Materiality: Making Spanish America

Mayer Center Symposium XVIII, Readings in Latin American Studies
This volume collects the work of nine scholars who shared their research at the 2018 symposium presented by the Frederick and Jan Mayer Center for Ancient and Latin American Art at the Denver Art Museum. This international group of scholars assembled to explore the theme of materiality in the Americas. The chapters consider materiality from a wide variety of angles, including hagiographic martyr portraiture, arms and armor in Spanish America, religious sculpture, the interpretation of the tocapu in post conquest Peru, and collections assembled both in the Americas and of goods sent back to Europe.
Thomas B. F. Cummins (Harvard University) explores how tocapus were altered to coincide and intersect with European forms and objects after the Spanish invasion of Peru.
Emmanuel Ortega (University of Illinois Chicago) provides insights into the material world of Franciscan hagiographic portraiture.
Donna Pierce (independent scholar/formerly Denver Art Museum) focuses on the commercial exchange of Asian luxury goods at the northern border of the Spanish Empire.
Rafael Ramos Sosa (Universidad de Sevilla) considers the role of sculpture in the daily life of viceregal Lima.
María Paola Rodríguez Prada (Museo Nacional de Colombia) comments on the founding of the National Museum of Colombia in the 1820s, shortly after independence from Spain.
Olaya Sanfuentes (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) presents a case study of Bishop Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañon's index of Peruvian natural and cultural history.
Gabriela Siracusano (National Research Council, Argentina; Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero; and Universidad de Buenos Aires) examines the aesthetic parameters and material traditions of indigenous artists producing religious art.
Jonathan Tavares (Art Institute of Chicago) uses rare surviving objects and written historical accounts to present an overview of arms and armor in Spanish America.
Antonio Urquízar-Herrera (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid) considers the role that artifacts collected and sent to Spain by early explorers played in building an image of the Americas.