OJEDA, Almerindo. Project for the Engraved Sources of Spanish Colonial Art (PESSCA), 2005-2021.

El Proyecto para el Estudio de las fuentes grabadas del arte colonial (PESSCA por sus siglas en inglés) busca identificar los grabados que sirvieron de modelos al arte producido en las colonias hispano-portuguesas de los siglos XVI y XIX. PESSCA es parte las Humanidades Digitales, pues es un proyecto humanístico que emplea herramientas digitales. Y lo hace en todas las fases de la investigación (búsqueda, adquisición, almacenamiento, procesamiento, y recabación de imágenes, así como la difusión, actualización, y preservación de sus hallazgos). A futuro, PESSCA busca desarrollar un sistema de reconocimiento automático de imágenes que asista en el descubrimiento de los grabados que inspiraron obras de arte coloniales, quizás empleando sistemas de reconocimiento facial o anotación automática de imágenes.

The State Collections of Colonial New Zealand Art: Intertwined Histories of Collecting and Display

<p>This thesis explores the collecting and exhibiting of colonial art (before 1908) by New Zealand's state institutions: the Colonial (later Dominion) Museum; the Alexander Turnbull Library; and the National Art Gallery. It recovers evidence of the provenance of works of art within the state collections and accounts for acquisitions in terms of the ideological interests they serve, interests which reflect the intellectual concerns of the key individuals and the historical and political circumstances within which they worked. It examines how works of art were displayed in the institutions themselves, and in other exhibitions, including international exhibitions, both locally and abroad, from 1865 to 1940. This allows for analysis of the 'use' to which colonial art was put by the state, while investigation of the related contemporary discourse provides evidence of its reception and interpretation by critics and audience. This study employs a variety of analytical strategies, including: the place of class in relation to the colonial art world; the aesthetics of 'space' and the practicalities of exhibition in the colonial period; the shifting ground of what constitutes 'art', in particular 'New Zealand art', in the period under study; and the fluctuating, often problematic, status of much colonial art as both 'information' and as 'art'. Consequently, while informed by international scholarship, this thesis needed to adapt models formed for the explanation of metropolitan museology to accommodate the unique nature of the colonial experience in New Zealand. It concludes that, in contrast to many European institutions, the state was largely content to use New Zealand's art as information - as illustration of the colony's natural wonders and resources - and that no real attempt to define a national art history was initiated until the centennial celebrations of 1940. Significantly, this thesis does not just consider the evolution of one state institution. Rather, it recognises that the histories of New Zealand's cultural institutions - Museum, Gallery and Library - require a consideration of their development in relation to one another. This reveals a history of interconnectedness that reflects the complexity of colonial culture, and which ironically prefigures the challenge posed by colonial art to the postmodern descendent of the Museum andGallery - the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.</p>

The State Collections of Colonial New Zealand Art: Intertwined Histories of Collecting and Display

<p>This thesis explores the collecting and exhibiting of colonial art (before 1908) by New Zealand's state institutions: the Colonial (later Dominion) Museum; the Alexander Turnbull Library; and the National Art Gallery. It recovers evidence of the provenance of works of art within the state collections and accounts for acquisitions in terms of the ideological interests they serve, interests which reflect the intellectual concerns of the key individuals and the historical and political circumstances within which they worked. It examines how works of art were displayed in the institutions themselves, and in other exhibitions, including international exhibitions, both locally and abroad, from 1865 to 1940. This allows for analysis of the 'use' to which colonial art was put by the state, while investigation of the related contemporary discourse provides evidence of its reception and interpretation by critics and audience. This study employs a variety of analytical strategies, including: the place of class in relation to the colonial art world; the aesthetics of 'space' and the practicalities of exhibition in the colonial period; the shifting ground of what constitutes 'art', in particular 'New Zealand art', in the period under study; and the fluctuating, often problematic, status of much colonial art as both 'information' and as 'art'. Consequently, while informed by international scholarship, this thesis needed to adapt models formed for the explanation of metropolitan museology to accommodate the unique nature of the colonial experience in New Zealand. It concludes that, in contrast to many European institutions, the state was largely content to use New Zealand's art as information - as illustration of the colony's natural wonders and resources - and that no real attempt to define a national art history was initiated until the centennial celebrations of 1940. Significantly, this thesis does not just consider the evolution of one state institution. Rather, it recognises that the histories of New Zealand's cultural institutions - Museum, Gallery and Library - require a consideration of their development in relation to one another. This reveals a history of interconnectedness that reflects the complexity of colonial culture, and which ironically prefigures the challenge posed by colonial art to the postmodern descendent of the Museum andGallery - the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.</p>

