Copied Carts: Spanish Prints and Colonial Peruvian Paintings

Author(s): Carolyn S. Dean

Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 78, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 98-110
Published by: College Art Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3046159
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Copied Carts: Spanish
and Colonial Peruvian
CarolynS. Dean
The influence of European prints and paintings on the art of
colonial Spanish America is well documented. In contracts
recording the commissioning of paintings in Cuzco, a center
of art production in the Peruvian highlands, for example,
references to artworks that were to be used as models are the
norm. A standard contract refers to an engraving or print
which the artist was to use. The phrase "segun estampas que
se le de" ("according to prints given [the artist]") frequently
appears as an indication that the patron has specified a
prototype.' As a consequence, scholarship on the art of
colonial Latin America has often focused on its derivative
aspects by discussing it in terms of its European sources.2
While pictorial prototypes are a valid and important art-
historical consideration-and one that will be examined
here-concentration on them all too often limits the ways in
which we think about colonial visual culture. The traditional
focus on the imitative aspects of colonial Latin American art
has implicitly privileged European sources over colonial
formulations by relying on European aesthetic norms to
evaluate colonial material culture. If our inquiry goes beyond
the identification of European source material, however, and
considers how the colonial product engaged its culturally
diverse audiences, we soon recognize the colonial artist and
patron as profoundly creative rather than merely imitative.
In the present paper, I am concerned with a particular series
of canvases in which native artists and patrons created
imagery utilizing printed European prototypes. Through an
act of copying they addressed their particular cultural predica-
ment, which was not only to survive, but even to prosper, in
the social space between two cultures-the hegemonic cul-
ture of the colonizer and the resilient culture of the colo-
nized. Between the copied and the copy lies a wide cultural
gap which the mimicry of form cannot begin to span and for
which formal analysis cannot account.
My focus will be on the ways in which images from a
specific set of Spanish prints were integrated into a series of
paintings created around 1674-80 in Cuzco, Peru. This city
had been the capital of the pre-Hispanic Inka empire and, as
such, was a critical venue for cultural contact between
Spaniards and indigenous Andeans. In the latter half of the
Prints
Paintings
seventeenth century, Cuzco emerged as an artistic center in
the Spanish viceroyalty of Peru. Its native artists and patrons
were prominent participants in this period of cultural flores-
cence. By considering one series of paintings for which
Spanish prints provided an element of inspiration, we can
begin to examine some of the complexities inherent in the
Andean mimicry of European forms. In this particular act of
copying, both the context and the content of the prototypes
were altered. Such alterations highlight the activities of
indigenous elites who mediated between European authori-
ties on the one hand and their native constituencies on the
other. Although encouraged by European cultural domi-
nance, the copying itself created pictorial contradictions. I
will argue that while native elites were compelled to mimic
European forms so as to appeal to their Spanish overlords
and enhance their own social and political positions, these
same Andeans generated new representational strategies
keyed to colonial circumstances.
The Corpus Christi Series
The series of paintings on which this discussion focuses
consists of sixteen canvases depicting the celebration of the
feast of Corpus Christi in Cuzco. They vary in size from the
smallest at 6 feet square to the largest at over 7 by 12 feet.
Fifteen paintings feature individuals and corporate groups
participating in the Corpus Christi procession: religious
orders, local sodalities, native parishes, civic leaders, and
ecclesiastical authorities. The remaining canvas depicts a
temporary altar with a tableau of the Last Supper, during
which Christ instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist. Since
the feast of Corpus Christi, held on the Thursday following
Trinity Sunday, celebrates the Eucharist, this picture serves
as a fitting preamble to the rest of the series.
Crowds of heterogeneous spectators are shown witnessing
the events in each of the sixteen canvases. This audience,
which numbers twenty in one picture and over one hundred
in others, consists of people of Andean, European, African,
and mixed ancestry. Ostensibly, the audience is representa-
tive of the ethnic and social diversity of colonial-period
Cuzco, which was dominated numerically by Andeans, but

This study was facilitated by Monsignor Alcides Mendoza Castro, archbishop
of Cuzco, Aguiles Barrionuevo, director of the Museo de Arte Religioso in
Cuzco, Dr. Sandra Sider, formerly curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books of
the Hispanic Society of America in New York, Sr. Ricardo Claro Valdes, and
Sr. Carlos Larrain Pefia. To each of these individuals, I offer my gratitude.
Dissertation research, from which this paper emerged, was funded by Edward
A. Dickson Fellowships and an Edward A. Dickson Travel Grant (University
of California, Los Angeles) as well as a Chester Dale Fellowship (Center for
Avanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.).
Additional support has been provided by Academic Senate and Arts Division
grants (University of California, Santa Cruz). I am indebted to the people and
institutions who have supported this study. Dana Leibsohn, Tom Cummins,
and the anonymous reader for the Art Bulletin offered thoughtful suggestions
and criticisms. All translations are mine.
1. For numerous published contracts of this type, see Cornejo. Somewhat
less common than the mention of prints, but nonetheless not infrequent, is
the contractual reference to an existing artwork, known to both the patron
and the artist, that is to be used as a model. See, e.g., contracts in ibid., 89, 93,
103.
2. See, e.g., M. Soria, "Una nota sobre pintura colonial y estampas
Europeas," Anales del Instituto de Arte Americano y Investigaciones Estiticas,
Buenos Aires, 1952, 41-49. Arguing that most of the paintings created in the
Spanish colonies were based on printed European prototypes, Soria con-
cludes that the more European-looking images were taken from high-quality
expensive prints while poorer artists (primarily natives and those of mixed
blood) used cheaper, popular prints. He thus attributes both the style and
content of colonial art to European prototypes. Consequently, colonial art is

