1 00:00:05,383 --> 00:00:13,303 Just some very quick housekeeping up top. During the session, during the trophy presentation, please do keep videos off and microphones muted. 2 00:00:13,303 --> 00:00:24,073 And once we start the discussion, I invite you to turn on your videos, in the interest of sharing body language and responding to each other. 3 00:00:24,073 --> 00:00:27,583 It's a real honour to introduce Charlene Villaseñor Black 4 00:00:27,583 --> 00:00:33,103 the Terra Foundation visiting professor of American Art at Oxford University for this academic year. 5 00:00:33,103 --> 00:00:37,753 Charlene is a professor of Art History in Chicano Studies at UCLA. 6 00:00:37,753 --> 00:00:45,433 She's also the editor of Aztlán journal Chicano Studies and the founding editor in chief of Latin American and Latin X Visual Culture, 7 00:00:45,433 --> 00:00:54,773 which is published by U.S. Press. She publishes on a range of topics related to the early modern Iberian world and contemporary Latin American art. 8 00:00:54,773 --> 00:01:00,853 Most recent books include Renaissance Futurities Science, Art, Invention, published in 2019. 9 00:01:00,853 --> 00:01:07,993 Knowledge for Justice and Ethnic Studies Reader also published in 2019, the new 2020 edition of the Chicano Studies Reader, 10 00:01:07,993 --> 00:01:16,063 and she also co-edited the volume Autobiography without Apology: The Personal Essay in Latino Studies. In the coming year, 11 00:01:16,063 --> 00:01:18,133 There is lots of exciting coming out as well, 12 00:01:18,133 --> 00:01:27,193 so keep an eye out for Charlene's monograph Transforming Saints: From Spain to New Spain, 13 00:01:27,193 --> 00:01:36,703 published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2022 and her co-edited volume Decolonising Art History to be published by 2022. 14 00:01:36,703 --> 00:01:43,093 And finally, The Artist as Eyewitness: Antonio Bernal Papers, 1884-2019. 15 00:01:43,093 --> 00:01:49,423 Charlene has been awarded for her teaching at UCLA and held many grants from foundations including the Terra, 16 00:01:49,423 --> 00:01:55,093 Fulbright, Mellon, Borchard, Terra, and Woodrow Wilson Foundations, to name just a few. 17 00:01:55,093 --> 00:02:01,573 Finally, in and very exciting way, Charlene was recently awarded an exhibition grant from the Getty Foundation for her upcoming show and book, 18 00:02:01,573 --> 00:02:09,493 which will be co-authored by Dr. Maite Álvarez and titled Verdant Worlds: Art and Sustainability across the Cosmos. 19 00:02:09,493 --> 00:02:16,123 Today, we have the great pleasure of hearing Charlene paper titled, Sacred Art and Censorship in the Hispanic World: 20 00:02:16,123 --> 00:02:41,953 Mary's Lactating Breast. So please take it away. [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASEÑOR BLACK]: Thank you so much. 21 00:02:41,953 --> 00:02:51,373 In 2001, Catholic demonstrators assembled outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to protest the opening of the exhibition. 22 00:02:51,373 --> 00:02:55,123 The Road to Aztlan: Art from a Mythic Homeland. 23 00:02:55,123 --> 00:03:06,103 They condemned a painting of the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe cast as the pre-Columbian goddess, Coatlicue (?), demanding its removal. 24 00:03:06,103 --> 00:03:17,113 The work in question was by pioneering Chicana Mexican-American artist Yolanda Lopez, created between 1981 and 88, 25 00:03:17,113 --> 00:03:24,553 by superimposing the image of an actual Aztec statue from Coxcatlán, Puebla over the Virgin's radiant mandorla. 26 00:03:24,553 --> 00:03:36,393 Lopez replaced the demure Madonna of the original with the ferocious figure of Coatlicue garbed in serpent skirt with clawed feet and exposed breasts. 27 00:03:36,393 --> 00:03:46,233 Shorthand references to the starry blue cape, brocaded gown and crescent moon make the original iconographic source clear. 