Contents
- Year of publication: 2012
- Source: Show
- Pages: 3-8
- DOI Address: -
- PDF: sal/2/sal2toc.pdf
Revisiting zoomorphic order: decorative design in the Lake Titicaca
A special kind of wood architecture order for retables and pulpits is developed around the Lake Titicaca. It is possible, to consider it as a part of a regional itinerant aesthetic, i.e., zoomorphic order. Datable between the end of 17th century and 18th century, it is one of the stylems that define hybrid baroque, probably inspired in engraved sources. The above mentioned order already had been identified and documented 40 years ago by the architects José de Mesa and Teresa Gisbert. Nevertheless, to think again about this topic can throw new light to what was already said, extending certain aspects. I especially want to lead to the end one of their hypotheses: This column is also a mannerist survival since it is inspired by treatise writers, so Palladio in his book ‘Quarter of Architecture’ treats Nerva’s temple, on chapter VIII, showing a capital with horses, and Sagredo has a capital with heads of sheeps. This conjecture is founded on the traffic of architecture treatises, but especially on the idea of inspiration and not a faithful reproduction of the engraving sources, since there was only a few holders of those books. On the other hand, it was more possible to have copies in diverse degrees due to their transformations because of transposition process. With that idea, I allow myself to advance on the topic from a new perspective. It is to consider the contribution of a contemporary referrer, already well known and with a great influence in continental Europe in the beginning of the development of these hybrid works: Jean Bérain the Elder (1640–1711). In his repertoire, we find his proposals on variants of capitals of columns and pilasters. Here the arabesque subordinates the acanthus and there is a wide development of fantastic animals or semihuman beings of a classic mythological character – that shows us an evident mannerist influence. I will focus on the research of this order, in two cases: gospel altarpiece in Pomata’s transept and Yunguyo’s major altar and pulpit, two Dominican churches in the former colonial Chucuito in Peru.
Jesuit church in Cusco as a model shaping the architecture of the region
At the end of the first half of the 17th century, a “European” character of Peruvian architecture was loosened. In 1650, an earthquake in Cusco destroyed existing buildings and, as the result, proved to be an impetus for building movement intensification. One of a few buildings which were not destroyed was a still unfinished Cusco cathedral, which later played a unique role in baroque architecture development in Peru. The temple was undoubtedly one of the first productions which could be associated with a baroque style. However, without diminishing the significance of the object, it is worth emphasizing other (not less important) sources of baroque architecture in the region. Another temple that undoubtedly influenced the shaping of a new trend in local building was a Jesuit church in Cusco. Mentioned as an important object for Peruvian architecture of the colonial period, it is usually treated as an element in the sequence of baroque architecture development in Peru. It is worth emphasizing the role that the temple played in creation of certain architectural models, which were present in Peruvian building of the late 17th and 18th centuries. Three analysed elements are: a facade composition (influence on the architecture of Cusco: San Pedro, Nuestra Señora de Belén, San Sebastián and the region – temples in Ayaviri, Asillo, Mamara, Huaquira, Puno); a design, a spatial layout and a structural system (similarity to a Jesuit church in Cusco of the temples of San Pedro in Cusco, San Pedro in Juli, Santiago de Pomata, Pisco); decorative-ornamental motifs – towers’ finials (San Pedro in Cusco) or columns’ decoration (Santa Cruz in Juli).
Beyond the Pacific. Oriental objects in churches situated in today’s departments of Cundimarca, Boyacá and Santander (Colombia)
The article presents the research on oriental elements of church furnishing, which constitute the heritage of missionary and evangelization churches (iglesiasdoctrineras) in New Granada of the early 17th century. Thanks to extensive archival sources stored in Archivo General de la Nación de Colombia (Colombia, Bogota) as well as Archivo General de Indias (Spain, Seville) it is possible to demonstrate the existence of numerous objects of oriental origins. Oriental objects came to the area of Tierra Firmevia a sea route connecting Seville with territories belonging to the Spanish crown in America (Carrera de Indias), which was used yearly by an Indian fleet, and owing to a transpacific route connecting Spanish dominions in Asia with territories of New Spain. The latter route was called Galeón de Manila, Nao de China or Galeón de Acapulco. Twice a year, ships chose it to travel across the Pacific, ensuring communication between Spanish East Indies and American dominions of the crown. Oriental products and objects spread over the area of New Granada. Some of them became furnishing elements of modest missionary churches situated far from big colonial cities. Among the most important objects, one may find silk textiles, but there are also other objects (particularly fabric) of diverse character, whose presence in researched temples is confirmed by archival sources.