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1 Artist unknown, CorpusChristiProcession:MercedarianFriars, ca. 1674-80. Cuzco, Museo de Arte Religioso
which included many people of European, African, and
mixed descent as well.
The three canvases of the series which feature Cuzco's
highest ecclesiastical and civil authorities also include patron
portraits. The other paintings were apparently commis-
sioned by the individuals and groups who are their primary
subjects. Thus, the Mercedarian friars were probably respon-
sible for the canvas in which they are shown processing (Fig.
1), and the parish council of S. Crist6bal was very likely
involved in commissioning the canvas representing that
parish (Fig. 2), and so on. Certainly, the cooperation of the
specific individuals portrayed in the pictures must have been
required at some stage in the course of their production.
analyzed and evaluated (i.e., devalued) according to European standards,
which it can, by definition, only approximate.
3. T. Gisbert, "Andean Painting," in Gloria in Excelsis: The Virgin and Angels
in Viceregal Paintings of Peru and Bolivia, exh. cat., Center for Inter-American
Relations, New York, 1986, 26, outlines a dispute between Spanish and
Andean painters in Cuzco in 1688 which resulted in the rupture of the
painter's guild along racial lines; the grievances filed by Spanish masters
claimed that their Andean colleagues were poorly trained in figure drawing,
perspective, and other "classical modes" of representation. Thus, the
proportional and perspectival inconsistencies, relatively uncomplicated com-
positions, and anatomical distortions of the Corpus Christi series suggest that
it was executed by Andeans. Additionally, Andean artists active in Cuzco
during this period far outnumbered those of European descent. J. de Mesa
and T. Gisbert, "Lo indigena en el arte hispanoamericano," Boletin del Centro
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SPANISH PRINTS AND COLONIAL PERUVIAN PAINTINGS 99
The series as a whole was probably made to decorate the
parish church of S. Ana in Cuzco, where it was displayed until
the second half of the twentieth century. At least two artists
contributed to the series-native Andeans, to judge from the
stylistic and formal qualities of their work.3 The canvases are
typical of colonial paintings from late seventeenth-century
Cuzco both in form and in the method of execution. Their
predominantly red palette, the attention to intricate decora-
tive detail, the use of gilt brocade (sometimes called estofado),
and the inconsistent proportions and perspectives are akin
to other late seventeenth-century canvases produced in
Cuzco. Technical characteristics, such as the fact that most of
the canvases in the series were composed of several pieces of
de Investigaciones Hist6ricas y Esteticas, xii, 1971, 32-38, document forty-seven
Cuzquefio painters: thirty-five were Andean, seven were either Peruvian-born
Spaniards or Mestizos, four were Spanish-born, and one was from Italy. A
conservative estimate, on the basis of extant contracts, identifies over 75
percent of Cuzquefio artists as Andean. Furthermore, undocumented,
anonymous artists-such as those of the Corpus Christi series-are more
likely to have been native.
See Dean, 72-78, in which I tentatively suggest, on the basis of stylistic
analysis, that indigenous master Juan Zapaca Inga may have contributed to
those canvases of the Corpus Christi series that represent the Andean
parishes. In particular, the similar positioning of figures and proportional
inconsistencies between foreground and background link these images to a
series on the life of Saint Francis painted by Zapaca for the Franciscan
convent in Santiago, Chile.
100 ART BULLETIN MARCH 1996 VOLUME LXXVIII NUMBER 1
2 Artist unknown, CorpusChristiProcession:Parish of S. Crist6bal,ca. 1674-80. Cuzco, Museo de Arte Religioso
material sewn together, also link these works with other
similarly constructed canvases of the period.4
Seventeenth-century Cuzco incorporated eight parishes
for its native Andean residents, called parroquias de indios, or
Indian parishes. Five of these-S. Sebastiain, Santiago, Hos-
pital de los Naturales, S. Crist6bal, and S. Blas-are featured
in the Corpus Christi series.5 The parochial canvases are
quite similar in appearance and may well have been painted
by the same artist or a few artists working closely with one
another. In each of the parochial paintings a native dressed
in the somewhat modified costume of pre-Hispanic Inka
rulers is depicted; he bears the standard of the parish patron
4. For a discussion of the technical aspects of colonial Peruvianpainting,
see P. Querejazu, "Materialsand Techniques of Andean Painting,"in Gloria
in Excelsis(as in n. 3), 78-82. For a thorough discussion of late 17th- and
18th-centuryCuzquefio painting, see Mesa and Gisbert, 1982.
5. The parishes are identifiable by the statues of their patron saints,
although the saint portrayedin Fig. 6 is in doubt. R. MariateguiOliva,Nuevo
lienzoautinticodel Corpuscuzquefio.Unfalsolienzo:Masconsideraciones acercade
los maravillososcuadrosdel siglo XVII, Lima, 1983, 21, identifies him as
Augustine, but there is no corresponding parish in Cuzco. The statue is more
likely to represent either SaintJerome, patron of the parish of S. Jer6nimo,
or Saint Blaise, patron of the parish of S. Bias. G. Guarda, Los laicosen la
Cristianizacidn de America,Santiago, 1987, 88, identifies the figure as Saint
Jerome; and J. Flores Ochoa, "Historia, fiesta y encuentro en el Corpus
Christicuzquefio,"in Lafiesta en el arte, Lima, 1994, 57 n. 5, tends to agree.
However, the saint is clearly depicted as a bishop with a miter and crozier, a
characterizationthat fits Blaise and not Jerome. Furthermore, a colonial-
period painting in the Museo Pedro de Osma in Lima, Peru, featuresall eight
Cuzquefio parishes participating in the Corpus Christi procession. The
statuesof Blaise andJerome represent both saints as bearded, elderly men; as
in the image discussed in this article, Blaise is characterizedas a bishop, while
Jerome is dressed as a doctor of the church.
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saint.6 These standard-bearers can be recognized as the
highest dignitaries in their parishes, usually referred to as
caciques principales (principal chiefs) or alcaldes (mayors).7
One of these caciques principales is named in an inscription:
Don Carlos Guainacapac Inka of the parish of S. Crist6bal
(Fig. 2).8 While the other caciques principales cannot be
identified by name, each figure is individualized by distinct
physiognomy, costume, and regalia and is thus probably a
portrait. In each of the parochial canvases the cacique
principal is flanked by other staff-bearing dignitaries (parish
alguaciles), who are dressed in Hispanicized clothing; these
individuals comprised the parish councils. As I indicated
A sixth native parish of Cuzco, that of S. Ana-where the series was
displayed-may have also sponsored a canvas. See C. S.. Dean, "Ethnic
Conflict and Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco," ColonialLatin American
Review,II,nos. 1-2, 1993, 93-120, in which I argue that an individual,a male
Andean not of Inka ethnicity, from the parish of S. Ana commissioned the
final image in the series, which depicts the conclusion of the procession.
Unlike the other five paintings, this shows, but gives no special prominence
to, the parochialstandard-bearer.In part, this difference can be traced to the
political dominance of non-Inka Andeans in the parish of S. Ana who,
logically, preferred to feature in their canvas the performanceof a company
of musketeers from their parish rather than Inka standard-bearers in
imperial costume.
6. The traditional costume of the ruling Inka has been modified for
colonial audiences, most noticeably by the addition of lace sleeves and
breeches. For a discussionof the modifications,see Dean, 225-60.
7. Parish council records from the "Librodel Cabildo del Hospital'de los
Naturales,"Cuzco, Archivo de la Venerable Curia, 1585-1617, 30r, indicate
that the parish'scaciqueprincipalwas entitled to bear the patronal standardin
Cuzco'sCorpus Christiprocession.
 SPANISH PRINTS AND COLONIAL PERUVIAN PAINTINGS 101

