Transforming Saints: From Spain to New Spain

By Charlene Villaseor Black and Charlene Villaseñor Black

Transforming Saints explores the transformation and function of the images of holy women within wider religious, social, and political contexts of Old Spain and New Spain from the Spanish conquest to Mexican independence.

The chapters here examine the rise of the cults of the lactating Madonna, St. Anne, St. Librada, St. Mary Magdalene, and the Suffering Virgin. Concerned with holy figures presented as feminine archetypes-images that came under Inquisition scrutiny-as well as with cults suspected of concealing Indigenous influences, Charlene Villase or Black argues that these images would come to reflect the empowerment and agency of women in viceregal Mexico. Her close analysis of the imagery additionally demonstrates artists' innovative responses to Inquisition censorship and the new artistic demands occasioned by conversion.

The concerns that motivated the twenty-first century protests against Chicana artists Yolanda L pez in 2001 and Alma L pez in 2003 have a long history in the Hispanic world, in the form of anxieties about the humanization of sacred female bodies and fears of Indigenous influences infiltrating Catholicism. In this context Black also examines a number of important artists in depth, including El Greco, Murillo, Jusepe de Ribera, Pedro de Mena, Baltasar de Echave Ib a, Juan Correa, Crist bal de Villalpando, and Miguel Cabrera.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 082650471X
• ISBN13: 9780826504715
• Release Date: July 2022
• Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
• Length: 396 Pages
• Weight: 1.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"