28 00:03:46,233 --> 00:03:50,913 Lopez's transformation of this powerful symbol of Mexican and Mexican-American 29 00:03:50,913 --> 00:03:57,483 identity was another in a long line of her revisions of the traditional icon. 30 00:03:57,483 --> 00:04:07,523 So, for example, this very famous triptych of pastels or this self-portrait here? IMAGE REF 31 00:04:07,523 --> 00:04:15,593 An anonymous caller to the museum who simply identified herself as being from Orange County explained the problem with the image, 32 00:04:15,593 --> 00:04:22,733 which she had seen in the museum's exhibition brochure, and she explained this to LACMA curator Virginia Fields. 33 00:04:22,733 --> 00:04:26,963 She was offended by Lopez's portrayal of exposed breasts. 34 00:04:26,963 --> 00:04:32,213 This quote, ‘pagan idol’ unquote meant to represent the Virgin Mary. 35 00:04:32,213 --> 00:04:38,603 This is a quotation. ‘My 15-year-old son could have seen those breasts’. Fields, recalled the woman exclaiming. 36 00:04:38,603 --> 00:04:45,533 The caller's connexion to the protesters who gathered in front of the museum is unknown. 37 00:04:45,533 --> 00:04:48,623 The demonstrators were Roman Catholic Guadalupanas(?), 38 00:04:48,623 --> 00:04:58,023 members of a devotional group dedicated to the virgin of Guadalupe, who carried banners proclaiming ‘Stop Catholic bashing’. 39 00:04:58,023 --> 00:05:02,373 Fields recalled that after the protests appeared on the nightly local news, 40 00:05:02,373 --> 00:05:10,723 the demonstrators disappeared, Lopez's image remained on display until the show closed. 41 00:05:10,723 --> 00:05:17,983 This protest, another similar one, such as the 2001 controversy over Lopez's Our Lady in Santa Fe, 42 00:05:17,983 --> 00:05:26,053 New Mexico, seems symptomatic of the so-called culture wars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. 43 00:05:26,053 --> 00:05:32,173 But disputes over the depiction of the Virgin Mary have a long history in the Iberian world. 44 00:05:32,173 --> 00:05:40,123 These 21st century controversies, in fact, highlight two major issues that have traditionally provoked attempts at censorship 45 00:05:40,123 --> 00:05:45,883 in the Hispanic world. Number one: the humanisation of sacred female bodies, 46 00:05:45,883 --> 00:05:52,283 And two: fears of indigenous influences infiltrating Catholic cults. 47 00:05:52,283 --> 00:06:00,203 My talk today focuses on the first, in a case study of tensions around representations of the Virgin Mary as a lactating 48 00:06:00,203 --> 00:06:12,133 mother created after the Council of Trent convened from 1545 to 1563 and into the 17th century in Spain. 49 00:06:12,133 --> 00:06:14,893 Although occurring hundreds of years earlier, 50 00:06:14,893 --> 00:06:24,903 the case of early modern Mary predicts with surprising accuracy the issues likely to provoke protests today. 51 00:06:24,903 --> 00:06:30,693 How did early modern artists react to church and inquisition censorship in the case of the Madonna? 52 00:06:30,693 --> 00:06:37,533 How did their ingenious responses demonstrate the productive nature of censorship? 53 00:06:37,533 --> 00:06:43,263 Let us begin by considering the power of the image in 16th and 17th century Europe. 54 00:06:43,263 --> 00:06:49,443 This was the era of the Protestant and Catholic Reformation, a time of religious conflict and reform. 55 00:06:49,443 --> 00:06:53,313 Widespread censorship and even iconoclasm, 56 00:06:53,313 --> 00:06:59,403 while major doctrinal differences and church corruption lay at the heart of the Protestant Catholic dispute. 57 00:06:59,403 --> 00:07:09,033 The role of sacred imagery was also a point of contention. In December 1563 Catholic delegates at the Council of Trent, 58 00:07:09,033 --> 00:07:14,853 convened in response to the Protestant Reformation, directed their attention to this issue. 