Vantage Points: Andeans and Europeans in the Construction of Colonial Quito

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Acknowledgements

Research support for this study was generously provided by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the J. William Fulbright Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, and the College of William and Mary. This study is based in part on a paper presented on the panel ‘Thinking About Colonial Latin American Art’ at the 2010 College Art Association conference in Chicago. I am grateful to Elizabeth Hill Boone (organizer and chair) and Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann (discussant), as well as the two anonymous CLAR readers, for their insightful comments and encouragement. I also thank William D. Sendor for his careful work on the plan of San Francisco that illustrates this study. In Quito, I am especially indebted to Ximena Carcelén, whose generous assistance and enthusiasm contributed to this study in many significant ways. I also acknowledge the kind collaboration of Fr. Walter Eras OFM and Grecia Vasco de Escudero. My sincere thanks to Hernán Lautaro Navarrete for his constant support and companionship in all aspects of this research, and for many of the photographs that grace this study.

Notes

1. ‘hermoseadas con las arquitecturas de sus frontispicios y portadas, en los que se particulariza el de San Francisco, que, siendo todo de piedra de cantería, pueden sus bien distribuidas proporciones, la hermosura de toda la obra y su invención tener lugar entre las celebradas de Europa.’ Italics present in original. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Spanish are by the author.

2. See, for example, the description of Quito penned by the eighteenth-century Italian Jesuit Mario Cicala, who observes that ‘[p]or su grandeza y amplitud podría hacer competencia aun con las naciones más famosas de Europa […] y aun podría destacarse también por la magnificencia y suntuosidad de los templos, conventos, cúpulas y campanarios’ ([1771] 1984, 156). Similarly, the nineteenth-century French traveler Marcel Monnier avows of Quito, ‘[o]n a devant soi, non pas une vielle colonie, mais un pur fragment de l'Espagne du seizième siècle. Il n'y eut point ici colonie, dans le sens actuel du terme, agglomeracion d'eléments épars, mais transport d'une société tout entière’ (1898, 27).

3. ‘En ninguna otra ciudad, durante el periodo colonial, el conjunto de manifestaciones artísticas y artesanales ha mantenido una calidad tan constante y uniforme; eso explica, además, por qué el término “arquitectura mestiza” nunca ha podido infiltrarse en las apreciaciones críticas de los monumentos quiteños.’

4. ‘En nuestro caso no podemos hablar de mestizaje, porque la arquitectura quiteña es la más europea de las producidas en la América Hispana. La presencia indígena en la arquitectura quiteña es aislada y tímida, como un desliz que teme ser descubierto.’

5. ‘Las portadas de las iglesias y de los conventos [de Quito] ofrecen un variado muestrario que alcanza desde modelos del más puro renacimiento hasta grandes conjuntos de esquema vignolesca.’

6. According to Gutiérrez, the design apparently was not realized in Rome, but stands fully intact in Quito (1997, 53).

7. See, for example, Santiago Sebastián 1964, 113–20; 1967, 30–67.

8. To cite a few examples from the Ecuadorian literature, José María Vargas describes the work of indigenous builders as ‘la voz del anonimato’ (1972, 30–31). Filoteo Samaniego writes of ‘la participación abrumadora de la mano de obra nativa […] esa inmensa multitud anónima que debe trabajar en minas, obrajes, faenas agrícolas, caminos, grandes obras, levantamientos de ciudades […] con la colaboración de maestros de obra y oficio provenientes de España, Flandes, Italia y Alemania’ (1985, 25–26). José Gabriel Navarro asks, ‘Quiénes fueron esos artistas [indígenas]? Nadie lo sabe, o, por lo pronto, nadie lo ha identificado’ (2006, 185).

9. For the hispanist, europeanist, indigenist debates, see especially Guido 1956, x–xi; Palm 1968; Gutiérrez 1997; San Cristóbal 1998 and 2000; Bailey 2009 and 2010, 15–35.

10. For an illustration and discussion of the 1678 painting, see Los Siglos de Oro 1999, 163–66. For a recent study of early modern images depicting the building process, see Arciniega, Juliana, and Trescolí 2006.