La tradición del modelo basilical Europeo en la arquitectura sacra LatinoAmericana en la época colonial
El artículo aborda dos problemas: por un lado, la cuestión del funcionamiento del modelo de la basílica europea en las colonias de América Latina y por otro lado, la cuestión de la tradición y funcionamiento del atrio en la arquitectura colonial. Por basílica entiendo en este caso todas las iglesias – sin tener en cuenta sus proporciones – de tres naves en las que la nave principal está iluminada por ventanas ubicadas por encima de las naves laterales, bien en las mismas paredes o bien en la bóveda de la nave principal. El plano basilical es relativamente poco común en América Latina, mucho más frecuentes son proyectos más sencillos como la iglesia de nave única, a menudo con transepto, en ocasiones con una cúpula que acentúa el crucero. El esquema basilical en la arquitectura latinoamericana encontramos en primer lugar en realizaciones catedralicias. Otro grupo de templos donde a menudo se optó por este modelo constructivo son las iglesias conventuales, mayormente objetos en grandes núcleos urbanos que destacan por la presencia de construcciones de este tipo. Analizando la cuestión a gran escala, el terreno más importante para las realizaciones de forma basilical es Nueva España. La gran mayoría de este tipo de fundaciones, tanto catedralicios como conventuales, fue fundada en México. La segunda cuestión que parece interesante, es el tema de la existencia y funcionamiento del atrio en la arquitectura sacra de América Latina. El atrio como elemento arquitectónico de la iglesia está conocido en la arquitectura sacara europea desde la época paleocristiana, pero va desapareciendo en las realizaciones sacras europeas de épocas posteriores. La popularidad del atrio en América Latina puede explicar la específi ca situación social del Nuevo Mundo, que en los siglos XVI y XVII difería mucho de la situación en Europa, acercándose en los primeros años de la conquista más bien a la realidad de la época paleocristiana que a los mecanismos que formaban la sociedad renacentista. La principal misión, desde el punto de vista de la religión, era la evangelización de la inmensa populación indígena, la divulgación de la nueva fe. En este contexto el atrio resultó ser una herramienta muy útil para la evangelización, lo que le aseguró una gran popularidad.
Cultural dynamics of the society in the context of processes of formation and disintegration of Benedictine properties in Rio de Janeiro state (Benedictinos Fluminenses) in 1590–1820
Thanks to Edith Stein’s phenomenology, philosophy (including philosophy of culture) cannot be perceived as a static knowledge, unconnected with other fields of life and science. Based on such an assumption, research on cultural dynamics associated with functioning of the Benedictine order, which is presented in this article, has been divided according to three theoretical problems. One of them is the appearance of Benedictines (the first ones in Brazil) in Rio de Janeiro state, treated not only in literal, physical sense, but also as a spiritual phenomenon. The next part focuses on territorial borders – the area belonging to the order and connected with its functioning. It describes donations which contributed to the creation of cohesive area of the order’s properties as well as its activity. The last aspect that enables depiction of Benedictines’ presence in a social as well as territorial and cultural context is existence and functioning of the house of slaves (la casa de esclavos benedictina fluminense). What is particularly worth describing in this respect is a specific relationship between “a master” and “a slave” (señor y siervo) and an opportunity for individual development of some slaves in accordance with their interests, as was the case of a master of painting, Antonio Teles, or organists, Matias (known only by his first name) and José Campistas. Without emphasizing a relationship between human actions and the area of a social group’s activity, it would be impossible to point at the contribution of an institution to the heritage of the region to which it belonged. Dynamic presence of the order is illustrated with photos of São Bento church as well as a Benedictine monastery in Rio de Janeiro, being one of the most distinguished monuments of the metropolis, which is not only the evidence of bygone splendour, but also a centre of present Benedictine activity
Una peruana en Polonia. The presence of Saint Rose of Lima images in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The popularity of Isabel Flores de Oliva, commonly known as Saint Rose of Lima, in the Latin America iconosphere has endured since the 17th century and is still spectacular. Images of this Third Order of St. Dominic member proliferated soon after her demise (1617), not only in the New World, but also in Europe, multiplied in countless cheap copies. Nevertheless, her person also inspired renowned artists as famous as Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, sevillian Juan de Valdes Leal or cordoban Antonio Palomino. Even before canonisation (1671), the fame of the Peruvian ascetic reached the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, due to the efforts of the Order of Preachers, i.a. Tomasz Tomicki O.P., who translated into Polish the Latin biography of Isabel Flores de Oliva written by Leonard Hansen O.P. Tomicki’s book, which was printed in Cracow in 1666, contains the first known Polish image of the future saint. The year of canonisation is also a date of establishing first devotional paintings for Dominican churches in the major cities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. An oil painting attributed to Tomasz Muszyński in Warsaw St. Hyacinth’s Church presents St. Rose among other Dominicans active in the New World: Martin de Porres, John Macías and Vicente Bernedo. Paintings for an altar in St. Nicholas church in Gdańsk (“Saint Rose with the Child Jesus” and “The Vision of Saint Rose”) were made by Andreas Stech, a popular artist active in this city. Apart from that, we know quite a numerous range of anonymous devotional images of St. Rose of Lima – or at least pieces passing for her images. “The Catalogues of Art Monuments in Poland” – an inventory published by the Polish Academy of Science Institute of Art – enumerate over a dozen paintings and sculptures devoted to the ascetic from Peru, which can be found in various places within the present borders of Poland: i.a. Brześć Kujawski, Hrubieszów, Klimontów, Kraków, Kraśnik, Mokobody, Markowice, Niwiski, Piaski, Sandomierz, Staszów, Turobin, Zaręby Kościelne. However, not all art historians agree with such recognition; there are arguments that in some cases we are faced with images of St. Catherine of Siena rather than St. Rose. In spite of these doubts, it is proved that Isabel Flores de Oliva gained her own place in the iconography of Polish Dominicans and played a significant role in their efforts to promote certain forms of spirituality.