59 00:07:14,853 --> 00:07:18,573 They validated the importance of religious art in worship, 60 00:07:18,573 --> 00:07:28,713 Then, Tridentine reformers issued guidelines dictating the doctrinally correct depiction of major Christian narrative and devotional scenes. 61 00:07:28,713 --> 00:07:38,633 No longer were artists allowed creative licence in rendering sacred subjects, or so it would seem. 62 00:07:38,633 --> 00:07:45,413 In Spain, in its empire, censorship of the visual arts also came under the purview of the Inquisition. 63 00:07:45,413 --> 00:07:52,883 In fact, the holy office hired artists as sacred art inspectors or censors. Two lengthy texts. 64 00:07:52,883 --> 00:08:01,353 Documenting this practise have come down to us. The first, by Francisco Pacheco, named [INAUDIBLE] or ‘Sacred Art Censor’, in 1603. 65 00:08:01,353 --> 00:08:07,833 is The Art of Painting, which dates from the first third of the 17th century. 66 00:08:07,833 --> 00:08:16,713 A second text: The Christian Painter by inquisition censor Friar Juan Interián de Ayala, dates to 1730. 67 00:08:16,713 --> 00:08:22,803 In addition, I have located a number of other texts that address the correct depiction of religious imagery, 68 00:08:22,803 --> 00:08:33,353 documents and even drawings confiscated by the Inquisition, as well as a number of legal cases brought by the Inquisition against artists. 69 00:08:33,353 --> 00:08:38,723 While, art historians of the 21st century tend to find artistic censorship abhorrent. 70 00:08:38,723 --> 00:08:43,493 One can also argue that it testifies to the power of the image. 71 00:08:43,493 --> 00:08:50,423 This was precisely the argument of the Inquisition censors. Painters should be regarded as preachers. 72 00:08:50,423 --> 00:09:00,773 Their sacred images books for the unlettered, Pacheco proclaimed, because the visual arts were more persuasive and effective than mere words. 73 00:09:00,773 --> 00:09:06,833 Indeed, the Catholic Church recognised that sacred imagery was particularly influential, 74 00:09:06,833 --> 00:09:16,553 its power enhanced amongst the largely unlettered population and because it was publicly accessible in churches. 75 00:09:16,553 --> 00:09:26,313 More recent theorising of censorship is also of interest to me, particularly that of Judith Butler in Excitable Speech. 76 00:09:26,313 --> 00:09:31,893 Butler suggests the productive nature of censorship, whether explicit or implicit, 77 00:09:31,893 --> 00:09:37,843 and like her, I'm interested in how people respond to prohibition and surveillance. 78 00:09:37,843 --> 00:09:43,573 Because such responses are performative, that is enacted and repeated over time. 79 00:09:43,573 --> 00:09:51,903 They have the potential to disrupt even becoming, in her words, political contestation and reformulation. 80 00:09:51,903 --> 00:10:00,183 Thus, speech acts or in my mind, artworks can become insurrectionary. 81 00:10:00,183 --> 00:10:07,683 How, in fact, did artists and viewers in the Spanish empire respond to the chilling effects of inquisition censorship? 82 00:10:07,683 --> 00:10:14,703 How do church guidelines for religious imagery compare to actual artistic responses in the Hispanic world? 83 00:10:14,703 --> 00:10:25,683 Or to ask it another way: How did Catholic artists and viewers, both in the early modern era and today use religious imagery to their own ends? 84 00:10:25,683 --> 00:10:32,043 In other words, do we see evidence of the dual nature of power, as articulated by Michel Foucault? 85 00:10:32,043 --> 00:10:40,733 Indications of not only its ability to control, but also its flip side its productive potential? 86 00:10:40,733 --> 00:10:47,573 Let us begin our enquiry into these matters by looking at the controversy over the Lactating Virgin and early modern Spain. 87 00:10:47,573 --> 00:10:57,113 This represents a particularly interesting case because as we'll see, it demonstrates artist's inventiveness in the face of attempts at control. 