11. ‘dependencia fetichista del dato objetivo.’

12. Notions regarding the ‘purity’ of European architecture and its ‘transference’ to Quito abound in the literature. Such perspectives appear to presuppose the existence of cultural and racial ‘purity,’ and ignore centuries of Western cultural and artistic transmission, mixing, and exchange on the continent.

13. Systematic review of the notarial protocols in Quito's Archivo Histórico Nacional from the 1570s to 1800 reveals that only very rarely were mestizos and Africans associated with the building professions. This may result from two circumstances in particular: 1) the relatively small population of Africans, freedmen or slaves present in colonial Quito, in comparison to, for example, Lima or Guayaquil; and 2) the marked Andean majority in Quito's population, and the political and ethnic dominance that Andeans held over the building trades (Webster 2009a).

14. Ironically, Bayón remarks that ‘[f]rom the start, Quito has been a city with a certain European “air,” even though populated with Indians, half-castes and a fistful of Spaniards’ (1989, 37).

15. Based on the research of Enrique Vacas Galindo, Agustín Moreno supplies an extensive list of caciques educated at San Andrés in 1564, which includes 41 names (1998, 278–79).

16. Agustín Moreno provides a list of Andean students-turned-professors at the Colegio de San Andrés, which appears to date from 1568: Diego Hernández, Pedro Díaz, Juan Mitima, Diego de Figueroa, Juan Oña, Cristóbal Collaguazo, Diego Guaña, and Antonio Hernández. His source for this information is not cited. Again, a number of these surnames are shared by Andean artists and builders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Webster 2009a; 2010b, Appendix).

17. Based on the specifics of the document, it is likely that ‘Guaclachiri’ refers to ‘Huarochirí,’ for the description locates the town in that region: ‘Y preguntado a Jeorge de la Cruz de donde era natural respondio que era de un pueblo grande llamado guaclachiri del rrepartimiento de Don Diego caravajal y que el pueblo esta en el camino Real una jornada de la cordillera de pariacaca yendo al valle de jauja y al cusco y Potosi y que su amo D[o]n Diego lo trajo a lima donde aprendio a hazer casas de los españoles’ (AGOFE, 10.4, Varios, 10–86, [ca. 1632] ‘Pago del trabajo, de más de 20 años en la Iglesia, a Jorge de la Cruz y su hijo,’ f. 86). The document indicates that Jorge de la Cruz was long dead before this payment for his more than twenty years of labor was made.

18. A 1573 Spanish edition of Serlio's Libro tercero y quarto de architectura signed by two itinerant sixteenth-century Spanish builders who worked in Quito, Antonio de Aguilar and Sebastián de Ávila, was discovered in the 1970s in the Biblioteca Nacional in Bogotá (Los Siglos de Oro 1999, 290). Ávila acquired the book from Aguilar in the 1580s and made marginal notes and drawings that relate to his work on the construction of the Monastery of Santo Domingo in Quito (Webster 2009b).

19. ‘para gaçer la yglesia y Capilla de san jua[n] de letran de este conuento […] conforme el ttrazado que tienen hecho […] gaziendo un arco toral y portada a la plaça […] y un canpanario […] todo de todo punto y puesto en toda perfección.’

20. ‘a la fabrica de la yglesia de san rroque parroquia desta d[ich]ha ciudad para siempre jamas la portada de piedras labradas que tengo y esta armada En las casas que fueron de don françisco auqui mi abuelo.’ One of the signatories of this document, Andrés Sánchez Galque, was an important Andean artist whose now-renowned painting, the Gentlemen of Esmeraldas (1599), may be the earliest example of signed South American portraiture. Lepage hypothesizes that Sánchez Galque was trained at the Franciscan Colegio de San Andrés and later under Fray Pedro Bedón at the Monastery of Santo Domingo (2011, 115). Contracts between native patrons and artists were not unknown in colonial Quito. For example, in a contract of 1592, Andrés Sánchez Galque was commissioned by don Diego Pilamunga, cacique of the community of Santiago de Chimbo (Bolívar), to travel to the town and create the main altar for the church (ANH/Q, Notaría 1a, vol. 3, 1588–94, Diego Lucio de Mendaño, ff. 317v–18v).