above, it is likely that the portrayed caciques principales,

possibly with the aid of their parish councils, were respon-
sible for commissioning the paintings in which they appear.
Acolytes robed in surplices and carrying a processional cross
and candlesticks also form part of the cortege.
The canvases of the Corpus Christi series are some of the
best-known examples of colonial Peruvian art. While schol-
arly opinion about the aesthetic merits of the series varies, it
has been unanimously hailed as an invaluable document of
life in colonial Cuzco owing to the detailed record of the city
and its citizens that it provides.9 Together with a few other
well-known works, the series exemplifies the genre of docu-
mentary painting from the viceroyalty of Peru.'1 It is in light
of their putative value as "documents" that the issue of their
copied contents is particularly critical. Because this aspect of
the Corpus Christi series has yet to be fully explored, there
has been no discussion of how the mimicry of form affects the
documentary mode of pictorial reportage.
Clearly, the artists of the Corpus Christi series endeavored
to record a recognizable place and time. They located their 3 Artist unknown, Carrode los herrerosy cerrajeros(Cart of the
human subjects, and the festival which they celebrate, in the blacksmiths and locksmiths), from Valda, 1663 (photo: courtesy
stagelike spaces formed by identifiable edifices of colonial Hispanic Society of America, New York)
Cuzco. The festive ephemera, local costumes, and recogniz-
able personages all suggest that these paintings document a
"real" or at least a typical celebration; their deceptive honor of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception held in
transparency encourages us to refer to the "real" world. Yet Valencia in 1662. The book contains thirty-nine prints of
the parochial canvases confound the documentary enter- processional carts (carros) sponsored by Valencian guilds and
prise by featuring elements not seen in local parades- sodalities as well as numerous temporary altars erected for
processional carts copied from European prints. Underlying the celebration.'2
the act of mimicry are profound cultural divergences, and in The processional cart depicted in the canvas of the parish
this case copying, while superficially imitative, was also of S. Crist6bal (Fig. 2) is based on the Valencian cart
supremely creative. sponsored jointly by the guilds of blacksmiths and locksmiths
(herreros y cerrajeros) (Fig. 3). The cart of the parish of S.
The Copied and the Copies Sebastiain (Fig. 4) is taken from that of the tailors' guild
Each of the five parochial canvases is dominated by a (sastres) (Fig. 5). The S. Blas parish cart (Fig. 6) derives from
processional cart on which a statue of the parish's patron the cart of the Valencian guild of money brokers (called
saint rides. Bolivian scholars Jose de Mesa and Teresa corredoresde oreja) (Fig. 7). The cart represented as belonging
Gisbert have identified a seventeenth-century Valencian to the parish of Santiago (Fig. 8) echoes that of the Valencian
festival book as the pictorial source of the carts depicted in silk weavers' cart (carro de los tejedoresde sedas) (Fig. 9). And
the canvases of S. Sebastiain and the Hospital de los Natu- the cart of the Hospital de los Naturales (Fig. 10) is modeled
rales." This book was, in fact, the source of all of the carts on one sponsored by the city of Valencia to publicize its
that appear in the series. Written by Juan Bautista Valda and festival (Fig. 11).
published in Valencia in 1663, it documents a festival in All the Valencian prototypes except that of the municipal-

8. In the lower left of the canvas is the inscription: "Vitor D. Carlos
Guainacapac ynga Alferes Real de su Mgtad" ("Vitor" [?] Don Carlos
Guainacapac Ynga [Inka], His Majesty's Royal Standard-bearer). For a
discussion of this inscription and its possible meaning, see Dean, 34-35.
9. For example, Jose Uriel Garcia, the eminent scholar of Cuzco's art and
history, in his La ciudad de los Incas, Cuzco, 1922, 214, writes, "Artistically,
[the canvases] have little merit as the creole drawing has serious technical
deficiencies, but the paintings are of immense documentary value." Most
scholars have been less judgmental in their assessments of the series' artistic
merits, however. Nearly all have noted its documentary value. See, e.g., R. C.
Smith, Peru: Art and Architecture, New World Guides to the Latin American
Republics, New York, 1943, 24; P. Kelemen, Baroque and Rococo in Latin
America, New York, 1951, 120; R. Mariitegui Oliva, Pintura cuzquefia del siglo
XVII:Los maravillososlienzosdel Corpusexistentesen la iglesiade SantaAna del
Cuzco,Lima, 1951, 7; idem, PinturacuzquesadelsigloXVIIen Chile:Losvaliosos
lienzosdel Corpuscuzqueiode propiedadde D. CarlosPefa Otaeguien Santiago,
Lima, 1954, 5; idem, 1983 (as in n. 5), 14; F. Cossifo del Pomar, Arte del Perui
colonial, Mexico and Buenos Aires, 1958, 209; M. Soria, "Colonial Painting in
Latin America," Art in America, XLVII,no. 3, 1959, 38; L. Castedo, The Cuzco
Circle, New York, 1976, 38; Mesa and Gisbert, 1982, 180; and C. S. Dean,
"Cuzco's Corpus Christi Paintings: A Festive Community Portrait," Review:
Latin American Literature and Arts, XLIII,1991, 46-52.
10. In addition to two other canvases-unrelated to the S. Ana series-
depicting Cuzco's Corpus Christi procession, the edifices and people of that
city are recorded in the painting, commissioned by Don Alonso de Monroy y
Cortes, of the devastating earthquake which shook Cuzco on Mar. 31, 1650.
The village of Tinta is similarly documented in an anonymous 18th-century
Cuzquefio painting, as is the colonial mining center of Potosi (today in
Bolivia) in the pictorial record by the artist Melchor Perez Holguin of the
festivities surrounding the entry of the archbishop of Charcas-and newly
designated viceroy-Don Diego Morcillo Rubio y Aufi6n into Potosi in Apr.
1716; see J. de Mesa and T. Gisbert,Holguiny la pinturavirreinalen Bolivia,
2d ed., La Paz, 1977, 185-96, and Mesa and Gisbert, 1982, 291-92. Episodes
from local histories are frequently represented in paintings of religious
figures as well. Historical personages and events set in local landscapes are
featured in well-known depictions of the Virgins of Potosf, Cocharcas (in
Ayacucho, Peru), and Belen (in Cuzco), for example.
11. Mesa and Gisbert, 1985, 234, 242-43.
12. This book and its prints are discussed in detail by Pedraza.

