist who would carve the wood, another who would paint
him to enliven him, and then you'd have another artist who would apply gold
leaf to the sculpture, then paint over it, usually
with some type of tempera or egg yolk-based paint
and then would use a stylus to peel off that paint
and reveal the gold. - [Beth] He is so real, in
part because he's painted, polychromed, he's got many
colors, but also he's multimedia. He's got the leather of the reins, he's got horse's hair for his mane, he's got the metal from his sword, and so he's incredibly
realistic and dramatic. - [Lauren] This would have
been even more dramatic when you had the figures
that the horse was trampling, because Saint James was
known as Santiago Matamoros, Saint James the Moor Slayer,
meaning he was killing Muslims. In the Americas, he becomes
Santiago Mataindios, Saint James the Indian Slayer. - [Beth] So this is not to say that Saint James himself
was there slaying Moors or slaying indigenous
populations here in Mexico, it's to say that he was, in
a way, their patron saint. He helped them carry out their mission. - [Lauren] This is one reason
why we see him in a lot of different media, not only
polychromed wooden sculpture but also stone reliefs on church facades, in paintings, or wooden
reliefs on church altarpieces. He's an incredibly popular saint beginning in the 16th
century and that endures throughout the duration
of the viceroyalties. - [Beth] And polychrome
sculpture was incredibly popular both in New Spain and
the Iberian Peninsula. Sometimes we think about
sculpture as pure white marble, and it can be disconcerting to come across these incredibly
realistic polychrome sculpture. - [Lauren] And many of these objects would have also been
used during processions because wood is much lighter
than, say, marble or bronze, it was a natural material to
use for processional sculpture. Objects like this would have been used during, say, the saint's feast day or for other types of festivities. - [Beth] I wish I could have
seen him in one of those. (jazzy music)