21. It has not yet been possible to determine the fate of San Roque's original portada, although a number of stone sculptural elements, such as the baptismal font, holy water stoups, and three relief sculptures were relocated to the new church. Parish documents related to the construction of the new church make no mention of the old portada. Nonetheless, carved stone architectural elements were rarely discarded upon the demolition of a building, and it is likely that the portada remains to be identified, perhaps adorning a house in the parish or the façade of a hacienda. The form of the Auqui's portada is equally mysterious. Frank Salomon suggests that the residence of the Auqui ‘probably contained components of Inca architecture’ (1986, 147); however, it is unlikely colonial authorities would have permitted the installation of an Inca trapezoidal portal on a church. Although we can only speculate, it is likely that the Auqui's portal was generally European in form and style, more or less in keeping with those of the local Spanish nobility. See also Stella Nair (2007) on the persistence of Inca architectural features in colonial buildings.

22. ‘cintas perfiladas y tablas pullidas y tirantes y enlazados.’ The term mudéjar is not used in the document; however, the description of the work strongly suggests that the ceiling design followed this style.

23. ‘de enseñar a leer escreuir y Cantar a los muchachos de la d[ic]ha parrochia.’

24. For the assumption of Guerra's authorship of the portal, see especially Angulo Íñiguez 1950, 108; Buschiazzo 1961, 78; and Gasparini 1972, 271. Scholars have long recognized that the source of the design for the portal is an illustration in Vignola for the gateway to the Vigna Grimani in Rome. Most authors cite its appearance in the first Spanish edition of Vignola, translated by Eugenio Caxés in 1593, as the means by which the design was introduced to the Americas.

25. The original gateway of the Vigna Grimani in Rome is no longer extant, yet the design, with notable adaptations and transformations, remains intact in Quito, Pasto, and perhaps Bogotá as a result of the mobility of Andean masters from Quito.

26. Bermejo's rendering of the portal in Pasto, like that of Aulis at the Jesuit establishment in Quito, displays minor adaptations and transformations that warrant future consideration.

27. The only published reference to the mobility of Quito's native builders of which I am aware is made by Martin Minchom, who, in a discussion of the woodworking profession in Uyumbicho, a native community just south of Quito, notes that a 1612 lawsuit filed by Joan Pacha, ‘an Indian carpenter from Uyumbicho, resident in Cuenca, but who carried out a contract for the construction of a mill in Latacunga, confirms this specialization as well as showing in striking fashion the mobility of skilled labor, a phenomenon which has been almost entirely hidden by more visible Indian migrations’ (1994, 39).

28. ‘labrar las bazas de los pilares de la yglecia de ella conforme las de santa teresa de jesus de esta ciu[da]d [de Quito].’

29. ‘dandoles a ellos la herramienta para todo y de almorzar comer y senar y casa en que uiuir […] y treinta pesos mas para el matalotaje del camino.’

30. With respect to the Paraypumas’ and Cabascango's team of Andean workers, the document specifies that ‘[l]os quales [maestros] an de llebar seis oficiales mas a su Costa para que les ayude y con toda breuedad se acaue la d[ic]ha obra a los quales el d[ic]ho comuento les a de dar assimesmo de por si de almorzar comer y senar.’

31. For reiterations of San Francisco as a cabeza de serie, see for example, Gasparini 1972, 267–69 and Marco Dorta 1955, 612–13.

32. A number of the diverse stylistic assessments of San Francisco's facade are pointed out in Fraser 1990, 185–86, n.27, and Conis 2000, 35–43.

33. Perhaps only from a modern viewpoint is this building ‘confusing,’ owing to an insistence on European stylistic classification, which San Francisco obviously defies. Given their varied frames of reference, colonial audiences may not have found this or other colonial Quiteñan buildings confusing: peninsulares and criollos likely saw them as proud reminders of their European origins and status, while Andean audiences, particularly builders, may well have viewed them with a strong sense of ownership. All in all, the form and style of the buildings were, by the seventeenth century, likely unremarkable: virtually all followed a pattern established in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by teams of Andean masters whose forebears were trained in the Franciscan Colegio de San Andrés and in the many early building projects in the city, especially that of San Francisco.