88 00:10:57,113 --> 00:11:03,173 In addition, the Virgen de la Leche controversy, reveals that the exposure of Mary's body, 89 00:11:03,173 --> 00:11:11,103 and especially her breasts, was a major concern in the 17th century, just as today. 90 00:11:11,103 --> 00:11:18,063 Now, this artistic debate must be contextualised within another dispute of the time over maternal breast feeding, 91 00:11:18,063 --> 00:11:28,893 which was a topic of great concern on the part of Protestant and Catholic reformers, humanist philosophers, moralists and medical doctors. 92 00:11:28,893 --> 00:11:35,313 Maternal lactation advocates included luminaries, such as as Martin Luther Erasmus, Thomas More, Leon Battista Alberti 93 00:11:35,313 --> 00:11:44,313 as well as Spanish humanist and religious reformers Juan Luis Vives and Friar Luis de León. 94 00:11:44,313 --> 00:11:50,013 Nursing was natural, they all argued, and therefore good for mothers, children and society. 95 00:11:50,013 --> 00:11:59,973 Vives opined that lactation deepened as a mother child bond. Mothers who did not nurse their children were accused of vanity, laziness, indifference. 96 00:11:59,973 --> 00:12:06,453 Friar Antonio de Guevara offered his opinion that quote ‘Women think it worthy to conceive children but 97 00:12:06,453 --> 00:12:12,993 a sin to take them in their arms’ unquote. Upper class Spanish women preferred their little dogs, 98 00:12:12,993 --> 00:12:17,283 which they proudly held in their arms as status symbols to their own children. 99 00:12:17,283 --> 00:12:27,153 He offered. Breastfeeding advocates most vehement criticisms are aimed at mothers who sent their children to be raised by wet nurses, 100 00:12:27,153 --> 00:12:36,423 in the words of Friar Luis de Leon. These mothers were quote ‘so pitiless as to entrust to a stranger the fruit of their womb.’ Unquote. 101 00:12:36,423 --> 00:12:45,933 Vives warned of the dangers of ingesting the milk of strangers and cautioned against bad habits imbibed from morally suspect wet nurses. 102 00:12:45,933 --> 00:12:56,833 In his comportment manual, The Perfect Wife, Leon noted that, quote ‘The Perfect Wife cannot indeed be perfect unless she herself suckles her children.’ 103 00:12:56,833 --> 00:13:04,183 Then, as now, breastfeeding was thought to deepen the mother child bond. According to Spanish commentators, 104 00:13:04,183 --> 00:13:08,413 nursing mothers were more likely to carry their children in their arms, 105 00:13:08,413 --> 00:13:18,533 cooing to them, more likely to witness their children's first laughter and first words, and more inclined to kiss and hug their offspring. 106 00:13:18,533 --> 00:13:23,963 Additionally, because babies were thought to absorb character traits from their milk source, 107 00:13:23,963 --> 00:13:28,103 animal milk was considered unsuitable for human consumption. 108 00:13:28,103 --> 00:13:36,833 One child after being raised on pig’s milk threw himself into the mud like a pig, explained Vives. 109 00:13:36,833 --> 00:13:42,683 But maternal lactation advocates one final, powerful weapon. 110 00:13:42,683 --> 00:13:49,553 They urged women to imitate the Virgin Mary, venerated throughout the Catholic world as the ideal mother. 111 00:13:49,553 --> 00:13:56,273 She had breastfed the infant Jesus herself and other mothers should follow her example. 112 00:13:56,273 --> 00:14:02,603 In fact, Mary was such a devoted mother, according, Carmelite friar and author José de Jesus Maria, 113 00:14:02,603 --> 00:14:07,793 that she neglected herself in favour of caring for her holy child. 114 00:14:07,793 --> 00:14:12,953 Quote ‘Many times the Virgin forgot to give her body its necessary sustenance, 115 00:14:12,953 --> 00:14:21,023 even going without sleeping some nights’ unquote so focussed on her holy child was she. 116 00:14:21,023 --> 00:14:26,003 Given the importance of visual images as models for behaviour in Catholic cultures, 117 00:14:26,003 --> 00:14:32,693 one would thus expect to find numerous depictions of a lactating virgin in early modern Spanish art. 118 00:14:32,693 --> 00:14:38,293 Such images could have provided inspiration to earthly mothers. 