Visualizing Guadalupe: From Black Madonna to Queen of the Americas by Jeanette Favrot Peterson (review)

This handsome volume, beautifully illustrated by a pre-eminent art historian of Colonial Mexico, combines the appeal of a coffee-table book with scholarship. It covers a wide range of topics involving one of the foremost Marian devotions in the Catholic Church.

Jeanette Favrot Peterson’s purpose is stated in the introduction, “The Subjectivity of Seeing”: “I examine briefly the essential place of visual culture and the development of Christian images as a potent weapon of indoctrination in the evangelization and colonization of the Americas” (p. 9). She accepts the idea that Tepeyac was a preconquest religious site dedicated to the mother goddess Tonantzin. The evidence for this is scant and can be traced to the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún. Even copies of sacred images retained the power of the originals—hence the importance of touching or physical contact.

She deals with the vexed and challenging depictions of the Black Madonnas. One explanation is that the color was accidental, the result of fire or environmental conditions. Another explanation is that it derived from pre-Christian cults. This involved an inherent contradiction and gave rise to a multitude of rationalizations.

Chapter 2 deals with Diego de Ocaña and the efforts of the Jeronymite friars of the Extremaduran Guadalupe to control satellite shrines.

Chapter 3 begins with Sahagún’s famous condemnation of Guadalupe in the Florentine Codex. The decline of the missionary enterprise toward the end of sixteenth century brought with it a realization of the tenacity of the old religions. On page 76 she has a valuable summary of Aztec religious thought, especially the ixiptla, the representation/personification of the ancient deities. She also gives a detailed and lengthy description of the Aztec gods and their functions.

In chapter 4, she gives a careful analysis of the painting, one that is useful and enlightening. She describes the position of native artists in postconquest society. On page 113 she begins an account of the Bustamante-Montúfar controversy, involving a public condemnation of the devotion by the Franciscan provincial. Also, she gives an extensive treatment of Marcos, putative painter of the image, although there is only one source for a native painter as the artist of the tilma. There are many early depictions similar to Guadalupe, especially by Dürer.

Chapter 5 has a good treatment of Samuel Stradanus’s engraving (c. 1613–15). She also describes the marginalization of the native peoples: “Beneficiaries of its miracles are Spaniards or creoles” (p. 157). She speaks of Guadalupe’s “heavenly origins” (p. 158), although this was not made clear until 1648. The image was considered miraculous, not because of its origins but because it worked miracles.

She also treats the painting of the first miracle (the mock battle and procession at the transfer of the image to the first chapel): “What is new in this painting is that indigenous people are showcased both as ritual participants and as direct beneficiaries for the first time” (p. 207). There was a difference between the fictive native of times past and the contemporary reality.

With regard to the patronage by viceroys, especially the dukes of Alburquerque, Peterson points out the antagonism between viceroys and bishops (p. 235) but does not mention that the crown used this as a form of checks and balances. The author has an excellent treatment of the eighth duke of Albuquerque (viceroy of New Spain, 1653–60). This chapter also includes an informative and interesting explanation of native dances.

Happily there are only a few typographical errors: Lorenzo Boturini y Benaducci (p. 73); Cathedrático (p. 183); Aviles for Avilés (p. 189; fig. 7.5); Ramirez for Ramírez (p. 205); Ursua for Usúra (p. 269). More problematical is the use of technical terms such as...