"Buddah in the Andes: tradition, synchronicity and invention of images around the world

GABRIELA SIRACUSANO

Nueva York

Conferencia; Renaissance Society of America 60th Annual Meeting; 2014

Renaissance Society of America

In the last years studies on images produced in the Spanish Americas during the so-called ?colonial? period have frequently been addressed under the heading of original/copy, considering the problematic extent of their inventive character. These studies have favoured the reconsideration of traditional geographic and iconic borders that previous historiography had limited in a sometimes narrow effort to posit local identities and establish cultural borders. The synchronic appearance of similar visual escathological programs in places as distant as Lake Titicaca, Slovenia, Jolfa or Goa allow us not only to redefine these same borders in historical and anthropological terms, but also identify new networks of meaning. Taking as a point of departure a colonial painting showing an iconography related to Buddah?s life, this paper will consider the relation of invention with originality in Colonial painting.