Brazilian Colonial Art and the Decolonization of Art History

There are at least two ways to think about the term “Brazilian colonial art.” It can refer, in general, to the art produced in the region presently known as Brazil between 1500, when navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed the coastal territory for the Lusitanian crown, and the country’s independence in the early 19th century. It can also refer, more specifically, to the artistic manifestations produced in certain Brazilian regions—most notably Bahia, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro—over the 18th century and first decades of the 19th century. In other words, while denotatively it corresponds to the art produced in the period during which Brazil was a colony, it can also work as a metonym valid to indicate particular temporal and geographical arcs within this period. The reasons for its widespread metonymical use are related, on the one hand, to the survival of a relatively large number of art objects and buildings produced in these arcs, but also to a judicative value: at least since the 1920s, artists, historians, and cultivated Brazilians have tended to regard Brazilian colonial art—in its more specific meaning—as the greatest cultural product of those centuries. In this sense, Brazilian colonial art is often identified with the Baroque—to the extent that the terms “Brazilian Baroque,” “Brazilian colonial art,” and even “barroco mineiro” (i.e., Baroque produced in the province of Minas Gerais) may be used interchangeably by some scholars and, even more so, the general public. The study of Brazilian colonial art is currently intermingled with the question of what should be understood as Brazil in the early modern period. Just like some 20th- and 21st-century scholars have been questioning, for example, the term “Italian Renaissance”—given the fact that Italy, as a political entity, did not exist until the 19th century—so have researchers problematized the concept of a unified term to designate the whole artistic production of the territory that would later become the Federative Republic of Brazil between the 16th and 19th centuries. This territory, moreover, encompassed a myriad of very different societies and languages originating from at least three different continents. Should the production, for example, of Tupi or Yoruba artworks be considered colonial? Or should they, instead, be understood as belonging to a distinctive path and independent art historical process? Is it viable to propose a transcultural academic approach without, at the same time, flattening the specificities and richness of the various societies that inhabited the territory? Recent scholarly work has been bringing together traditional historiographical references in Brazilian colonial art and perspectives from so-called “global art history.” These efforts have not only internationalized the field, but also made it multidisciplinary by combining researches in anthropology, ethnography, archaeology, history, and art history.

Lady of the House: Augustina Meza (ca. 1758–1819), Print Publishing, and the Women of Mexican Late Colonial Art

Using archival records of the Sagrario Metropolitano and material analysis of extant prints, the paper presents the life and work of the only known woman printmaker in viceregal New Spain, María Augustina Meza. It traces Meza and her work through two marriages to fellow engravers and a 50-year career as owner of an independent print publishing shop in Mexico City. In doing so, the paper places Meza’s print publishing business and its practices within the context of artists’ shops run by women in the mid- to late-eighteenth century. The article simultaneously extends the recognized role of women in printing and broadens our understanding of women within the business of both printmaking and painting in late colonial Mexico City. It furthermore joins the scholarship demonstrating with new empirical research that the lived realities of women in viceregal New Spain were more complex than traditional, stereotypical visions of women’s lives have previously allowed.

Colonial Art of New Granada (Colombia)