119 00:14:38,293 --> 00:14:46,093 But in the case of the lactating Virgin, the role of religious imagery as didactic model surrendered to another more urgent 120 00:14:46,093 --> 00:14:52,933 dictum in Spain: the prohibition against nudity in art after the Council of Trent. 121 00:14:52,933 --> 00:15:01,483 The Tridentine Council have prohibited lascivious things in books and in the opinion of Pacheco and others such as Joannes Molanus(?). 122 00:15:01,483 --> 00:15:09,543 Quote ’How much more they should be forbidden in pictures and even more in sacred images’ unquote. 123 00:15:09,543 --> 00:15:13,413 According to Inquisition censor, Interian, renderings of Mary, 124 00:15:13,413 --> 00:15:21,243 the mother of God with breasts exposed were no better than representations of classical goddesses. 125 00:15:21,243 --> 00:15:31,833 How did Hispanic artists act in the face of such restrictions? As we will see with great creativity. 126 00:15:31,833 --> 00:15:34,383 But allow me to back up for a moment. 127 00:15:34,383 --> 00:15:43,323 The image of Maria Lactans was relatively new in the Iberian Peninsula, although a couple of manuscript examples can be dated to the 12th century. 128 00:15:43,323 --> 00:15:52,533 The subject didn't begin to appear with frequency in Hispanic art until the late 14th century, reaching a peak in the 15th and early 16th. 129 00:15:52,533 --> 00:15:57,273 As we see in these images, so these, of course, are from the 14th century. IMAGE REFS 130 00:15:57,273 --> 00:16:04,023 And here are some. 15TH century examples here. IMAGE REFS 131 00:16:04,023 --> 00:16:11,403 After the Council of Trent, the subject declined in frequency, surely, in response to the nudity ban. 132 00:16:11,403 --> 00:16:18,963 Additionally, artists circumvented the prohibition of nudity as lascivious by modifying the traditional lactation 133 00:16:18,963 --> 00:16:26,913 Scene. As a replacement for the baby Jesus with mouth hungrily latched onto his mother's exposed breast. 134 00:16:26,913 --> 00:16:31,173 They depicted him with his hand on her tunic or reaching inside it. 135 00:16:31,173 --> 00:16:39,093 An ingenious scene that made the idea of lactation clear, but without the breasts displayed. In the 1560s, Luis De Morales, 136 00:16:39,093 --> 00:16:46,513 executed several touching versions of the scene. I'm showing you two of them here. IMAGE REFS 137 00:16:46,513 --> 00:16:58,093 These variations attained great popularity. In the 17th century Bartolomé Esteban Murillo depicted at least 14 different versions. In them, IMAGE REF 138 00:16:58,093 --> 00:17:06,973 The baby conspicuously places his hand on her breast, as we see in the images on the left or on the neckline of her garment. 139 00:17:06,973 --> 00:17:18,133 As in the third image or both as we see and what I think is a rather awkward gesture in that last painting. 140 00:17:18,133 --> 00:17:20,203 Murillo’s so-called Santiago Madonna, IMAGE REF 141 00:17:20,203 --> 00:17:28,903 named after the patron Marquis de Santiago and commissioned for his family chapel in Madrid, is a particularly magical example. 142 00:17:28,903 --> 00:17:36,673 And I show, you the preparatory sketch has also been preserved. 143 00:17:36,673 --> 00:17:47,723 Other artists employed similar strategies. So here's an example by Francisco de Zurbarán. IMAGE REF 144 00:17:47,723 --> 00:17:53,423 In another scene, Zurbarán depicts the moment before the actual feeding. IMAGE REF 145 00:17:53,423 --> 00:17:58,643 But Mary is modestly covered in a gown with long slits to facilitate access. 146 00:17:58,643 --> 00:18:04,823 A historically accurate depiction of nursing wear and a type still in use by women today. 