Artistic Geography and the Northern Jesuit Missions of New Spain (original) (raw)
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Most discussions about scale are largely silent on religion. They sidestep the issue of a subjective understanding of geography. But places are scaled and rescaled on the basis of their changing importance within imagined and remembered religious landscapes. This article shows how Santa Ana de Guadalupe in Jalisco, Mexico, and the devotions to Santo Toribio that are based there, became a religious hotspot within a transnational religious landscape connecting specific parts of Mexico and the USA. The authors argue that its heightened religious significance rescaled Santa Ana but that religion did not act alone. Santa Ana also lies at the intersection between multiple economic, religious, and political projects that, taken together, greatly enhanced its position within the transnational religious map it helped create.
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Most discussions about scale are largely silent on religion. They sidestep the issue of a subjective understanding of geography. But places are scaled and rescaled on the basis of their changing importance within imagined and remembered religious landscapes. This article shows how Santa Ana de Guadalupe in Jalisco, Mexico, and the devotions to Santo Toribio that are based there, became a religious hotspot within a transnational religious landscape connecting specific parts of Mexico and the USA. The authors argue that its heightened religious significance rescaled Santa Ana but that religion did not act alone. Santa Ana also lies at the intersection between multiple economic, religious, and political projects that, taken together, greatly enhanced its position within the transnational religious map it helped create.
CHURCHES ORIENTATIONS IN THE JESUITS MISSIONS AMONG GUARANI PEOPLE
MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ARCHAEOMETRY, 2018
The Jesuit order had an intense missionary activity in America during the colonial period. In particular, from the sixteenth century until their expulsion in 1767 they carried out an extensive and well-known work among the Guarani groups, in what became known as the Jesuit Province of Paraguay (now part of Argenti-na, Paraguay and Brazil). The large number of missions founded on this undertaking (30 survived the last period), were establishments with a well-studied urban plan one of whose axes was that of the church, which differs from both the urbanism proposed by the "Leyes de Indias" and the most classic ecclesiastical arrangements. This urban plan is of great importance for South American urbanism since it is an alternative paradigm to the order proposed by the colonial legal framework and constitutes a particular reinterpretation of the Baroque, which integrates contributions of the Guarani conceptions. Although Jesuit urbanism in the region has been studied, it has not been done within the framework of cultural astronomy. In general, the works of cultural astronomy dedicated to the orientations of churches have divided these studies by chronological periods, and by geographical areas. We believe that adding focused approaches to specific religious orders can be very fruitful given the variety of methodologies and intentions. With this idea we undertook a joint study of the orientations of the Jesuit missions of the Guaraní region. During the fieldwork the sites of the 30 missionary villages in question were visited in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. We have measured the twenty-one existing ruins and analyzed the old planes of the nine of which there are no recognizable material remains. The work deals with the results of this survey by putting in to dialogue with existing studies on Jesuit urban-ism and with the chronicles and writings of the Jesuits themselves. We seek to establish the relevance of astronomical observation for the ordering of these missions and their interaction with other criteria. One of the first results shows that the orientation axes of the churches of these missions do not follow the arrangement expected in general in Christian churches, associated to the solar range. We discuss what the orientations found can tell us about the methods used to bring them to practice and relate these evidences to the testimonies of the Jesuits themselves.
The Political Dimension of Space-Time Categories in the Jesuit Missions
Space and Conversion in Global Perspective, 2014
The Spanish monarchy`s policy of mission towns (reducciones) aimed to impose a new civil spatial order that would efficiently convey the very principles of Christianity in the colonial domains. At the begining of 17th century the Jesuits built up more than fifty mission towns in the South American jungle, seeking to impose a new idea of society on the natives.This chapter is divided into three parts. The first describes space-time ordering in daily mission life according to Jesuit descriptions, focusing on how the urban organization of mission towns was efficiently oriented for discipline and social control. The second part analyses evidence about indigenous reactions to Jesuit impositions, emphasizing the way natives appropriated some impositions and contributed to the formation of mission space patterns. In its third section, the chapter explores visual-spatial developments that resulted from negotiations and adaptations between Jesuits and indigenous actors.
Looking Back at The Arts of the Missions of Northern New Spain, 1600–1821
2021
Greater Mexico refers both to the geographic region encompassing modern Mexico and its former territories in the United States, and to the Mexican cultural diaspora. Exhibitions of visual and material culture from greater Mexico have played an important role in articulating identities and affiliations that transcend limited definitions of citizenship. Following an introductory text by Jennifer Josten, five scholars offer firsthand insights into the intellectual, diplomatic, and logistical concerns underpinning key border-crossing exhibitions of the “NAFTA era.” Rubén Ortiz-Torres writes from his unique perspective as a Mexico City–based artist who began exhibiting in the United States in the late 1980s, and as a curator of recent exhibitions that highlight the existence of multiple Mexicos and Americas. Clara Bargellini reflects on a paradigm-shifting cross-border exhibition of the viceregal arts of the missions of northern New Spain. Kim N. Richter considers how the arts of ancient...
Archaeoastronomy and the orientation of churches in the Jesuit missions of north-western New Spain
Cultural Astronomy and Ancient Skywatching, 2023
We present an extensive archaeoastronomical study of the orientations of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jesuit churches in the lands of the historic viceroyalty of New Spain. Our sample includes forty-one chapels and churches located mainly in present-day Mexico, which documentary sources indicate were built by the Society, and for which we measured the azimuths and heights of the horizon of their principal axes using satellite imagery and digital elevation models. Our results show that neither the orientation diagram nor the statistical analysis derived from the sample declination histogram can select a particular orientation pattern with an adequate level of confidence. We suggest some possible explanations for our results, discussing these North American churches within a broader cultural and geographical context that includes previous studies involving Jesuit mission churches in South America. Based on the analysis of the data presented here, we conclude that the orientation of Jesuit churches in the viceroyalty of New Spain most likely does not follow a well-defined prescription.