spanish colonial art

Our Lady of the Victory of Málaga, Luis Niño

Although Lima became the political capital of colonial Peru, Cuzco remained its artistic capital, as it had been in Inca times. The extraordinary use of gold stamping to create the pattern on the cloth and the columns in this painting is exclusive to Cuzco and the surrounding area, including Bolivia.

While much of the imagery derives from Spanish Catholic traditions, there are distinctively Peruvian touches, such as the red and blue wings of the angelic musicians (red and blue feathers were sacred to the Inca and were symbols of nobility). The landscape fragments at the bottom are the surviving upper halves of two sequential scenes depicting a miracle performed by the Virgin of Málaga.

European & American Art