147 00:18:04,823 --> 00:18:09,473 The scene is intimate, an idealised vision of mother child bonding, with the added 148 00:18:09,473 --> 00:18:15,473 touching detail of the baby Jesus petting his mother's breast as he prepares to suckle. 149 00:18:15,473 --> 00:18:26,033 And he's doing this to hasten the milk flow. So, notice his right hand reaching for the other opening in the bodice. 150 00:18:26,033 --> 00:18:29,483 Other artists came up with their own ingenious inventions. 151 00:18:29,483 --> 00:18:40,733 The painter and Carthusian brother Juan Sánchez Cotán represented Mary feeding Jesus from a cup, instead of nursing him. IMAGE REF 152 00:18:40,733 --> 00:18:48,173 Inquisition pronouncements notwithstanding, though, numerous Spaniards professed heartfelt devotion to Mary's breasts, 153 00:18:48,173 --> 00:18:58,583 breastmilk and womb, her bosoms continue to be the subject of sermons, devotional texts and even a handful of paintings such as this one. 154 00:18:58,583 --> 00:19:04,643 Francisco de Zurbarán’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt from 1659. IMAGE REF 155 00:19:04,643 --> 00:19:13,943 This tender, warm portrayal describes a profound mother child bonding fostered by breastfeeding, as described in Spanish texts. 156 00:19:13,943 --> 00:19:21,413 Mother and son gaze lovingly into each other's eyes as the baby firmly latches onto her exposed breast, nipple 157 00:19:21,413 --> 00:19:28,523 partially visible. Zurbarán re-created a textbook example of the V Hold, 158 00:19:28,523 --> 00:19:34,943 the most frequently depicted nursing technique in Spanish art and one that 159 00:19:34,943 --> 00:19:39,503 traditionally enjoys popularity amongst nursing women in the Hispanic world, 160 00:19:39,503 --> 00:19:47,773 as opposed to opposed to the C Hold, which uses the thumb and index finger. 161 00:19:47,773 --> 00:19:53,113 This painting by Alonso Cano can be likened to the previous Zurbarán example IMAGE REF 162 00:19:53,113 --> 00:19:58,763 in that it also depicts a type of nursing where worn by breastfeeding mothers. 163 00:19:58,763 --> 00:20:09,593 In contrast to Zurbarán’s more modest approach here, Cano uncovers most of Mary's breast, giving us a clear view of her nipple at the ready. 164 00:20:09,593 --> 00:20:17,183 The question of patronage springs to mind: where were these pictures and who commissioned them? 165 00:20:17,183 --> 00:20:22,343 Because this painting entered the city's museum around 1836-37. 166 00:20:22,343 --> 00:20:30,233 As a result of the Spanish government seizure of ecclesiastical property, it undoubtedly came from a religious establishment. 167 00:20:30,233 --> 00:20:36,303 Scholars have suggested two possibilities: The convent of (?) Carmelites in [INAUDIBLE], 168 00:20:36,303 --> 00:20:41,153 or more likely, the convent of del Carmen in Guadalajara. 169 00:20:41,153 --> 00:20:45,293 These are both male orders, male religious orders. 170 00:20:45,293 --> 00:20:57,183 I think what is important here is that the painting was not on public display where it would have been subject to potential censorship. 171 00:20:57,183 --> 00:21:05,823 As these various images have shown, Spanish artist's responses to Inquisition guidelines reveal a variety of inventive reactions. 172 00:21:05,823 --> 00:21:14,973 Artists created new compositions and introduced novel details, demonstrating productive responses to the chilling effects of censorship. 173 00:21:14,973 --> 00:21:26,233 And despite the nudity prohibitions of Pacheco, Interian and others, on some occasions, artists simply ignored the church's guidance. 174 00:21:26,233 --> 00:21:29,533 But allow me to complicate the issue at hand. 175 00:21:29,533 --> 00:21:41,893 What about these images of saints experiencing visions wherein they drink Mary's breast milk, so notably Saint Augustine and Bernard. In both scenes, 176 00:21:41,893 --> 00:21:49,543 Mary's breast is exposed as she aims streaming milk across the room to the Saints open mouths. 