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102 ART BULLETIN MARCH 1996 VOLUME LXXVIII NUMBER 1
ity (Fig. 11) had to be reversed by the Andean artists so that
they would face left and so be consistent with the direction of
the cortege. Other alterations of the printed sources can be
characterized as simplifications, proportional adjustments,
and the elimination or substitution of forms and figures. In
four of the five canvases, the decorative detail of the Valen-
cian cart has been simplified. In the Santiago canvas (Fig. 8),
however, the artist elaborated the body of his less ostenta-
tious prototype (Fig. 9) by adding decorative detailing at the
bottom and a row of cherub faces around the middle (this
motif occurs on other carts in Valda's book; see, for example,
the cart of the blacksmiths and locksmiths, Fig. 3). In so
doing, he altered the proportions of his model by making it
shorter in length and taller. Similar alterations were made to
each of the carts in the process of copying from the printed
image. Proportional changes are most dramatic in the canvas
of the parish of S. Blas, in which the height of the Valencian
cart was reduced as a result of trial and error (Figs. 6, 7). The
Cuzquefio artist first incorporated a templet with an elabo-
rate entablature like that of his prototype; its spectral outline
can still be discerned in the painting. To make room for the
figure of the patron saint-Saint Blaise-the structure then
had to be lowered.
In a number of the canvases, the artists eliminated supple-
mentary figures from their Valencian models. This is the
case, for example, in the cart used in the canvas of the parish
of S. Crist6bal (Figs. 2, 3).13 Similarly, the S. Sebastian artist
jettisoned the flying dragon attached by its back feet to a
pedestal, the image of Saint Vincent standing, and the
figures of four other saints seated around a table (Figs. 4,
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4 Artist unknown, CorpusChristiProcession:
Parish of S. Sebastidn,ca. 1674-80. Cuzco,
Museo de Arte Religioso
5).14 The Hospital artist did not eliminate, but rather
amended, the figures that he copied. The print depicts a cart
carrying three musicians (two playing horns and the third a
harp), a printer with his printing press, and a man seen from
the back distributing the finished prints (Fig. 11). Valda
indicates that the prints were of the Immaculate Conception,
in whose honor the celebration was held; they were appar-
ently distributed to the populace to encourage devotion.'5
The painter, recording a different religious occasion and-
given that printing presses were not familiar sights in
colonial Peru-probably not fully understanding the image
he was copying, retained the trio of musicians at the front of
the cart but transformed the press into an odd sort of
stationary hand organ; the printed image has disappeared
from the hand of the "distributor" and, as a consequence, he
appears to be singing or addressing the crowd (Fig. 10). The
carts representing the parishes of S. Blas (Fig. 6) and
Santiago (Fig. 8) also retain the figures riding in their
Valencian prototypes (Figs. 7, 9); this accounts for the
disproportion in size in the paintings between those in the
carts and their Andean escorts.
All of the Cuzquefio carts, except that of the Hospital
parish, have replaced the Valencian statues of the Immacu-
late Conception with images of the various parish patron
saints. The patron saint of the Hospital parish, Nuestra
Sefiora de la Candelaria (Our Lady of Candlemas), replaces
two angels holding an urn of flowers atop the pedestal at the
rear of the Valencian cart (Figs. 10, 11). In the case of S.
Crist6bal, the figure of Saint Christopher has replaced both
 SPANISH PRINTS AND COLONIAL PERUVIAN PAINTINGS 103

the image of the Virgin and the templet in which she is 113911~1"8~
i
housed in the Valencian original (Figs. 2, 3). ~ ...
*r='~~~
C ~?~:lr
r L' ;~d
~ L* r

~-?c=
~Ec----- --
Valda's Account in Cuzco ~~7~
.s -5??~iPt~~
i' .ri
It was most likely Cuzco's bishop, Don Manuel Mollinedo y -;?
C- -

Angulo, who brought the book by Valda to Cuzco when he ~lr~ :rr

arrived in 1673.16 Mollinedo came to Spanish America from

Madrid, where a Valencian architect of festive displays
named Jose Caudi was well known. Caudi, the engraver of
the image of the tailors'cart which was used as the model for
i
the cart of S. Sebastian in the Corpus Christi series, was a ,?

renowned engineer of architectonic "stagings" for celebra-

13
tions. Valda not only praised Caudi as the "extremely skillful
craftsman" (diestrisimoartifice)who was responsible for "the
most ingenious designs of the festival" (los mis ingeniosos
desefiosde estasfiestas), he also included four engravings by
Caudi in his book as well.'7 In 1673, Caudi was in Valencia,
where he designed street decorations for the canonization of
Saint Louis Bertrand (of Valencia), but by 1680 he had been
summoned to the court of Madrid. There, he designed the
stage machinery for a play by Pedro Calder6n de la Barca.18
Caudi's fame must have spread to Madrid at least in part i ,?~qe~PC3?5'4*~i;p19~~' ~r~i~i~ ?- f
through Valda'sbook. Since Mollinedo, then a priest, moved
in court circles, it is reasonable to suppose that he came into
!~ih-~"-"'"
contact with the book, and possibly even with Caudi, shortly
,,I ,r
before assuming office in Cuzco in 1673.
Bishop Mollinedo himself is featured carrying the mon-
strance in two canvases of the S. Ana series. Thus, he was
undoubtedly aware of, if not directly responsible for, the
L--rCIII
?--.---?_?~?-
_???.Pl~ilWI
?Il-?~-~ur~??_-?lr~.?.-i
sYlrulSy?gt.l
-~i~L~Z-
production of at least some of the Corpus Christipaintings.19
While it is not certain that Bishop Mollinedo supplied 5 Jose Caudi, Carrode los sastres(Cart of the tailors), from
Valda's book specifically to help inspire the composition of Valda, 1663 (photo: courtesy Hispanic Society of America, New
the parochial canvases, he very likely did encourage the use York)
of it as a model for Cuzco's religious festivals in general.
Festivalswere held to be signs of devotion; the more splendid
Cuzco's festivals, the more noticed would be Mollinedo's celebration, but that had been revamped for the special
diocese. The Valencian celebration had garnered that city festivities in honor of the Imaculate Conception.21
considerable praise and renown; certainly the bishop and The feast of Corpus Christi coincided with Andean harvest
other leaders of colonial Cuzco would have aspired to similar festivals and in Cuzco, as elsewhere in Peru, this Christian
achievements and hoped for similar repute. Both cities- observance incorporated certain pre-Hispanic celebratory
Valencia and Cuzco-were famous for elaborate Corpus practices, particularly songs and dances. Spaniards encour-
Christi presentations. Valencia is especially known for its aged some syncretic behaviors, and the fame of Cuzco's
Corpus Christi roquesor rocas(literally, "castles"),which are Corpus Christi procession grew throughout the colonial
carts that function as mobile stages in processions.20Some of period.22 That Valencia was renowned for its Corpus Christi
the carts used on the occasion of the 1662 Valencian festival festival and that Cuzco's leaders, particularly Mollinedo,
and documented by Valda may well have been rocasthat had must have desired similar repute, makes Valencian practices
originally been constructed for Valencia's Corpus Christi likely prototypes for those of colonial Cuzco, which de-

13. In the Valencian original, the scene on the cart relates the miracle of
Saint Eloi (Eligius),who was patron of both blacksmithsand locksmiths. See
Pedraza,297-98.
14. Ibid., 322-23, identifies the seated saints as Vincent Ferrer,Thomas of
Villanova,Bonaventure,and Thomas Aquinas.
15. Valda, 284.
16. Mesa and Gisbert, 1985, 243.
17. A. Perez Sanchez, "Jose Caudi, arquitecto y decorador," in Calderdn:
Actasdel congresointernacionalsobreCalderdny el teatroespanioldel Siglode Oro,
ed. L. Garcia Lorenzo, Madrid, 1981a, 1653. For more on Caudif,see idem,
"JoseCaudi, un olvidado artistadecorador de Calder6n,"Goya,nos. 161-62,
1981b, 266-73.
18. Perez, 1981a (as in n. 17), 1654.
19. Mollinedo, who commissioned over thirty monuments during his
tenure as bishop, was one of Cuzco's most generous patrons of the arts. He
brought nearly forty paintings with him to Peru, including two canvasesby El
Greco. Through his example and encouragement, priests of his diocese were
prompted to embellish local churches. Thus, his interests and deeds had a
profound influence on artistic activityin the latter half the 17th century in
Cuzco. See Mesa and Gisbert, 1982, 118-23.
20. B. Mis y Prat, "Los carros del Corpus," La ilustracidnespaniolay
americana,xxIx, no. 20, Madrid, 1885, 322. See also A. Gasc6n de Gotor, El
CorpusChristiy las custodias de Espaia, Barcelona, 1916, 25-26.
procesionales
21. See Pedraza, 77, 168, 169.
22. For a more complete discussion, see C. Fiedler, "Corpus Christi in
Cuzco: Festival and Ethnic Identity in the Peruvian Andes," Ph.D. diss.,
Tulane University, 1985, 241-84; and Dean, 176-206.

