The Casa Del Deán : New World Imagery in a Sixteenth-Century Mexican Mural Cycle / Penny C. Morrill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Morrill, Penny C., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Casa del Deán (Puebla de Zaragoza, Mexico).

Mural painting and decoration.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (312 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, [2014]

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. Don Tomás de la Plaza

Chapter 2. An Urban Palace

Chapter 3. The Artist as Tlapalli: Art as Rhetoric

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

Chapter 5. The Salon of the Triumph

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

Chapter 7. Amerindian Iconography: The Dream of a Word

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.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781477329344

147732934X

OCLC:

1408682109