{"id":10256,"date":"2010-11-26T04:04:26","date_gmt":"2010-11-26T04:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=10256"},"modified":"2015-01-09T19:44:22","modified_gmt":"2015-01-09T19:44:22","slug":"pinturas-de-casta-mexican-caste-paintings-a-foucauldian-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=10256","title":{"rendered":"Pinturas de Casta: Mexican Caste Paintings, a Foucauldian Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pinturas de Casta: Mexican Caste Paintings, a Foucauldian Reading<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

New Readings
\n<\/a>School of Modern Languages<\/a>, Cardiff University
\nVolume 10<\/a> (July 2009)
\npage 1-17<\/p>\n

Nasheli Jim\u00e9nez del Val
\n<\/a><\/strong>Cardiff University<\/em><\/p>\n

This article looks at the genre of casta<\/a><\/em> painting developed in colonial Mexico<\/a> during the eighteenth century. The genre consists of a series of paintings representing the different racial mixes that characterised New Spain<\/a> throughout the colonial period and that continue to play an important role in contemporary Mexican society. By referring to several Foucauldian<\/a> concepts such as disciplinary power<\/a><\/em>, biopower<\/a><\/em>, normalisation<\/a><\/em>, deviance<\/a><\/em> and heterotopia<\/a><\/em>, this essay aims to locate the links between this genre and prevailing discourses on race, with a particular focus on the ensuing institutional and political practices implemented in the colony during this period. Centrally, by focusing on this genre as a representational technology of colonial surveillance, the paper argues that discourses on race in New Spain oscillated between an ideal representation of colonial society, ordered and stabilised through rigid classi\ufb01catory systems, and a real miscegenated<\/a> population that demanded a more \ufb02uid understanding of the colonial subject\u2019s societal value beyond the limitations of racial determinism.<\/p>\n

\n

It is known that neither the Indian nor Negro contends in dignity and esteem with the Spaniard; nor do any of the others envy the lot of the Negro, who is the \u201cmost dispirited and despised\u201d. […] It is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a mestizo<\/a>; a mestizo and a Spaniard, a castizo<\/a>; and a castizo and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. It is agreed that from a Spaniard and a Negro a mulatto<\/a> is born; from a mulatto and a Spaniard, a morisco<\/a>; from a morisco and a Spaniard, a torna atr\u00e1s<\/a>; and from a torna atr\u00e1s and a Spaniard, a tente en el aire. The same thing happens from the union of a Negro and Indian, the descent begins as follows: Negro and Indian produce a lobo; lobo and Indian, a chino<\/a>; and chino and Indian, an albarazado, all of which incline towards the mulatto. [For more terms, see here<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

\u2014Pedro Alonso O\u2019Crowley, 1774.<\/p>\n

Casta<\/em> painting is a pictorial genre produced by colonial artists between the early 18th century and the early 19th century that consists of a series of paintings representing the different racial mixings that characterised the colony of New Spain. As a pictorial genre, it is constituted by a succession of images that show a male and female subject from different ethnic origins and the offspring that result from this combination. The three racial strands of Spaniard, Indian and Black initiate the series, with the possible combinations that derive from these crossing being depicted in detail, to the degree that even fifth or sixth degrees of derivations are often assigned specific names and traits…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pinturas de Casta: Mexican Caste Paintings, a Foucauldian Reading New Readings School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University Volume 10 (July 2009) page 1-17 Nasheli Jim\u00e9nez del Val Cardiff University This article looks at the genre of casta painting developed in colonial Mexico during the eighteenth century. The genre consists of a series of paintings representing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,12,21,459,1196,8,103],"tags":[4510,20753,4511,4512],"class_list":["post-10256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-latincarib","category-history","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-mexico","tag-casta-paintings","tag-mexico","tag-nasheli-jimenez-del-val","tag-new-readings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}