177 00:21:49,543 --> 00:21:55,033 Why were these images allowed? Three possible explanations come to mind. 178 00:21:55,033 --> 00:22:02,563 Both were commissioned for male monastic settings, so once again not on public display, but instead for learned eyes. 179 00:22:02,563 --> 00:22:10,993 Furthermore, they both refer to visions, and we could understand the lactation here as allegorical or metaphorical, not literal. 180 00:22:10,993 --> 00:22:18,133 St. Augustine has a vision in which he is poised between Christ's sacrificial blood and Mary's healing breastmilk. 181 00:22:18,133 --> 00:22:24,853 St. Bernard's vision has been read as an allegory about Mary as a source of his wisdom and eloquence. 182 00:22:24,853 --> 00:22:31,123 What seems additionally notable is that no mouth touches Mary's breast. 183 00:22:31,123 --> 00:22:40,403 These images thus suggest the Madonna's increasing untouchability in early modern Hispanic culture. 184 00:22:40,403 --> 00:22:46,643 In fact, as the Virgen de la Leche scenes became less frequent in early modern Spanish art, 185 00:22:46,643 --> 00:22:56,873 artists produced more depictions of Mary not as the perfect mother, but as the immaculate conception, the untouchable, unsullied embodiment of purity. 186 00:22:56,873 --> 00:23:05,213 These two roles earthly, mother and pure stainless paragon, constitute the central paradox of Mary devotion. 187 00:23:05,213 --> 00:23:10,503 17TH century paintings of the immaculate conception, particularly those painted by Murillo, 188 00:23:10,503 --> 00:23:22,243 are considered the best of the genre attempted to suggest the abstract idea of Mary's purity and extraordinary status through her chaste beauty. 189 00:23:22,243 --> 00:23:29,163 Murillo’s purest, Immaculate Conception of the Venerable Priests is a perfect example. IMAGE REF 190 00:23:29,163 --> 00:23:30,363 These scenes, however, 191 00:23:30,363 --> 00:23:41,643 are often populated by countless infants in the form of an Angelitos, little angels, who gather at Mary's feet as if emerging from beneath her gown, 192 00:23:41,643 --> 00:23:47,793 suggesting that attempts to suppress Mary's materiality to use Julia Christeva’s term, 193 00:23:47,793 --> 00:23:53,163 denoting fantasies about motherhood and maternity were not entirely successful. 194 00:23:53,163 --> 00:24:00,943 And also note her hand gesture, which seems to allude to the V hold. 195 00:24:00,943 --> 00:24:09,193 In 17th century Spain, lactation imagery may have also engaged class issues that complicated Mary's role in the discourse. 196 00:24:09,193 --> 00:24:14,833 In several paintings that take poverty and begging as their themes, Murillo included breastfeeding women 197 00:24:14,833 --> 00:24:21,853 wearing tattered clothing and tending to ill kept children in prominent positions in his 198 00:24:21,853 --> 00:24:32,543 San Diego de Alcala feeding the Poor. We behold on the left a poor woman toddler in arms with breast exposed. (IMAGE REF) 199 00:24:32,543 --> 00:24:38,133 In his St. Thomas of Villanueva giving alms, a poor family. IMAGE REF) 200 00:24:38,133 --> 00:24:44,193 Of nursing mother, baby and older son appears on the right. 201 00:24:44,193 --> 00:24:49,713 The tops of the mother's breasts are visible, and her older son, who gleefully holds up a coin, 202 00:24:49,713 --> 00:24:54,963 is dressed in rags so tattered that his genitals show a sight rarely depicted 203 00:24:54,963 --> 00:25:02,163 by Spanish artists who routinely covered even Angelitos with strategic draperies. 204 00:25:02,163 --> 00:25:07,983 Such scenes indicate maternal lactation in association with poverty and carnality. 205 00:25:07,983 --> 00:25:17,733 Indeed, Spanish texts confirm that breastfeeding engaged class issues. While arguing that all mothers should nurse their own children. 