Object and Apparition: Envisioning the Christian Divine in the Colonial Andes

7. Statue Paintings

137 The final artistic genre to emerge in the process of envisioning the Christian divine in the Andes was the statue painting (Fig. 7.1). Many of these works, with their strict symmetry, rich coloration and patterning, and abundant gold leaf, have become emblematic of the art of colonial Peru. Images of statues of the Virgin Mary with their mantles arranged to create bold triangular shapes are especially well known.1 The paintings, which always refer to a specific statue and present it unveiled, dressed, and adorned on its altar (or occasionally on a processional baldachin), functioned to spread the fame and image of each statue throughout the viceroyalty. They were created in Cusco as early as the 1670s and were also produced in Bolivia and Ecuador by the eighteenth century, if not earlier. As opposed to the other art forms we have considered, statue paintings were intended almost exclusively for private homes. Laypeople and clerics purchased the works from artists or merchants, added them to their personal collections, and passed them down to their heirs. In this sense, the works are similar to the medals and small prints that pilgrims to places such as Copacabana and Pomata purchased and kept, few of which survive today.2 But statue paintings were large, sumptuous works of art in oil on canvas, often in ornate gilded wood frames. The paintings’ two-dimensionality made them a step down from the dazzling statues on their altars, but they were impressive images nevertheless . When statues were displayed in churches, much of their visual power was due to reflections of light and textures of depth. Statue paintings, on the other hand, take an alternate strategy based on their medium and rely chapter seven Statue Paintings 138 · The Christian Divine in Two Dimensions Figure 7.1. Anonymous, Our Lady of Pomata, 1675. Oil on canvas, 113.7 × 90.2cm. Photograph courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum. largely on fields of saturated color and intricate patterns, often rendered in shimmering gold. The relative lack of pictorial depth in these works has often been seen to epitomize the archaic “flatness” of Andean painting in general.3 But beyond being a feature of the works’ style, this Statue Paintings · 139 planarity undoubtedly had spiritual significance. William Conklin has recently argued that Tiwanaku art from the Lake Titicaca region (400– 1100 CE) depicts supernatural beings in two dimensions, while figures depicted in three dimensions represent humans and other beings of this world. He also points out that the Greeks and Romans believed that three-dimensional idols emitted two-dimensional simulacra and that this ancient belief may explain the West’s high regard for twodimensional imagery.4 These ancient precedents (from both Europe and the Andes) suggest that our two-dimensional statue paintings were still charged with supernatural significance, and perhaps these representations were even seen as more otherworldly than their three-dimensional inspirations. While on one level the works appear to be straightforward depictions of real statues on their altars, they feature imaginary elements that complicate their status as mere representations. Indeed, the melding of real and supernatural elements that statue paintings present has garnered the works the nickname trampantojos a lo divino, or “divine tricks.”5 The miracle paintings considered in chapter 6 were meant to present the images of the statue-deities as they appeared to the beneficiaries or witnesses of miracles. Those works usually show a beneficiary looking up at a vision of the statue, his or her perception of the image being an important step toward miraculous intervention. In contrast, statue paintings were meant for the viewer outside the painting. They adapted the divine image from the church context and placed it in the control of its owner. We have seen that the display of the original statues varied constantly and was probably never exactly the same on two occasions. In contrast, statue paintings profess to crystallize a single apparition of a statue. Whether the painter of a work actually observed the statue’s appearance on a given occasion and faithfully recorded it in paint is doubtful, however . Rather, I think each artist painted the statue’s adornments based on the known possibilities but with creative license, each time producing an image that was completely unique and that hovered between the real and supernatural. European, Andean, and Early Colonial Precursors Paintings of miraculous Christian statues, as well as copies of miraculous paintings such as Seville’s...