34. ‘hasta acabarse la obra de un Claustro principal alto y baxo y tres quartos y bajos de salas y seldas y lo demas dispuestos y declarado en la escriptura.’ The contract makes reference to an earlier agreement with Borja, noting ‘que Por quanto se hizo conçierto entre el d[ic]ho gaspar de borxas y el p[adr]e fr[ay] miguel rromero obrero mayor del d[ic]ho conuento y el sindico […] el qual conçierto corrio hasta ocho de otubre y de rresto final fecha la q[uen]ta de los que se a pagado al d[ic]ho gaspar de borxa rresta a deber al d[ic]ho conu[en]to y sindicato quinientos patacones de a ocho rreales Por otros tantos que se dieron al d[ic]ho borxa Para conprar las casas de joan de la carrera la qual cantidad debe a la d[ic]ha obra y la a de satisfazer en la forma que de yuso yra declarado’ (f. 640).

35. ‘se obligo a no faltar del d[ic]ho edificio y obra mientras ubiere gente y oficiales trauaxando en la capilla mayor y en la portada que se a de abrir a la placa y en ella a de asentar la portada de piedra bieja Por el orden y traça que diere el d[ic]ho p[adr]e fr[ay] fran[cis]co benites.’

36. ‘rrespecto de que se a traslado la capilla mayor, a la que se fabrico adonde antiguamente solia ser el coro y consiguientemente, la sacristia a otra parte, con que viene a quedar desembarcada la presente y puesta en otra parte, seria conueniente a la dicha cofradia para capilla y aposento de penitentes y de tener las ymagines y demas adherentes della el sitio que solia ser sacristia […] con obligacion de que se ara Vna portada de piedra en la que saliere a la placa junto a la principal desta yglesia.’ It is important to point out that there were two distinct confraternities dedicated to the Vera Cruz located in San Francisco, one for Andeans and one for Spaniards. The Native Confraternity of the Vera Cruz was established in the chapel now known as that of Cantuña, located on the southeast corner of the monastic complex at some distance from the main church. The Chapel of Cantuña also bears an impressive stone portal (Webster 2010a).

37. ‘a gacer acauar y asentar y labrar la madera necess[ari]a Para la capilla mayor nueua de la yglesia del d[ic]ho conbento […] de dos maderaciones de lazo y tosca […] y si fuere necess[ari]o poner algunos tirantes.’

38. ‘conforme a la que de pres[en]te esta hecha en la d[ic]ha yglesia […] modelo traza y gorden que d[ic]ho conbento Prouincial y guardian gordenase y traçase.’

39. ‘el Retablo que esta en el altar m[ay]or de la yglesia de este d[ic]ho conb[en]to esta por dorar […] la haga y dore y estofe.’

40. ‘en perfecçion el assiento del coro del d[ic]ho conuento de san françisco hasta la rrexa de arriua con los santos que estan en ella poniendo los colores=carmin bol, açul, y vermellon conforme pareciere al padre fray joan de bohorquez.’ It is worth noting that Velázquez's fiador in this document was one Antonio de la Torre, an individual who in other documents appears as a master sculptor. It may be that De la Torre was responsible for the carving of the impressive choir loft seats and adjoining relief sculptures of saints.

41. ‘vn corte de paño de la tierra para bestido y un carnero cada semana y de comer al dorador y officiales.’

42. ‘el trabajo de mas de veinte anos que trabajo en esta iglesia de San fran[cis]co Jeorge de la Cruz y su hijo Francisco Morocho […] la hechura desta iglesia y capilla mayor y coro de San Fran[cis]co.’

43. ‘el R[e]v[eren]do P[adr]e Fr[ay] Jeronimo Tamayo conserto a don Fran[cis]co Morocho en esta ciudad de Quito para que fuese al convento de S[a]n Fran[cis]co de Riobamba para acer la capilla Mayor y la iglesia.’