Guadalupe and the Castas: The Power of a Singular Colonial Mexican Painting

Posted in Articles, Arts, Caribbean/Latin America, History, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, Mexico on 2015-09-23 14:33Z by Steven

Guadalupe and the Castas: The Power of a Singular Colonial Mexican Painting

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
Volume 31, Number 2
pages 218-247
DOI: 10.1525/mex.2015.31.2.218

Sarah Cline, Research Professor of History
University of California, Santa Barbara

A mid-eighteenth-century casta painting by Luis de Mena uniquely unites the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and casta (mixed-race) groupings, along with scenes of everyday life in Mexico, and the natural abundance of New Spain. Reproduced multiple times, the painting has not been systematically analyzed. This article explores individual elements in their colonial context and the potential meanings of the painting in the modern era.

Una pintura de Luis de Mena sobre las castas, de mediados del siglo xviii, reúne de manera singular la imagen de la Virgen de Guadalupe, los agrupamientos de castas y escenas de la vida cotidiana en México, junto con la abundancia natural de Nueva España. Aunque reproducida en múltiples ocasiones, la pintura no ha sido analizada sistemáticamente. Este artículo explora sus elementos individuales en el contexto colonial y los significados potenciales de la pintura en la época moderna.

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