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spanish america  Living Image  Thomas B. F. Cummins What child is this who stands painted before us (Fig. 67)? This is Christ the King, but a Christ the King unlike any other in all of Christendom. His reddened cheeks, rounded face, and soft features are set off by cascading golden hair. He seems to be a very animated figure, with one foot raised and turned in profile, as a raking light from the left casts a shadow below it. The other foot appears to press firmly into the pillow upon which the figure stands, as if to step forward. The right hand is held upward in benediction, and the left holds a wooden staff. The child wears a richly patterned tunic, crisscrossed by two wide bands of pearls. The hem and sleeves are made of diaphanous lace; a collar of feathers at the neck and knees adds to the luxurious dress. Lion heads cap the shoulders, knees, and feet. A headband of pearls, rubies, and emeralds supports a red fringe that hangs over the Christ Child’s forehead while a single feather rises above, his royal crown. A bright light radiates from the head of the divine child, as he seems to step toward theviewer. However, the figure is acting within a seemingly ambiguous space. Perched upon a wooden plinth are two vases of flowers at each corner in the foreground ; rich red velvet curtains with gold brocade at the borders are pulled back to reveal the space where the figure stands. Paintings of the living Christ Child are common, of course. But that is not what this painting is. It is one of a genre of paintings depicting devotional statues, a genre that was common in Spain and the Americas. These paintings depict devotional, often miraculous, sculptures of Mary,Christ, and saints that spread the cult of these images and the desire to visit them on pilgrimage. Most often the statue is depicted in a very flat or planar style that emphasizes the triangular shapeof rich dress and cloak, in the case of Marian images, as can be seen in the eighteenth-­century image of Our Lady of the Rosary of Candlemas (Fig. 68). Two photos of the Virgin of Almudena—one dressed and one undressed (Figs. 69–70)—created in 1686 by Tomás Tairu Túpac for a commission by the late seventeenth-­ century bishop of Cusco, Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo, demonstrate the static, triangular form that these sculptures take when they are dressed for processions or cult celebration. What makes this Christ Child painting peculiar is that the sculpture not only appears alive, as if stepping toward us, but he is partiallydressed as an Inca king.The richly textured tunic is a colonial uncu with a woven design of tocapu (Inca abstract geometric) motifs interspersed with the JesuitSacredHeart.Christwearsabejeweledheadbandand red fringe, which constitute the Inca royal crown (maiscapacha ), something befitting Christ the Andean King. The lion heads at the feet, knees, and shoulders are attributes worn by the aristocratic descendants of Inca kings. This is not theonly painting ofa statue that depicts the Inca Christ Child, although many of them were destroyed toward the end of theeighteenth century. At that time a series of rebellions —and that of Tupac Amaru II in particular—drew on the notion of a renascent Inca and heightened elite sensitivities to the power of Incaic symbolism in general, even when converging with Catholic Christianity. TheChristChildasIncakingwasthesubjectofdevotion by native confraternities in Andean cities such as Cusco and Potosí. The Jesuits in Cusco sponsored this cult, as we learn from their description of the 1610 celebration of Ignatius of Loyola’s beatification in that city. The descendants of the Inca living in the parish of the Hospital de los Naturales participated in the festivities and paraded into the plaza singing a song from the time of Huayna Capac. They were greeted at the façade of the church by the Confraternity of Jesus, a lay association of natives attached to the Jesuit Church, who brought out a statue of the Infant Jesus dressed in Inca imperial clothes.1 To Bishop Mollinedo y Angulo, who arrived from Madrid in 1673, the appearance of the statue of the Christ Child dressed as an Inca king was inappropriate, bordering on blasphemy. He moved to prohibit thedevotion not only in Cusco but throughout the Andes, where the bishop gained the support of other prelates and religious, who were similarly concerned.2 He not only realized the inappropriateness...

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