Colonial representations in New Granade and aurea mediocritas
The history of colonial art in Colombia is based on the idea of material poverty. This idea worked as a founding directive that conditioned historical perspective to a captatio benevolentiae exercise. As a consequence historians tried to explain that creative and material inferiority from a formalist paradigm, leaving unsolved many other historical problems. This essay attempts to unveil some of the theories underneath this historical perspective, analyzing some of the main New Grenade researchers.
Art Déco in architecture of Colonia Hipódromo Condesa, Cd. de México–Ciudad de Puebla: the comparative study
Art Deco was the largest decorative style of the 1920’s and perfect expression of extravagant Paris during that decade. It emerged as a force opposing the historicist academic trend, both in architectural and industrial design that expanded globally and despite the opinions and being ignored by researchers and architecture historians. This paper aims to show through comparative photographic coincidences and discrepancies in two different geographic locations in Mexico, and the features demonstrated in Art Deco style in architecture as a response to meet the needs of architectural spaces, emphasizing housing (among others) for the middle class that developed in that historical moment, as a result of questioning about what strategy would meet its formal characteristics. Formally structured according to the following content: Introduction, background, Art Deco architecture in Mexico, in the Colonia Hipordromo-Condesa and in the city of Puebla concluding with the photographic comparison showing the similarities regarding this style.
“The Cure of Madness” (installation art of Javier Téllez)
In 1996 Javier Téllez exhibited his art installation titled “The Cure of Madness” in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas. Its aesthetics and ideological contents comprises an analytical study of the border area and the complex mutual relation that exists between the two seemingly contradictory phenomena: sanity and madness. In the above-mentioned work of art, Téllez gives emphasis to a confusion between a psychiatric hospital space and the one of a museum, assuming that there are significant similarities between them. The installation is therefore an attempt to search for forms through which art appropriates the exhibition’s space in order to face the norm violation, however not for therapeutic reasons, but to come to terms with the space of “the other” as well as with his or her “otherness” in the complex polyphony of voices. Téllez finds a theoretical starting point in the thought of Michel Foucault and various psychiatric concepts along with their interpretations throughout history, passing successively from the materialistic world view (insanity embodied by a stone), through the purely spiritual discourses/concepts (madness as an individual inner experience) to finally transform the notion of madness into a real aesthetic awareness and a discursive phenomenon. In other words, the progressive materialization of certain poetics reveals itself in this process in its dialogic, polyphonic and carnival forms. It has however nothing to do with any therapeutic catharsis, for Téllez seems not to pursue such a goal. To enter this universe, one is inevitably obliged to respect its logic, and so is one’s artistic creation. Hence, the exhibition of Téllez finds itself among the most relevant modern art discourses in Venezuela. This masterpiece full of expressionist influences and based on various drawing forms and techniques, should primarily be studied in terms of an insightful analysis of the above-mentioned art installation as a specific subversive search within the scope of various forms of conceptual art, undertaken by the art that, Carlos Dimeo itself does not aspire to be recognized as conceptual but pursues elaboration of new theoretical models and concepts. Due to his cinematography connections, Téllez considers his proposition from a film-maker point of view and this way he is able to introduce certain camera perspective to the installation. In the following writings (essay), the film motifs appear in the preliminary part, which however turns out to be enough for the artist to carry out the deconstruction of the sculptural profoundness, thanks to which he can elaborate his work perfectly. The attitude of Téllez towards art is definitely not the contemplative one, but the participative one. In such an approach, art is believed to be a great human experience which does not need to flatter itself excessively. On the contrary, it enables us to gain a deep insight into ourselves as well as to create new goals and space for dialogue within our discourses. According to Téllez, art helps to live the good life and to understand the attitudes of people that we meet on our way.
Graffiti in Latin America
The article concerns the outline of the history of graffiti in Latin America. In the first part the author discusses the general genesis of graffiti and its development in the New World, and in the second part focuses on the example of Brazil. Characterizing a complex phenomenon of graffiti, the author shows its specific character in the metropolitan realities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The morphological analysis (techniques, compositions, divisions) and the analysis of the physiology of functioning (theme, motivation, perception) allow the reader to discover the specific character of graffiti and to understand why Brazil on the South American continent, just like the United States in the world, has become a leading place of the development of a subculture which stands for graffiti. The street painting also in this region is placed between vandalism and art. The Brazilian specific character of graffiti is its expression and meaning of communication, showing serious social-political problems troubling the inhabitants of districts, who have no other opportunities to express their often right, full of rebellion opinions.
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