Artisanal agency, anonymity, and power Fiorina H. CaristRANO-BAKER Why is this discussion of property important? Partly because it describes the ways in which identification with things leads to the structuring and ordering of societies and of individuals in those societies. In different ways and to different degrees all societies are based on ownership of things. Dominance, power and social difference all depend on things and access to things.! ‘The two previous essays—“The secret to success: urbanization and luxury decoration at the place Louis4 Grand” by Frédéric Dassas and “The Spanish colonial world in microcosm: a Puebla desk-and- bookcase” by Dennis Carr—examine exquisite objects commissioned by elite patrons and handcrafted by artisans for two different though intersecting agendas, While Mexican artisans harness external styles and techniques to manufacture new traditions and identities, French, artisans are deployed to proselytize French craftsmanship and industry. In the Mexican case, influences flow inward as a new political entity distinguishes itself from other communities. In contrast, the French example gazes outward to glorify the French monarchy and aspire toward grander cultural hegemony. Despite disparities, both cases deploy artisanal expertise as agents of empire. On the one hand, French ornament and scientific advances are circulated via artisanal praxis from the center to the peripheries for cultural and commercial dominance, On the other hand, Mexican, European, and Asian 1. Tan Hodder, Entangled: an archaeology of the relationships beteecen humans and things (Malden, MA, 2012), p.26. 47ug. Florina HI, Gapistrano-Baker styles and techniques converge in hybrid iterations to distinguish the new colony and celebrate Spain’s overseas domain. In both cases, clite patrons self-consciously promote state styles that exalt power In their expert manufacture of Inxury objects within the prescribed parameters, artisans—some anonymous—become (deliberately or inadvertently) complicit in the ruling elite’s political agenda Garr and Dassas capture in riveting detail the virtuosity of cighteenth-century craftsmen in Mexico and France, revealing intriguing parallels and disparities. The diverse intentions of patrons who commission the objects, artisans who realize their vision in tangible form, and receivers of the finished works are most striking, In the Mexican example, patrons employ the specialized skills of anonymous artisans toward the affirmation of their elevated position within a new transcultural milieu, In France, patrons associated with the monarchy deploy technological advances and the expertise of royal artisans to emulate the powerful center and aspire toward greater global influence for financial gain, While the Mexican dynamic involves interventions that conflate into composite hybrid styles legiti- mizing a new political entity, the French initiative springs from a central locus of power radiating in ever-wider circles in the service of French culture and commerce In his provocative, posthumously published volume on art and agency, Alfred Gell posits an anthropological theory of art in which the act of making objects is seen as an activity that impacts the ideas and actions of others.’ In simplified summary, Gell argues that art objects embody complex intentionalities and mediate social agency. The two essays I address provide felicitously fitting case studies that might be (reviewed in part through the prism of Gell’s intriguing theory of artistic agency. In a similar vein, recent publications such as Histories of ornament: from global to local edited by Giilra Necipogla and Alina Payne examine the form’s impact, in other words what ornament “does.”* Garr’s detailed description of the motifs and mechanics of marguetry and mague expertly employed in the manufacture of a highly decorated desk made in Pucbla, Mexico during the cightecnth century is interwoven with geographic and stylistic genealogies. The desk embodies in material form the organic mutations of entangled 2. Alfred Gell, Art and agency: an anthiopologicaltheary (Oxford, 1998), p.23 3. Histories of ernament: from global to local, ed. Gils Necipogl and Alina Paya (Princeton, NJ, 2016)Artisanal agency, anonymity, and porwer 49 exchanges within the Manila Galleon trade network. As the scholar M. Concepcion Garcia Saiz. asserts, the work of transplanted and local artisans became the material support of a new society that began to recognize itself in its works.' Though mostly anonymous, these craftsmen worked daily in workshops or in their own houses, masters and apprentices living and working closely together. ‘They were ofien related, with trade specializations handed down through gencrations.° It is noteworthy that European artisans and carpenters who had arrived as part of the galleons’ crews quickly established themselves in the newly colonized land, producing houschold goods and furniture and establishing the first guilds.