The history of colonial art in the New Kingdom of Granada, which includes present-day Colombia (the primary focus of this bibliography) and parts of modern-day Ecuador and Venezuela, starts with the chroniclers and travelers who registered works of architecture and art through the 19th century. In 1886 the inaugural Exhibition of the School of Fine Arts recognized the artistic value of religious works. At the beginning of the 20th century, the first inventories were made and inquiries about painters and sculptors began. In 1931 Juan Contreras Marqués de Lozoya wrote The History of Hispanic Art (Historia del arte hispánico), which included Spanish America for the first time. By the mid-20th century, foreign professors had visited Colombia to include art from the New Kingdom of Granada in general art history books on the Spanish Americas. Mario Buschiazzo recommended to local authorities and the general public the recognition of original and autonomous works of architecture and the creation of Institutes for Aesthetic Research. The 1960s mark the beginning of the systematic study of art and architecture, and later the iconographic and iconological method was introduced, which led to new interpretations. In 1974 the Colombian government created the National Restoration Center, and in 1975 the Spanish publishing house Salvat published the first Colombian Art History (Historia del arte colombiano), with contributions by several national scholars. The meeting on Latin American Baroque, held in Rome in 1980, guided and stimulated new research. Silvia Arango, in 1990, wrote The History of Architecture in Colombia. At the beginning of the new millennium, art history studies became more specialized. Reviews of the past have led to the careful re-examination of visual models, written sources, and their interpretation. This research has highlighted how the indigenous past, rich in cosmogonies, facilitated the reception of European culture. The first studies on textiles, altarpieces, silverware, jewelry, furniture, ceramics, engraving, and painting, together with analyses of gilders and trade associations, have now been produced. The names of new artists and artistic trades are being discovered. In sister disciplines a similar development has occurred: in architecture, considering new interpretations about constructions and urbanism, scholars have turned their attention to doctrine temples, exchange houses, bridges, and mills. Archaeology is providing useful data for historical research on buildings, urban planning, goldsmithing, and ceramics. Thus, researchers have revealed that the spectrum of artistic production is more complex than originally thought. It was not limited to evangelization through persuasive works, but also supplied the aesthetic and utilitarian requirements of a new society in formation. But colonial art has not yet been properly registered or catalogued. Much remains to be investigated about the artists and their works, and the techniques, materials, and regional contributions are not fully known.

The Universal Museum

This article addresses the long-term impact of colonialism on Europe’s internal structures and on its self-positioning in a global context. Using the 2015 refugee crisis as a focal point and centering the German example, the author explores the complex relationship between memory discourses and visions of Germany’s and Europe’s postunification future. The author argues that the erasure of colonial violence from the continent’s collective memory has a direct, negative impact on its ability to let go of a racialized identity that is in increasing tension with Europe’s actual multiracial and multireligious composition. The article traces this dynamic around the example of the non-European collections in Berlin’s Museum Island and the future Humboldt Forum, conceptualized as the world’s largest “universal museum.” The narratives through which this art is integrated into Europe’s cultural heritage are in stark contrast to those that simultaneously defined the refugees, who arrived from the same region in which the art originated, as fundamentally different and threatening. The narratives intersect in the Multaqa initiative, which offers Arab language tours of Museum Island to refugees, and in the controversy around the site of the Humboldt Forum and the colonial art it is meant to house.

Trinidad trifacial: fuentes grabadas y problemas historiográficos

ResumenLa Trinidad trifacial se ha perfilado como una de las iconografías más destacadas del arte virreinal peruano y del arte colonial en general. Sin embargo, aún existe mucha desinformación sobre el tema e incluso publicaciones académicas han llegado a descontextualizar el motivo y hacer especulaciones infundadas. Estas distorsiones frecuentes han sido la de considerarla un motivo “medieval”, una imagen herética o heterodoxa y, en el caso americano, la posibilidad de que estuviera motivada por contenidos precolombinos. El presente artículo busca realizar una revisión puntual de sus posibles fuentes grabadas, tomando en cuenta sus contenidos y contextos, para así ayudar a disipar algunas de estas nociones confusas.Palabras clave: Trinidad, Trinidad trifacial, heterodoxia, fuentes grabadas, arte peruano virreinal. AbstractThe Three-Faced Trinity has been outlined as one of the most outstanding iconographies both in viceregal Peruvian art in particular and in colonial art in general. However, there is still much misinformation on the subject and even academic publications have gone so far as to decontextualize the motive and make unfounded speculations. These frequent distortions have considered it a "medieval" motif, a heretical or heterodox image and, in the Latin American case, the possibility that it was influenced by pre-Columbian contents. This article seeks to carry out a punctual review of its possible engraved sources, taking into account their contents and contexts, in order to help dispel some of these confusing notions.Keywords: Trinity, Three-Faced Trinity, heterodox, engraved sources, Peruvian Viceroyal Art