After reading the assigned NPR article on the exhibit on the colonial art in Latin America I went on a quest to find out more about this reflection from the past. Some initial disappointments ultimately made me understand that a compilation of the exhibited art had been published recently. Google even gave a preview of the book (please explore
http://tinyurl.com/cxjh7r for an adventure). As I turned the pages I came across piece after piece that captured my imagination in terms of both the embedded beauty as well as the complexity involved in making these pieces. I do not quite understand how these pieces are in the hidden corners of the surveys of art history. In theory one can go through one's life here in the United States and never come across these creations. Why is that? Why is our education in arts and history so selective and myopic in its scope? We focus on US history from 1650 and onwards and seem to forget about the rest of the world in so many ways in the realms of cultures, art, history, literature, film making and so much more. The pages of "
The Arts in Latin America" are filled with gems: paintings, textiles, feather crafts, woodwork and sculptures. Look at this chalice (13 inches) from the 16th century (1575) made of silver, boxwood, feathers and rock crystal. An amazing piece. Or what about the miter
(below) made of feathers glued onto parchment from the 16th century? The more I read and discover about the artists that used feathers in their creations the more intrigued I become. This is especially true in the pieces that merge the craft of the Aztecs with the colonial suppression and the catholic faith. In terms of faith many of the more religious pieces have a stark and powerful beauty that grabs one's attention. Consider the
Ecco Homo statue from the 16th century below. It is made of the pith of the corn stalk that the indigenous people used to make statues of their deities. Here it is transformed into a symbol of Catholic faith with an unnerving reach into the New Testament. Now I am finding myself in a case of serendipity in my journey to have discovered these pieces of art that have been born in so much pain and terror under the cloak of conquest and oppression and in turn traveled through centuries so we can behold them. Now we can treasure them and attempt to understand the forces that brought them to life.
As I was reading the chapter from Anita Brenner's book "Idols Behind Altars" I was struck by the historical narrative she produced so elegantly in very few pages. Sometimes I felt as if it was a symphony of words expressing the dance of time filled with people - lives encountering each other caught in the wild currents of time. She is very descriptive in a rich and poetic language as she unfolds the rich cultural history of Mexico. At times her narrative is extremely dense in her unfolding of life. In an early portion of the chapter she depicts the numerous connections New Spain was making with the rest of the world at the time. She speaks of materials reaching the area all the way from China (tiles and laquers, bronzes, and shawls) used in the local craft. People of different disciplines, oppression and motivation (architects, philosophers, slaves from Africa, merchants, adventurers, Jews expelled from Spain) arrived from Europe and Africa. Truly she is depicting a new world boiling in cultural influences and goods providing a foundation for a shift in viewing the world from both a social and artistic viewpoint. The passage made me think about our current time as globalization has been a pertinent and trendy topic of discussion over the last decade. Just like New Spain (at least in the cities and ports) was a focus for the blending of cultures, art, and trade goods we now experience a similar phenomenon on a global scale. The era of New Spain led to a new culture incorporating two major paths into one in a process of acculturation that is still taking place. I wonder if our time has given rise to something similar all across the world - cultures, people and languages are blending on a global scale. What will all these focal points of blending give rise to? Conflicts, harmony, understanding, war, a revolution in the arts and sciences, disease and mayhem, a new global culture? Only time will tell, but the world has become smaller and just like New Spain we are now experiencing the ripples and quakes of the blending contact of different cultural and economic currents. May it be for the better....