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104 ART BULLETIN MARCH 1996 VOLUME LXXVIII NUMBER 1

6 Artist unknown, CorpusChristi

Procession:Parish of S. Blas, ca. 1674-80.
Santiago, Chile, Collection of Ricardo
Claro Valdes (photo: courtesy R. Claro
Valdes)

pended on the active participation of the city's large, rela-

tively unacculturated indigenous population. Natives had
been featured in public festivities since the Spanish occupa-
tion early in the sixteenth century. While Cuzco had certainly
witnessed elaborate celebratory spectacles, processional
carts-like the Valencian rocas-were not a customary com-
'4 ponent. Mollinedo, who arrived from Spain to find atten-
dance at Corpus Christi celebrations waning somewhat,
-6f recognized that native recruits were needed if festivals in his
bishopric were to be invigorated. He therefore revised the
, •
-I processional route and encouraged greater local participa-
tion. To Mollinedo, Valda's book may have seemed inspira-
tional-a ready-made guide for teaching Andeans about the
I kind of spectacular Spanish festivals not yet matched in
i? Cuzco.
,i' /7"••
The mimicry of a wide range of hegemonic practices by
colonized peoples, especially those native elites who mediate
between the authorities and the less acculturated indigenous
community, is characteristic of colonial cultures. Homi
Bhabha, describing mimicry as one of the most effective of
colonial discourses of power, observes that no matter how
polished the imitation of the colonizer by the colonized, their
ethnic/racial difference always exists as a subtext of any
7 F. Casadez, Carrode los corredoresde oreja (cart of the money
appearance, performance, or accomplishment. Bhabha per-
brokers), from Valda, 1663 (photo: courtesy Hispanic Society of ceives an implicit menace in mimicry owing to the necessary
America, New York)
slippage between the imitated and the imitation.23 To adapt
his observations, the caciquesprincipales represented in the S.
Ana series, while Hispanicized, are emphatically not Span-
ish. Compelled, on the one hand, to acculturate, yet always
positioned "outside" of the European community, Andean

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 SPANISH PRINTS AND COLONIAL PERUVIAN PAINTINGS 105

8 Artist unknown, CorpusChristiProcession:

Parish of Santiago, ca. 1674-80. Cuzco, Museo
de Arte Religioso

elites of the late seventeenth century dealt creatively with this

double bind. In their mimicry of European festive formats,
the parish leaders of Cuzco underscored their mediative
position in colonial society by referring both to their knowl-
edge of European customs and to their prestigious heritage
as heirs of the Inka rulers. By parading in their native
costumes, the caciques principales not only highlighted their
ethnicity, but, more important, also characterized them-
selves as nobility. Descendants of the pre-Hispanic royal Inka
dynasty, they proclaimed themselves to be legitimate An-
dean authorities. Thus, they explore-and appear to ex-
ploit-the interstices between the model and the mimesis by
drawing attention to their alterity. By participating in (and
organizing) Christian festivals following conventional Span-
ish formats, they also demonstrated to their European
audience their value to the colonial social order. In so doing,
they positioned themselves as mediators between their An-
dean constituencies and the Spanish colonial authorities, a
role which made them (at least in appearance) invaluable
members of Cuzco society. 9 Artist unknown, Carrode los tejedoresde sedas (Cart of the silk
The mediative role of native elites was a critical one in the weavers), from Valda, 1663 (photo: courtesy Hispanic Society
colonial period. Indigenous leaders, especially in urban of America, New York)
Cuzco, were educated, at least in part, in the Spanish
tradition and these partially acculturated few were often the
conduits between the expectations of the colonial govern-
ment and the compliance of the colonized. Levels of Andean

23. H. Bhabha, "Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial

Discourse,"October,no. 28, 1984, 125-33; in H. K. Bhabha, The Locationof
Culture,London, 1994, 85-92.

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106 ART BULLETIN MARCH 1996 VOLUME LXXVIII NUMBER 1

10 Artist unknown, CorpusChristiProcession:Parish of the Hospital de los Naturales, ca. 1674-80. Cuzco, Museo de
Arte Religioso

acculturation are, of course, not easily quantified. In the

11 Artist unknown, Tercercarrode la publicacidnde lasfiestas
(Third cart made to publicize the festival), from Valda, 1663
(photo: courtesy Hispanic Society of America, New York)
mid-colonial period, well over a century after the Spanish
invasion of the Andes, interpreters were regularly called
upon to attend the making of contracts involving native
Andeans in Cuzco. Few of these, apparently, were proficient
enough in Spanish to engage in contracts without the aid of
an interpreter. That natives fluent in Spanish were not
commonplace suggests that the cultural gap between colo-
nizer and colonized was fairly broad. Consequently, native
leaders such as the depicted caciquesprincipales, who under-
stood-and could meet the demands of-the Spanish lead-
ers, were key figures in colonial society.
While actual festive appearances allowed the caciquesprin-
cipales and their parish councils to highlight their culturally
interstitial positions in a public forum, the canvases of the
Corpus Christi procession make permanent these ephemeral
presentations. By documenting the parish performances in a
specific manner, they record the way in which members of
this critical segment of colonial society wished themselves to
be seen. Significantly, they attempt to orchestrate a percep-
tion based only in part on memories of the actual festival.
While the personages themselves, their costume and regalia,
resemble documented practices, the carts copied from Val-
da's account are in this context entirely fictive. It is doubtful
that such processional carts ever rumbled along the streets of
Cuzco's ceremonial center in the seventeenth century. They
are not mentioned by any of numerous eyewitnesses to
Cuzquefio celebrations nor are they listed in inventories of