° It has been argued, in fact, that the confluence of idcas, forms, and techniques from Asia, Europe, and Mexico can be considered as some of the first works of a globalized world? While artisanal praxis might be harnessed for colonizing purposes, the potential for resistance and subversion remains. In Peru, local artisans preserved precolonial techniques such as featherwork and Indigenous garment types, which were repurposed within the new colonial context.‘ In Japan, hidden Christian users of imported Chinese figures of the Bodhisattva Guanyin circulating through the galleon trade secretly worshipped the Buddhist images as the Virgin Mary." Artisans operating in the transpacific diaspora dispersed global hybrid styles such as the Sino-Filipino carver Esteban Sampzon, a prominent sculptor working in Argentina in the style of Chinese ivory M, Concepcin Garefa Saiz, “Artisans and artists in Ibero-America from the sixteenth to the eightee y ts in Latin America, 1492-1820, ed. Joseph J. Rishel with Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt (Philadephia, PA, 2006), “Observations on the origin, development, and manufacture in The Arts in Latin America, ed. J. J, Rishel with 80). See also Fernand Braudel, The Wheels S. Suatton-Pruitt, p76 of commerce, civilization and capitalism, 19th-18th century, vol.2, translated by Sian Reynolds (New York, 1982) 7. Large European furniture was often too bulky to import or unsuitable for local conditions, so Indigenous materials were tsed to enalate European styles for the church and clite members of society (Rivas Pérez, “Observations,” p.479) 8. Garcia Saiz, “Artisans and axtiats,” p.04-95, 9. ‘These Chinese figures were known az Maria-Kannon. “Kannon” is the Japanese term for Guanyin, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, “Religious encounters: ‘Christianity in Asia,” in Encounters the meting of Asia and Europe, 1500-1800, ed ‘Anna Jackson and Amin Jailer (London, 2004), p.102-2350 Florina HI, Gapistrano-Baker carvers in Manila." Is the survival of Sampzon’s identity a function of his stature as a master artisan or artist rather than a “mere” craftsman, or is it simply a historical accident? How many other names of artists, master artisans, artisans, and apprentices remain hidden in primary sources awaiting recovery? It has been suggested that the concept of the artist as the term is generally understood today did not exist before the Renaissance, and that there were only anonymous artisans skilled with their hands, and artistes who were intelligent enough to explain their creations.” While so-called “anonymous” crafismen and artisans were likely known by name and reputation during their lifetime, the myth of anonymity persists to the nineteenth and carly twentieth centuries in the study of non-Western cultures. When the art historian Susan ‘Vogel identified the hand of the “Buli Master” in Luba sculpture, for example, Africanists applauded the breakthrough." These instances raise titillating questions to ponder. Does knowing the artisan’s identity strengthen the art historical significance of his/her oeuvre? Does the recovery of one’s name elevate him/her from artisanal anonymity to the stature of artist?" One wonders if artisans were, in fact, aware of their power to shape tastes and corporate identities; is it possible to glean from primary sources whether they might have been consciously complicit in their patrons’ agendas? Or were they merely hired hands executing an imperial vision? And what roles do the communities who receive these handcrafted things play? Are they passive consumers who buy into the visual agenda, or is state-sponsored material culture, made possible by artisanal hands, a reliable barometer of the prevailing zeitgeist? 10. Gauvin Alexander Bailey, “Asia in the arts of colonial Latin America,” in The Arts in Latin America, ed. J. J. Rishel with 8, Stratton-Prui 69. 11. Inn Artisanal Enlightenment: science and the mechanical arts in Old Regime France (New Haven, CT, 2017}, Paola Bertucci argues that the artisan’s power was both needed and feared by the city-state, She notes that there is no eighteenth- century term that identifies the artist in today’s concept. Instead, there was a distinction between the “artisan” whose talents are mechanical and the “artiste” who was talented both manually and intellectually 12, Susan Vogel, The Buli master, and other hands (New York, 1980), 13, In The Body of the artisan: art and experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago, IL, 2004), Pamela H. Smith uses the word “artisan” to emphasize workshop practices and the bodily engagement of handworkers with matter, in opposition to the notion of the “artist” who was regarded highly for hie technica and intellectual innovations