COLONIAL

CastasA Casta was a hierarchical system of race classification created by Spanish elites (españoles) in Hispanic America during the Spanish colonial period.

The sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas was used in 17th and 18th centuries in Spanish America and Spanish Philippines to describe as a whole and socially rank the mixed-race people who were born during the post-Conquest period.

The process of mixing ancestries in the union of people of different races was known as mestizaje.

Created by European (white) elites, the sistema de castas was based on the principle that people varied largely due to their birth, color, race and origin of ethnic types.

It had an effect on every aspect of life, including economics and taxation

Defining Race

• Each of these castes was entitled to privileges or were restricted within the society because of its caste.

• Casta paintings typically depict a couple along with one or two children, an inscription describing the enthnoracial make-up of the mother, father and the child(ren).

• Typically the background gives us an view into the life and world of Latin America- foreign to the majority of the world

Miguel Cabrera. De Español y Negra, Mulata. 1763 oil on canvas. Mexico City, Mexico.

Casta• Peninsulares (people of

Spain) • Indian• Mestizo (Spanish + Indian)• Castizos (Mestizo + Spanish)• Mulattos (Spanish + African)• Zambos (Afircan + Indian)

Miguel Cabrera. De Mestizo y de India; Coyote. 1763 oil on canvas, Mexico City, Mexico

Everyday Life

These paintings suggest the differences in social classesTypical ClothingFlora & FaunaFood and Architecture

Miguel Cabrera. De Español y de India; Mestiza. 1763

Oil on canvas, Mexico City, Mexico

Purpose & Significance

Influence of the Enlightenment

Spanish fascination with race

Maintenance of social & political control

Souvenirs of the “New World”

Interest in Daily Life (Costumbrismo)

Documentation of Flora & Fauna

Unknown Artist. "Noble Woman With Her Black Slave" 1783. Nueva Granda (Modern day Ecuador) Oil on Canvas.

José Juárez, The Virgin of Guadalupe with Apparitions, Spain. 1656 Oil on Canvas

* Juan Diego is the first indigenous Catholic saint of the Americas

No single image had a greater impact on the history of Mexican art than that of the Virgin de Guadalupe

Virgin of Guadalupe serves as a pure intercessor between man and God, and a symbol of maternal love and fertility

La Virgen de Guadalupe

■ Location: Tepeyac Hill, Mexico City■ Date: December 12, 1531■ 4 apparitions to Juan Diego, a Indian native ■ December 9, 1531, a native American peasant

named Juan Diego saw a vision of a maiden at a place called the Hill of Tepeyac, which would become part of Villa de Guadalupe, a suburb of Mexico City. Speaking to him in his native Nahuatl language (the language of the Aztec empire), the maiden identified herself as the Virgin Mary, "mother of the very true deity" and asked for a church to be built at that site in her honor.

■ Following the Conquest in 1519–21, the Spanish destroyed a temple of the mother goddess Tonantzin at Tepeyac outside Mexico City, and built a chapel dedicated to the Virgin on the site. Newly converted Indians continued to come from afar to worship there, often addressing the Virgin Mary as Tonantzin

■ The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the world, and the world's third most-visited sacred site

Copy of Juan Diego’s tilma from1531

José Ribera y Argomanis

Virgin of Guadalupe 1778

• The familiar apparition is compressed and attention is given to the two Indians that flank the Virgin.

• Juan Diego (left) offers the Virgin roses, representing the devotion of indigenous converts

• A feather-covered Indian (right) symbolizes the unconverted nomadic Indians of the northern frontier.

• The Virgin hovers above an eagle perched on a cactus, the symbol of Mexico City, equally confirming her spiritual and juridical authority over the colony and by implication the special status of those who lived there.

Miguel GonzálezVirgen de Guadalupe1698, Mexico CityOil on Canvas on Wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl (enconchado)(on display at LACMA)

• The Virgin placed atop an eagle perched on a cactus, Mexico City’s legendary coat of arms. This is a significant detail that points to the rapid Creolization of the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the second half of the seventeenth century, and her increasing association with a local sense of identity.

• This technique is known as enconchado and exists solely in Mexico.

• Enonchados were inspired by imported furniture from China, India and Japan and Mesoamerican art.

• Generally the shell inlay is used for bodies, while the faces and other fine details are rendered in oil paint.

Luis de MenaCastas

1750, Madrido

• Points to the honor that God bestowed on Mexico by having the Virgin appear in that country.

• Painted alongside the fruits of the land, the city’s famous retreats, the Virgin’s sanctuaries and the racial hybrid population.

• The Virgin appears as the Queen of Mexico.

• She forms an integral part of a multi-tiered system in which the Virgin, the land, the people and the fruits of the colony are all equally “American”