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church possessions. Further,there are no documents commis-
sioning such cartsuntil the eighteenth century,when Cuzco's
bishop Bernardo Serrada had one made to transport the
consecrated host in the Corpus Christi procession.24 The
statues of parochial patron saints, who are depicted on the
carts in the Corpus Christi series, were traditionally hoisted
atop litters-the contracts for which do exist.25 Valda's
Valencian festivalbook thus provided a glimpse of things not
seen in Cuzco and, when copied onto canvas, the carts
represented the possibilities-rather than the actuali-
ties-of festive display.
In each of the parochial canvases of the Corpus Christi
series, a link is forged between the statue riding on the fictive
cart and the portrayed caciqueprincipal.Their relationship is
established by the fact that the standardborne by the latter is
an intricately embroidered banner of the same material that
clothes the image of the patron saint. The cart, the saint's
statue, and the caciqueprincipalthus form a cohesive unit at
the center of each of the paintings in which they appear. By
means of the linkage, the parish authorities implicitly repre-
sent the means for actualizing this pictorial confection. The
indigenous leaders, by associatingthemselveswith the impres-
sive-and non-Andean-Valencian carts, have aggrandized
the record of their participation. Thus, the carts articulate
the will to acculturate-the will to learn (if not master)
Spanish festive practices for the purposes of spectacle. These
festive conveyances may be seen as embodying the aspira-
tions of the local, indigenous leaders who escort them by
serving as signs of possibility and promises of future accom-
plishments.
Hanging on the walls of a parish church, the painted
images of Cuzco's Corpus Christiprocession, including those
which contain the copied carts, reached both native constitu-
encies and the Spanish colonial authorities (who were them-
selves featured in various canvases of the series). To the
Andean audience, the processional carts both suggested the
possibilities of festive performance and engendered pride in
the parish leaders who made these pictorial promises. To the
Spanish authorities, familiarwith the famous rocasof Valen-
cia as well as festive carts used frequently in most Spanish
processions, the carts would have appeared as pledges of
magnificent mimicries to come. To both groups as well as to
the heterogeneous populace of seventeenth-century Cuzco,
in general, the carts manifested the potential of the native
Christianleaders as cultural mediators. The copied forms, in
their new, colonial pictorial context, thus speak for and
about indigenous parish leaders.
The caciquesprincipales of urban Cuzco were-and needed
to be--concerned with their festive appearances. Spanish
and creole authorities, both civic and religious, gauged their
devotion, and possibly their loyalty, by the lavishness of the
24. J. SantistebanOchoa, ed., "Documentospara la historia del Cuzco
25. See Cornejo, 83-84. While processional carts such as those depicted in
the paintings were probably not used in 17th-centuryCuzco, they were not
unfamiliar to viceregal audiences, since they were constructed for special
ceremonial appearances elsewhere in the viceroyalty. Carts were also the
setting for allegories of triumph in two-dimensional art of the colonial
period. Paintingsof allegorical themes, such as the triumph of the Virgin, the
Eucharist,or religious orders, feature huge multistoriedcarts upon which the
heroes of the Christianchurch as well as profane rulers ride; crushed under
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SPANISH PRINTS AND COLONIAL PERUVIAN PAINTINGS 107
display. While their actual performances, according to extant
descriptions, drew from native traditions (costumes, songs,
and dances) and mimicked European practices (parish func-
tionaries escorting the statuesof patron saints), these painted
records depend heavilyon imagination.This contrastssharply
with the other eleven canvases of the Corpus Christi series,
all of which recall actual celebratoryevents (see, for example,
Fig. 1). All of the canvases of the series show the sponsoring
groups to their advantage, but only the native parishes
introduce obvious fictive elements (i.e., the Valencian carts).
Thus the native parishes appear to go a step further than the
other patrons by picturing their potential rather than just
recalling a past performance. This suggests that Andean
leaders felt pressured to perform beyond their abilities (at
that time), to create a display which rivaled that seen in
Valda's Valencian account. The copied carts, in articulating
the will to Hispanicize, manifest powerful hegemonic cul-
tural forces. They also hint at how shallow and incomplete
that acculturation was. Because the copied carts, as I shall
demonstrate, ultimately fail to fit seamlessly into their new
context, they draw attention to the cultural chasm dividing
Andeans from Europeans. Peering over the brink, we find
that these seventeenth-century,"Hispanicized"Andeans had
some very non-European waysof thinking about and describ-
ing events.
The Uncomfortable Copy
The copied carts of Cuzco are only superficial substitutes for
the litters actually used in local processions. The carts are, in
fact, functional enigmas as most of them are depicted with
only two wheels and none of them are accompanied by any
visible means of locomotion. Even when the prototype shows
four wheels, the native artists copied only two (Figs. 6, 7).
Because the Valencian carts are not represented as part of a
procession, indicating the means of locomotion is unwar-
ranted. When the Cuzquefio painters placed the carts into a
cortege, however, they became curiously static forms inter-
rupting the implied motion of the parade. Additionally, by
reducing the size of the Valencian carts relative to human
figures, the Andean artists have rendered them nonfunc-
tional (in a practical sense) as anything but elaborate pedes-
tals for statues or miniature human figures. Thus, for the
most part, the Valencian carts appear detached from the
procession and fit uneasily into the colonial Andean context.
Only the artist of S. Sebastifn has attempted to integrate the
copied conveyance into Cuzco's cortege (Fig. 4). In this
painting, a youth, who does not appear in the Valencian
image, has grasped the back of the cart and appears to be
pulling himself on board. While he provides a tentative link
between the cartand the procession, his miniaturizedpropor-
the mighty wheels are symbolsof heresy and the underworld.See T. Gisbert,
Iconografia y mitos indigenos en el arte, La Paz, 1980, 80-82, fig. 180; eadem,
"Lafiesta y la alegorfa en el virreinatoPeruano,"in El arteefimeroen el mundo
hispdnico,Mexico, 1983, 162-66; J. de Mesa and T. Gisbert, Escultura
virreinalen Bolivia, La Paz, 1972, 251; and Mesa and Gisbert, 1985, 217-18,
235. Their associationwith triumphs (especiallypictorial triumphs)may have
made the carts even more attractiveto the sponsors of the five Corpus Christi
canvases.
108 ART BULLETIN MARCH 1996 VOLUME LXXVIII NUMBER 1
tions succeed only in accentuating the disjunction between
