Sculpture and Painting of Colonial Peru. Universal and Local Features

The study aims to explore the uniqueness of Andean art, which is an amalgam of autochthonous and European elements. The formation of Latin American cultural identity is closely linked to the colonial era, an important period in the continent’s history. The artistic culture of the Old World — primarily Spanish, but also Dutch, Italian, and to a lesser extent that of other European countries — also had an impact on this process. The church of the Viceroyalty of Peru needed as much aesthetic splendor as possible to serve as an effective tool of Christianization. Various works of art were imported into the Andean region from Spain; talented painters and sculptors were recruited. Nonetheless, Christianization soon required the missionaries to train many local craftsmen, both those from the autochthonous peoples and mestizos. Their work gave colonial art a distinctive local style that incorporated certain pagan elements and inevitably reflected images of the surrounding flora and fauna, as well as the traditional lifestyle of the indigenous peoples. As a result, the art that was born was very idiosyncratic, completely different from what we see in Spain itself; even though that art expressed universal Christian ideas, Latin American people can rightly call it their own. The author’s conclusions draw on extensive material using the analytical and synthetic method based on the principle of historicism, as well as formal, stylistic and iconographic interpretation of the works.