The Casa Del Deán

New World Imagery in a Sixteenth-Century Mexican Mural Cycle

Penny C. Morrill (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

311 Seiten

2014
University of Texas Press (Verlag)
978-0-292-75930-5 (ISBN)

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The Casa del DeÁn in Puebla, Mexico, is one of few surviving sixteenth-century residences in the Americas. Built in 1580 by TomÁs de la Plaza, the Dean of the Cathedral, the house was decorated with at least three magnificent murals, two of which survive. Their rediscovery in the 1950s and restoration in 2010 revealed works of art that rival European masterpieces of the early Renaissance, while incorporating indigenous elements that identify them with Amerindian visual traditions.

Extensively illustrated with new color photographs of the murals, The Casa del DeÁn presents a thorough iconographic analysis of the paintings and an enlightening discussion of the relationship between TomÁs de la Plaza and the indigenous artists whom he commissioned. Penny Morrill skillfully traces how native painters, trained by the Franciscans, used images from Classical mythology found in Flemish and Italian prints and illustrated books from France-as well as animal images and glyphic traditions with pre-Columbian origins-to create murals that are reflective of Don TomÁs’s erudition and his role in evangelizing among the Amerindians. She demonstrates how the importance given to rhetoric by both the Spaniards and the Nahuas became a bridge of communication between these two distinct and highly evolved cultures. This pioneering study of the Casa del DeÁn mural cycle adds an important new chapter to the study of colonial Latin American art, as it increases our understanding of the process by which imagery in the New World took on Christian meaning.

PENNY C. MORRILL, who holds a PhD in Mesoamerican colonial art history from the University of Maryland, teaches in the art history department at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. In addition to her work on sixteenth-century Mexican architecture and mural painting, she is an authority and has published extensively on the history of modern Mexican silver.

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Don TomÁs de la Plaza

Introduction
Parish Priest
Cathedral Dean
Don TomÁs and His Family
Don TomÁs's Library and His Collections
Conclusion

Chapter 2. An Urban Palace

Introduction
Purism and the Casa del DeÁn
The FaÇade
The Residence’s Plan
The Designer and Builder of the Casa del DeÁn
Conclusion

Chapter 3. The Artist as Tlapalli: Art as Rhetoric

Introduction
Tlapalli: The Deified Heart
Form as Metaphor in Early Colonial Painting
Rhetoric and Image
Education of the Amerindian Artists
A Franciscan School in the Tlaxcala-Puebla Region
Master of the Sibyls
Conclusion

Chapter 4. Dic Tu Sibila: The Salon of the Sibyls

Introduction
The Sibyls
Tracing the Sibylline Oracles
The Sibyls in Procession: Liturgical Drama
The Sibyls in the Casa del DeÁn Murals
Visual Sources for the Sibyls
Conclusion

Chapter 5. The Salon of the Triumphs

Introduction
Petrarch’s Triumphs and Spectacle Literacy
The Impact on the Arts
The Triumphal Scenes
Conclusion

Chapter 6. The Wild Man in the Salon of the Triumphs

Introduction
Antecedents of the Satyr and Wild Man
The Wild Man in New Spain
Conclusion

Chapter 7. Amerindian Iconography: The Dream of a Word

Introduction
The Artist’s Antecedents
The Animals in the Salon of the Triumphs
Conclusion

Conclusion
Appendix I. Don TomÁs de la Plaza’s Last Will and Testament: El Testamento de Don TomÁs de la Plaza
Appendix II. Sibylline Oracles and Attributes
Appendix III. Documenting Don TomÁs de la Plaza’s CapellanÍa
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Zusatzinfo	124 color photos
Verlagsort	Austin, TX
Sprache	englisch
Maße	216 x 279 mm
Gewicht	1674 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Kunstgeschichte / Kunststile
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Malerei / Plastik
ISBN-10	0-292-75930-4 / 0292759304
ISBN-13	978-0-292-75930-5 / 9780292759305
Zustand	Neuware