Imagery, Spirituality and Ideology in Baroque Spain and Latin America

This volume offers a series of essays that explore the significance of visual imagery as a medium for the representation of spiritual and ideological concerns by the Catholic Church in the Spanish Habsburg Empire. Each of these essays provides a valuable contribution to established areas of research such as Velàzquez studies, St. Teresa of Avila as spiritual exemplar for the Counter-Reformation in Spain, the iconography of St. Francis of Assisi, or the evolution of Peruvian Christian iconography. A valuable contribution of all these essays is their discussion of new visual and textual sources which are revealing of the diverse modes of representation developed by the Church to â ~Delight, Move and Instructâ (TM) the many and diverse spectators of its artistic message. Together these essays provide a range of critical perspectives on the complex cultural, political and spiritual context that shaped the evolution of Religious Art in cities as distant as Cuzco and Madrid.