Triptyque novohispano. Plumes, cartes et graffiti pour une histoire métisse des arts (16e-17e siècles)

Abstract

The dissertation analyzes the history of the mutual transformation at the origin of the artistic production in New Spain from the 16th to the 17th century onward. Based upon the innovative « triptych » feather art/cartography/graffiti, our corpus allows to interrogate the birth and developments of the Mexican colonial society from very diverse vantage points. The first part of the thesis demonstrates the preponderant place the three identified objects had during the process of the military conquest. The second part studies the role they played during the spiritual and administrative colonization. The third part enlightens the mutual transformation of the artistic languages. The society of the New Spain is studied as a complex web of creative situations which were essential to its growth and vitality. The proposed triptych becomes a multi-laboratory to analyze the pertinence of a mestizo history of the arts, capable to formulate an anthropologic, historic and esthetic frame in order to study the sphere of creation.

Keywords

• feather art
• Historical anthropology
• Art history
• Colonial Mexico
• cartography
• graffiti