Imagining Identity in New Spain

Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings

Nonfiction, History, Americas, Latin America, Art & Architecture, General Art, Art History
Cover of the book Imagining Identity in New Spain by Magali M. Carrera, University of Texas Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Magali M. Carrera ISBN: 9780292782754
Publisher: University of Texas Press Publication: January 1, 2010
Imprint: University of Texas Press Language: English
Author: Magali M. Carrera
ISBN: 9780292782754
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication: January 1, 2010
Imprint: University of Texas Press
Language: English
Reacting to the rising numbers of mixed-blood (Spanish-Indian-Black African) people in its New Spain colony, the eighteenth-century Bourbon government of Spain attempted to categorize and control its colonial subjects through increasing social regulation of their bodies and the spaces they inhabited. The discourse of calidad (status) and raza (lineage) on which the regulations were based also found expression in the visual culture of New Spain, particularly in the unique genre of casta paintings, which purported to portray discrete categories of mixed-blood plebeians.Using an interdisciplinary approach that also considers legal, literary, and religious documents of the period, Magali Carrera focuses on eighteenth-century portraiture and casta paintings to understand how the people and spaces of New Spain were conceptualized and visualized. She explains how these visual practices emphasized a seeming realism that constructed colonial bodies—elite and non-elite—as knowable and visible. At the same time, however, she argues that the chaotic specificity of the lives and lived conditions in eighteenth-century New Spain belied the illusion of social orderliness and totality narrated in its visual art. Ultimately, she concludes, the inherent ambiguity of the colonial body and its spaces brought chaos to all dreams of order.
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Reacting to the rising numbers of mixed-blood (Spanish-Indian-Black African) people in its New Spain colony, the eighteenth-century Bourbon government of Spain attempted to categorize and control its colonial subjects through increasing social regulation of their bodies and the spaces they inhabited. The discourse of calidad (status) and raza (lineage) on which the regulations were based also found expression in the visual culture of New Spain, particularly in the unique genre of casta paintings, which purported to portray discrete categories of mixed-blood plebeians.Using an interdisciplinary approach that also considers legal, literary, and religious documents of the period, Magali Carrera focuses on eighteenth-century portraiture and casta paintings to understand how the people and spaces of New Spain were conceptualized and visualized. She explains how these visual practices emphasized a seeming realism that constructed colonial bodies—elite and non-elite—as knowable and visible. At the same time, however, she argues that the chaotic specificity of the lives and lived conditions in eighteenth-century New Spain belied the illusion of social orderliness and totality narrated in its visual art. Ultimately, she concludes, the inherent ambiguity of the colonial body and its spaces brought chaos to all dreams of order.

More books from University of Texas Press

Cover of the book Banana Cultures by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book Learning from Bogotá by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book The Medium of the Video Game by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book Meyerhold at Work by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book Haunting Bollywood by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book Flood of Images by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book Postcard America by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book A Wetland Biography by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book Captain John R. Hughes by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book The Folds of Parnassos by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book Califia Women by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book Black-Brown Solidarity by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book Amy, Wendy, and Beth by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book The Music of Brazil by Magali M. Carrera
Cover of the book The Satiric Poems of John Trumbull by Magali M. Carrera
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy