Abstract

SCHENKE, JOSEFINA. On the Misuse of the Qualification Mestizo, Bestowed on Visual Productions by Traditional Chilean Historiography. A Critical Assessment. Front. hist. [online]. 2017, vol.22, n.1, pp.70-109. ISSN 2027-4688.

This article assesses, from a critical standpoint, the widespread use of the word mestizo among scholars to single out images that existed but were not produced in Santiago de Chile during the Colonial period, but imported from the main centers of visual production in the Andes region (Lima, Cuzco, Alto Peru and Quito). This paper will discuss the main uses of the word mestizo in art historiography, with an emphasis on the perspective of the “Andean Baroque”. The principal aspects of handicraft trade within Santiago are considered, with an eye to the common misuse of the tag mestizo, as grounded in allegedly racial and local features displayed by the objects themselves. The paper proposes an alternative way of validating the concept, focused on the local reception and appropriation of foreign objects by the local communities, and the relation between the foreign images and the local mestizaje.

Keywords : America; art; Chile; Colonial period; commerce; historiography; images; mestizo.

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