Paper short abstract:

Images forge considerably the prevailing notions of the lawfulness and unlawfulness of power. The paper will focus on European artistic influences in Mexico since the 1580s and discuss impacts of the notion of law on the representation of Christian martyrdom.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will focus on the work of the second wave of European artistic influence since the 1580s in Mexico and discuss the influence of colonial law, when invasion-violence converged into enduring legal ground rules for living in convivencia, a shared social order. While the artistic production of most of the missionary orders had mainly depended on Indian produced images, the new repertoire of pictures and church design were to be made by European hands. Alonso Vázquez or Baltasar de Echave Orio were key protagonists here, who visually formulated the idea of Christian martyrdom that were displayed in churches, hospitals and convents. Alonso Vázquez, one of the most esteemed painters in the New World, migrated to New Spain with the entourage of the 10th Viceroy of Mexico Juan Mendoza y Luna, marquis de Montesclaros in 1603. His paintings reveal a new conception of martyrdom that refer to the western imaginaire but also to the imported figurative thought of the Christian image which promoted a new concept of the "event" considered as typical European formula ranging from the representation of emotions and the Aristotelian notion of causality to those of determinism and free will. The proposed paper will consider the legal implications of images of tyranny and martyrdom by examining the production of images in the New World and reflecting on contemporary concepts of colonial law. It aims to examine the imposition of a new visual order not just as Western iconographic repertoire but more so from a juridical perspective.