A mid-eighteenth-century casta painting by Luis de Mena uniquely unites the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and casta (mixed-race) groupings, along with scenes of everyday life in Mexico, and the natural abundance of New Spain. Reproduced multiple times, the painting has not been systematically analyzed. This article explores individual elements in their colonial context and the potential meanings of the painting in the modern era.
Una pintura de Luis de Mena sobre las castas, de mediados del siglo xviii, reúne de manera singular la imagen de la Virgen de Guadalupe, los agrupamientos de castas y escenas de la vida cotidiana en México, junto con la abundancia natural de Nueva España. Aunque reproducida en múltiples ocasiones, la pintura no ha sido analizada sistemáticamente. Este artículo explora sus elementos individuales en el contexto colonial y los significados potenciales de la pintura en la época moderna.
Inga Clendinnen's Book-of-the-Month Club selection focuses on the most lurid aspect of pre-Hispanic Aztec culture: human sacrifice. She is specifically dealing with the Mexica of Tenochtitlan at the time of the Conquest, using almost exclusively information from Fray Bernardino de Sahagun's work. She attempts to construct how the ordinary citizens of Tenochtitlan would have understood the ceremonial performances of ritual sacrifice. It is Clendinnen's contention that all Mexica were implicated in the process, not just warriors and priests but all other residents of Tenochtitlan, male and female alike. Chimalpahin, or, to give his name in its fullest form, Domingo Francisco de San Anton Munon Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, was a descendant of Indian nobility of the Chalco region, near the volcanic peaks that dominate Mexico City to the southeast, and was born in 1579 in Amaquemecan (Amecameca), a town within that region. He spent most of his adult life in Mexico City, apparently in lay service to
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