the two.
The artistworking for the parish of S. Blas, by introducing
supernatural effects into his depiction, alienates the cart
from its surroundings more distinctly than do any of the
other parochial canvases (Fig. 6). He has transformed the
aureole of the dove of the Holy Spirit in his Valencian model
into a beam of light emitted from the bird's beak to
illuminate dramaticallythe image of the Annunciate Virgin
inside the templet; at the same time, the angel Gabriel, held
aloft in the model by a cloud-cloaked mechanism, floats free
of all supportive devices in the copy. Thus, the painter
depicts the Annunciation as though it were an event taking
place on a processional cart rather than a representation of
that event which had been erected on a cart for celebratory
purposes. This underscores the fact that the native artists
had never seen the Valencian conveyances or their equiva-
lents, and were not working from observation and recollec-
tion.
Inevitably,the coherence of the Valencian carts is compro-
mised in the Andean context. For example, the cart of
Santiago parish repeats the Valencian crowned lion on the
prow, as well as the bearded image of Saint Jerome seated
with book and pen (Figs. 8, 9). Jerome is the patron saint of
the guild of silkweavers,which sponsored the Valencian cart,
and the lion is his traditional companion.26While Jerome's
appearance on the silk weavers' cart is logical, he is an
enigmatic presence on the cart repesenting a parish church
dedicated to Saint James. Presumably, this pairing would
have seemed odd to the colonists, who were familiarwith the
function of processional carts as mobile tableaux, just as it
has to modern scholars.27To those of Spanish descent, the
processional cart was a conveyance to be "read."The scene
on the Valencian cart could be expected to refer to the
celebration of the Immaculate Conception and to the spon-
sor of the cart; the latter was usually accomplished by means
of a reference to the sodality's patron saint. The fictive carts
of Cuzco, on the other hand, do not stage meaningful
tableaux, and in many ways have ceased to function as their
models were intended to do. Note, for example, how the
body of the Valencian municipal cart is decorated with
carved hieroglyphs (Fig. 11). Such hieroglyphs referred, by
way of symbols, to the religious celebration. In his copy, the
Andean artist eliminated the hieroglyphs in favor of decora-
tive shields, and, in so doing, denied (whether willfully or,
more likely, through ignorance) the original cart part of its
traditional signifying presence.
While the alterations made during the copying process
stripped the Valencian models of some of their original
26. Valda, 521-22.
27. Unaware of the printed prototype, Mariategui, 1951 (as in n. 9), 29,
argued that the seated saint on the Santiago parish cart, even with the lion in
close proximity,could be identified as Saint Isidore, the Spanish doctor of the
church, who wrote about the life of Saint James. Valda, 522, identifies the
figure as SaintJerome, and there is nothing to suggest that the Andean artist
intended to alter his model so as to change this identification.
28. Temporary arches appear in seven of the Corpus Christi canvases,
decorated with ribbons, mirrors, paintings (still lifes and landscapes),
bouquets of flowers and plumes, repousse plates, and banners. Atop each of
the arches is a thematic display featuring small statues and, in some cases,
templets. Several contracts in the Departmental Archives of Cuzco confirm
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meaning, they did not render the carts meaningless. When
converted into supports for some of Cuzco's parochial
patron saints and set afloat in a sea of unmistakably local
detail, the carts become manifestations of the abilities of the
caciquesprincipales.In each canvas the meaning of the cart is
achieved through the presence of the standard-bearing
caciqueprincipal;the cart represents the conceivable future as
a complement to the standard-bearer'sevocation-through
his costume--of the past. This juxtaposition of cacique
principaland copied cart creates meanings uniquely suited to
colonial circumstancesand Andean usages.
By inserting these curious, nonfunctional carts into what
purports to be a painted record of Cuzco's Corpus Christi
procession, the Andean patrons and artists have drawn
attention to the contrived nature of this record. In fact, the
copied carts confound the painters'reportage and contradict
the documentary mode of the series as a whole. This is
surprising in view of the degree to which the artists have
endeavored to record a specific time and place. Identifiable
architecturelocates each of the segments of the procession in
the ceremonial center of Cuzco. The cathedral,Jesuit church,
and Mercedarian church-all of which are depicted in
various of the canvases-are still recognizable today. The
large arcaded edifices and grand houses seen in the back-
grounds of many of the pictures would have been familiarto
those living in Cuzco in the second half of the seventeenth
century as well. What were clearly intended as identifiable
portraitsof some of the celebrants, both in the cortege and in
the audience, also locate the procession temporally and
spatially.Even the caricaturedspectators are localized owing
to the specificity of native costuming. The fauna depicted
likewise situate the procession in an Andean environment-
monkeys appear as pets and tropical birds of different
species are featured in a number of the canvases.
Although Valda's book contains images of elaborate tem-
porary altars and a triumphal arch, the Andean artists did
not copy any of these impressive constructions. The tempo-
rary arches and altars that they depicted appear to be much
like those that were actually erected in colonial Cuzco for
Corpus Christi (see, for example, Fig. 1).28 Such details unify
the seriallysegmented procession and confirm the interest in
documentation which has been so discussed in the scholarly
literature. It is thus significant that the copied carts are a
contradiction of the painters' documentary efforts. The
substitution of the carts in Valda's account for "realistic"
representations of the litters actually borne in Cuzquefio
processions deserves analysis,for it snags the carefullywoven
fabric of painterly reportage.29 In the parish canvases, it is
the pictorial tension between the experienced event and
the construction of such arches. Contractsfor temporaryaltars also coincide
with the altars that appear in eight of the canvases of the Corpus Christi
series. For published contracts,see Cornejo, 266, 298; and Mesa and Gisbert,
1985, 222-26.
29. One canvasof the Corpus Christiseries does feature a costumed native
standard-bearer leading a litter rather than a cart. As I have argued
elsewhere, he is the head of the sodalitydevoted to Cuzco'spatron, the Virgin
Mary, in an image known as La Linda ("The PrettyOne"), and possibly the
leader of an Andean "parish"that was part of the cathedral(but distinct from
the organization of the parishes for Spaniards). In formal terms, the
presentation is consistent with that of the other sodalities portrayed in the

