Heaven, Hell, and Everything in Between: Murals of the Colonial Andes
Examining the vivid, often apocalyptic church murals of Peru from the early colonial period through the nineteenth century, Heaven, Hell, and Everything in Between explores the sociopolitical situation represented by the artists who generated these murals for rural parishes. Arguing that the murals were embedded in complex networks of trade, commerce, and the exchange of ideas between the Andes and Europe, Ananda Cohen Suarez also considers the ways in which artists and viewers worked through difficult questions of envisioning sacredness. This study brings to light the fact that, unlike the murals of New Spain, the murals of the Andes possess few direct visual connections to a pre-Columbian painting tradition. Nevertheless, as Cohen Suarez demonstrates, colonial murals of the Andes can be seen as a reformulation of a long-standing artistic practice of adorning architectural spaces with images that command power and contemplation. Drawing on extensive secondary and archival sources, including account books from the churches, as well as on colonial Spanish texts, Cohen Suarez urges us to see the murals not merely as decoration or as tools of missionaries but as visual archives of the complex negotiations among empire, communities, and individuals. Digital supplement to the book available here.
Pintura colonial cusqueña: el esplendor del arte en los Andes/Paintings of Colonial Cusco: Artistic Splendor in the Andes (with contributions by Raul Montero Quispe, Maya Stanfield-Mazzi, Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank, and others).
This book presents high-quality photographs of 158 Spanish colonial paintings produced in the Cusco region of Peru, spanning the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, featuring descriptions and critical commentary by specialists. This book also includes special sections that offer an unparalleled glimpse into the splendor of two of the most famous series of paintings produced in colonial Cusco: the fifteen surviving canvases depicting Corpus Christi processions in the late seventeenth century and the Zodiac Series completed by the renowned indigenous painter Diego Quispe Tito. This book also features some of the lesser-known canvases by the famous Italian émigré artist Bernardo Bitti, who worked in Peru in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century.
Handbook to Life in the Inca World (with Jeremy James George)
Handbook to Life in the Inca World is a comprehensive and accessible examination of the Inca Empire, which stretched across the Andes Mountains in Peru from the 13th century until the invasion of the Spanish in the 16th century. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, art history, ethnography, and 16th-century Spanish chronicles, this handbook offers a readable, informative, and easy-to-navigate format that explains how the Inca Empire became such an influential and powerful civilization. Organized thematically, this new book includes an extensive list of further readings with each chapter, a comprehensive bibliography, as well as original line drawings from the conquistadors. Handbook to Life in the Inca World is a necessary addition to any pre-Columbian collection, as well as a useful resource for anyone interested in the Inca world.
Dr. Ananda Cohen-Aponte 