Already, the natives of South America used pictorial art on a large scale, making painted decoration a precisely mastered practice. Varying according to climate, soil type, plant pigments, local building systems and the iconographic universe related to the territory and belief systems developed by the cultural communities, these painted decorations painted a fine portrait of each region.
These cultural traits, built up and transmitted over the years, were largely mixed during the Spanish colonization. For, if ornamental painting has always been a channel for the expression and transmission of knowledge and beliefs, this was never more true than during the colonial empire, which used this art to evangelize through line and image a people who could not read. A stylistic tradition specific to the Andean territory emerged then, through a violently imposed acculturation, mixing European influences and local roots.
The Vieja Cathedral (Cuenca, Ecuador): European imports
The Spanish colonization of the 1530s largely coloured the Andean territories. Implanting their religion, the conquistadors quickly imposed a cultural uniformity both in terms of the techniques used and the themes addressed. The old cathedral of the city of Cuenca, now converted into a museum of religious art, is a receptacle of these imported techniques. Applied to wooden panelling, a framework or lime-coated walls, the painted decorations here imitate the grandeur of European churches: noble wood or marble veins, trompe l'oeil techniques recreating richly decorated coffers on the ceiling or pilasters and paintings on the walls of the choir, etc. Built in 1557, shortly after the foundation of this new colonial city on the remains of the Canaries and the Incas, this cathedral was built for emigrant nobles, bordering the Plaza de Armas.
The church of San Bautista (Huaro, Peru): evangelizing by the stroke
Using references and an ancestral method of cultural expression, the conquistadors correctly saw the potential of the painted decoration when they arrived on Andean soil. The low cost of production and the rapidity of execution of these decorations were only additional arguments to ensure an early evangelization of the natives through images. The church of the village of Huaro is a good example of this: its lime walls are entirely covered with frescoes representing liturgical scenes such as "The Allegory of Death", "The Tree of Life" and the "Last Judgement". Carried out in 1802 by the mestizo artist Tadeo Escalante, trained by Spanish masters, these frescoes evangelize by line while marrying subtle connotations of the territory and indigenous values such as Andean and Amazonian flora and fauna, the sun or the constellations.
The church of Santiago (Curahuara de los Carangas, Bolivia): Andean appropriation
In the heart of the Bolivian desert, this church is one of the three Sistine Chapels of the Andes. Its austere exterior and simple construction, combining adobe and straw roofing, hides interior spaces of great decorative richness: the abundance of decorations that cover the walls from floor to ceiling like textiles make one forget the harshness of the Bolivian altiplano, plunging the user into a colourful forest and starry skies. Biblical scenes multiply here between the decorative friezes strewn with flowers, clouds, feathers, fruit and birds. This earthly paradise reveals the existence of an Andean stylistic tradition mixing European traditions and local roots.