fictive carts, between memory and imagination, that fore-
grounds the activity of Andeans in the creation of colonial
culture.
Ironically, through the act of copying from Valda's book,
the Corpus Christi artists departed dramatically from the
documentary discourse that governs it. Valda's account is an
example of European festival reportage, which was a popular
European-and European colonial-literary genre wherein
celebrations were recorded as their events unfolded, with
acute attention to details of the display and distinguished
participants involved.30 Prints that sometimes accompanied
festival descriptions were intended to complement the docu-
mentary effort by recording the sights and thereby helping
transform the reader into a witness after the event. Because
festivals were evidence of the devotion expressed through
lavish expenditure--of time, labor, and resources-by the
leaders of a community, books recording them underscore
their importance. Exaggeration and hyperbole are typical of
the genre.31 Panegyrics such as "the finest/most lavish/most
curious display ever seen" are ubiquitous in the texts. While
such accounts attempt to orchestrate perception, their essen-
tially truthful nature is critical to the genre. In fact, the most
basic tenet of any festival text is that it records an experi-
enced event as it actually happened. These accounts were
held to contain eyewitness reports, and their success de-
pended on their credibility; blatant untruths would unravel
their raison d'etre.
True to the genre, Valda describes the Valencian festivities
in detail, while images animate his text. Likewise, numerous
accounts record colonial Peruvian festivals. While it is pos-
sible that the artists of the Corpus Christi series were familiar
with such reportage in general, we know that they must have
had access to Valda's account specifically. With this book in
hand, they could not have failed to appreciate certain
similarities between their project and Valda's. They too
intended to make permanent an ephemeral celebration,
preserving selected moments and the activities of certain
celebrants. The localizing details of costuming, social types,
and architecture that they included in the paintings insured
that the community groups and civic leaders who sponsored
the display were credited. These details also served to assure
the viewer, as Valda assures his readers, that the artist
(reporter) was an eyewitness to the event portrayed (de-
scribed). The paintings of Cuzco's Corpus Christi procession
also document it in a certain way-a putatively continuous
linear narrative from the beginning of the cortege to its end.
When hung on the walls of a parish church, the canvases
combine to form a serialized vision of a local procession,
complete with recognizable architecture and people. While
Corpus Christi series and unlike those of the independent Andean parishes.
See Dean, 161, 235-36.
30. It was a Spanish practice in this and earlier periods to make records,
usually in the form of written texts, of spectacularfestivals. Most commonly,
the celebrations recorded were "extraordinary,"that is, not part of the
"ordinary"cycle, but special productions, rather, to commemorate impor-
tant occasions. Typically, these texts would be sent to higher authorities, or
published, so as to reach an even wider audience. In this way the time and
expense invested in an ephemeral event would be preserved for posterityand
made availablefor absent superiors to "witness"vicariously.See J. Alendra y
Mira, Relaciones de solemnidadesyfiestas puiblicasde Espaila, Madrid, 1903, for a
list of many of the festival accounts composed in Spain during the 17th
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SPANISH PRINTS AND COLONIAL PERUVIAN PAINTINGS 109
there are, of course, many significant distinctions between
texts and pictures, in these particular aspects the paintings
parallel literary accounts, recording and documenting a city
in its festive finery.
In general, the documentary mode utilized in festival
reportage is a convention that structures perception and
functions as a contract between the witness/reporter and the
audience. In the five parochial canvases of Cuzco's Corpus
Christi procession, the painters (presumably at the patrons
request) broke that contract. The fictive carts compromise
the essential premise of reportage-that what is recorded is
what the reporter witnessed-and call into question the
operation of European documentary practices in this con-
text. The acculturative effect of Valda's book is mitigated by
the Andean interpretation of it. By copying Valda's carts, the
patrons and artists dismissed the essential premise of festival
reportage and asked viewers to accept their vision, created in
paint on canvas, in sharp contrast to the lived and remem-
bered event. In so doing, the paintings make a claim on the
viewer's memory of a local, experienced event as well as on
his or her imagination. They offer both a vision of what has
occurred as well as a vision of what might potentially occur
(through the agency of the caciquesprincipales, of course).
It should be noted, however, that the parish canvases
contradict themselves only when read lineally. In offering
this glimpse of the past and the possible future simulta-
neously, they may manifest an essentially Andean notion of
time. Rather than conceiving of time as progressing lineally
from past to present to future (as do Europeans), Andeans
(like many other peoples) hold time to be cyclical.32 The past
and the future have something in common-they are both
not present. As simultaneous representations of events that
both have taken and may eventually take place, the paintings
offer a meaningful and significant glimpse of cyclical time. In
fact, the Corpus Christi procession, as an annual event,
makes this sort of projection logical. The pictorial contradic-
tions we perceive between "real" and fictive forms are a
product of European conventions governing documenta-
tion; it would appear unwise to impose these conventions on
a reading of the Corpus Christi paintings. Clearly, the native
hand and mind were influenced-but far from controlled-by
the acculturative pressures of political domination.
Conclusion
This examination of how prints from Valda's account were
used in Peruvian canvases indicates that, at least in this
particular case, European images provided only the models
for specific forms; they were not the models for the composi-
tions in which these forms appear, much less for the Corpus
century. See also S. Carreres Zacares, Ensayo de una bibliografia de libros de
fiestas celebradas en Valencia y su antiguo reino, Valencia, 1925, which docu-
ments, for Valenciaalone, 798 books of festivalsdating from 1481 to 1885.
31. A. Bonet Correa,"Lafiesta barrocacomo praicticadel poder," in El arte
efimero en el mundo hispdnico, Mexico, 1983, 51.
32. For a discussion of Andean concepts of time, history, and the future,
see G. Delran C., "Una visi6n de los vencidos: El sentido de la historia segun
tradiciones campesinas de Paucartambo(Cusco, Peri)," AllpanchisPhutur-
inqa,vi, 1974, 13-28; R. T. Zuidema, "Mythand History in Ancient Peru,"in
The Logic of Culture,ed. I. Rossi, New York, 1982, 150-75; and C. Allen,
"PatternedTime: The MythicHistory of a PeruvianCommunity,"Journal of
Latin American Lore, x, no. 2, 1984, 151-73.
110 ART BULLETIN MARCH 1996 VOLUME LXXVIII NUMBER 1
Christi series as a whole. Clearly, "copying" needs to be
contextualized before the levels at which mimicry operates
can be appreciated. The structuresthat render copied forms
meaningful both in their originary and secondary formats
deserve close analysis. Here we have seen that through
copying the painted record of the Corpus Christi procession
in Cuzco was rendered more "Valencian"only superficially.
At a deeper level, the Valencian carts became signs of
possibility, signs perhaps of a promised future evoked in
images of an experienced past. Such usage is at odds with the
European documentary discourse out of which the copied
images were taken. The inclusion of fictive carts may mani-
fest a lack of understanding of the documentarymode on the
part of Andean sponsors and artists or, perhaps, its willful
dismissal. Either way, this unique version of festival report-
age can be attributed to the activity of Andeans who,
metaphorically,adopted European language but ignored (or
dismissed) its syntax. In these five canvases the copied carts
have been inscribed in a colonial Andean text; one of the
subtexts is the use of European models by Andeans for their
own purposes. The active presence of Andeans, as interpret-
ers of European visual culture, is observed in these painted
accounts of their participation in the Corpus Christi proces-
sion. To the native leaders of parish councils, the canvases
provided a means of characterizing themselves and their
position in the community, and also an opportunity to show
what they could accomplish. Through costume they tied
themselves to a proud past; through the copied carts they
alluded to their future potential. In so doing, they created (or
at least must have hoped to create) a future for themselves as
vital mediators between Spanish authorities and the less-
acculturatedAndean parishioners.
In opting for a visionary record, Andeans produced a
superficial mimesis, but remained far outside European
significatory structures. Thus, Andeans were clearly not
passive consumers of Valda's account of a Valencian festival.
They actively interpreted it and rendered it meaningful to
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themselves. In the process, the Valencian carts became
Andean, as creative in the use made of them as they are
derivativein form. This transformationhas important politi-
cal implications. It means that colonized Andeans did not
simply absorb and mime European cultural practices. It
means that, while colonized Andeans relied on hegemonic
cultural constructs (such as religious processions and oil
paintings on canvas), they generated effective responses and
retained their own way of understanding themselves and
their world. And they did this under social and political
circumstances that they neither produced nor fully con-
trolled. The copied carts are thus not uncomplicated signs of
Hispanicization. Their presence in the paintings of Cuzco's
Corpus Christiprocession foregrounds the interpretiveactiv-
ity of nativeAndeans in colonial Peru and confirms that there
is more to a copy than meets the eye.
Frequently Cited Sources
Cornejo Bouroncle, J., Derroteros de arte cuzquenio:Datos para una historia del
arte en el Perti, Cuzco, 1960.
Dean, C. S., "Painted Images of Cuzco's Corpus Christi:Social Conflict and
CulturalStrategy in Viceregal Peru,"Ph.D. diss., Universityof California,
Los Angeles, 1990.
Mesa, J. de, and T. Gisbert, 1982, Historia de la pintura cuzquefia, 2d ed., Lima.
1985, Arquitectura andina: 1530-1830, historia y andlisis, La Paz.
Pedraza, P., Barroco efimero en Valencia, Valencia, 1982.
Valda, J., Solemnesfiestas que celebr6 Valencia a la Inmaculada Concepcidn de la
Virgen Maria por el supremo decretode N. S. Pontifice Alexandro VII, Valencia,
1663.
Carolyn S. Dean received her Ph.D. in pre-Columbian art history
in 1990 from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work
focuses on the visual arts of the Andean highlands, particularly the
Inka capital of Cuzco, both beforeand after the Spanish invasion
(1532) [Benjamin F. Porter College, University of California,
Santa Cruz,
Calif. 95064].