Author: Lowell Gudmundson

 

 

Above, we have three of the highly stylized "Cuadros de Castas" paintings associated with late Colonial Mexico in particular. They amount to an early equivalent of the picture postcard for European travelers to the New World and their home-bound brethren. They work primarily by depicting the (Latin) American "exotic" crossbreeds for viewers in Spain and Europe in general. Although many of the racial terms used here were, in fact, not necessarily ones of common usage in the colonies themselves, it remains highly significant that urban, literate, 21st century Central Americans frequently employ some of these very terms. Likewise, they believe them to be colonial colloquialisms rather than specialized urban or imperial terminology, more familiar to outside observers and classifiers than to the colonial mixed-race majorities they purported to classify.

 

Below, we have a progression of four related images leading to perhaps the most consistent (mis)usage of such a term, "salto o torna atrás," (leap or return backwards) depicted here in the last painting. Both the painting and the derogatory term itself bear witness to the European and Euro-American obsession with the possibility, indeed likelihood, that the "stain" of slavery and African heritage would reappear in mixed-race populations no matter how apparently "white" or far removed from their African ancestors. Contemporary usage of this term reflects a now private and covert expression of anti-Black (or anti-Indian) racism so very overt and public in Colonial times. Such speakers often simultaneously denounce and discursively distance themselves from a Colonial social order whose racist terminology, paradoxically, they seek to employ now in a value-free, descriptive, matter of fact form to comment on the wide variety of phenotypes characteristic of members of a single family.

 

 

Contrast this collection of set piece roles amid the "union of opposites" with the stunning portrait of a wealthy young mulatto woman from 17th century Mexico City. From her posed, side-long gaze, to her suitably impressive and copious jewelry, to her graceful color combinations in clothing, a very different set of messages are being sent to knowledgeable observers of the American Colonial reality. There wealthy, socially prominent African Americans asserted a social distinction to be rendered by the artist rather than being ranked or classified by their degree of exoticism for the foreign gaze.

Credits:

John A. Farmer and Ilona Katzew, Editors, New World Orders, Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America, Americas Society Art Gallery, New York 1996.

 

First group of three images, left to right: MIGUEL CABRERA [Mexican] " From Spaniard and Mulatto, Morisca," 1763; Oil canvas, 53 3/8 x 41 ¼  in.  Private Collection.  UNKNOWN ARTIST [Mexican] "From Black and Spaniard, Mulatto," circa 1770; Oil on canvas, 24 ¾ x 32 5/8 in.  Private Collection. UNKNOWN ARTIST [Peruvian] "Black and Mulatto Produce a Zambo," circa 1770; Oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 49 1/8 in. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Madrid.

Second group of four images with their legends, top left to bottom right: UNKNOWN ARTIST (Mexican), circa 1780, Collection of Malú and Alejandro Escandón;  "Black and Spaniard Makes Mulatto"; "Mulatto and Spaniard Makes Morisco"; "Spaniard and Morisca Makes Albino"; "Spaniard and Albina Makes a Black-Return-Backwards".

 

Final image:  ARELLANO [Mexican] "Diceño de Mulata yia denegra y español en la Ciuadad de México.  Cabesa de la América a 22 del mes de Agosto de 17011 Años (Rendering of a Mulatto, Daughter of a Black and a Spaniard in Mexico City, Capital of America on the 22 of the Month of August of 1711), 1711;  Oil on Canvas, 40x29 ¼  in.  Collection of Jan and Frederick Mayer, Denver.