206 00:25:17,733 --> 00:25:23,413 Juan Alonso, [INAUDIBLE] of the medical faculty of the University of Alcalá de Henares, 207 00:25:23,413 --> 00:25:29,163 they are not as exempted royalty and aristocracy from his advice since quote, 208 00:25:29,163 --> 00:25:36,493 ‘it is clear that there have to be differences between royal persons and their favourites’ unquote. 209 00:25:36,493 --> 00:25:41,503 Now, the question of what happened to these images in new Spain is a really important one. 210 00:25:41,503 --> 00:25:48,673 I'm happy to discuss that after there's a really unique development and surprising development that happens in New Spain. 211 00:25:48,673 --> 00:25:56,713 But I was unable to squeeze it all into this short talk today. 212 00:25:56,713 --> 00:26:01,333 The case of lactating virgin imagery thus testifies to the productive nature of 213 00:26:01,333 --> 00:26:06,583 censorship and the power of artists and patrons to resist attempts to control 214 00:26:06,583 --> 00:26:16,423 Spanish artists creatively circumvented nudity prohibitions substituted in the scene of Christ reaching or the breast for the actual breastfeeding. 215 00:26:16,423 --> 00:26:22,273 In some instances, though, artists simply disregarded the Inquisitions guidelines and depicted nudity. 216 00:26:22,273 --> 00:26:28,423 Even Mary's naked breasts. Do these acts indicate resistance to authority? 217 00:26:28,423 --> 00:26:34,213 Or are they simply reflections of the heartfelt devotion felt by many for Mary? 218 00:26:34,213 --> 00:26:43,163 Is differing patronage the likely explanation? Although commissioning documents are, for the most part, missing from the historical record, 219 00:26:43,163 --> 00:26:51,443 I wonder if the depictions with exposed breasts were intended for members of religious orders and not everyday people. 220 00:26:51,443 --> 00:26:58,883 In any case, my guess is that in the end, it must have been difficult to reconcile images of the breastfeeding Madonna, 221 00:26:58,883 --> 00:27:15,193 which held up to the beholder the promise, the most profound comfort and security humanly imaginable, with Trendentine calls to ban lascivious things. 222 00:27:15,193 --> 00:27:18,433 And this brings me back to today's starting point. 223 00:27:18,433 --> 00:27:24,943 Are attempts to control the visual arts any more successful today than they were in the era of the Inquisition? 224 00:27:24,943 --> 00:27:33,553 It seems not. Artists and viewers in the Hispanic world, both historically and now demonstrate resistance to such censorship. 225 00:27:33,553 --> 00:27:41,203 In fact, the actions of artists, patrons and devotees seem to present proof of the productive nature of suppression. 226 00:27:41,203 --> 00:27:48,583 Foucault was right. Power is a quote ‘complex and unstable process’ and discourse in our case today, 227 00:27:48,583 --> 00:27:55,993 religious art quote ‘can be both an instrument and an effective power and also a hindrance a stumbling block, 228 00:27:55,993 --> 00:28:03,563 a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy’ unquote. 229 00:28:03,563 --> 00:28:08,063 I'm also struck by the remarkable continuity from the 16th century to the present 230 00:28:08,063 --> 00:28:13,283 day in the types of issues likely to provoke censorship of religious art, 231 00:28:13,283 --> 00:28:18,953 namely concerns about humanising the female holy person's body and concerns about 232 00:28:18,953 --> 00:28:25,283 indigenous influences infiltrating Catholic cults. While occurring centuries apart, 233 00:28:25,283 --> 00:28:33,773 The 2001 controversies in Los Angeles and Santa Fe are not so different from those in the early modern Iberian world. 234 00:28:33,773 --> 00:28:43,123 Trepidation about the power of images to harm religious belief or dishonour the holy personages represented has a long history. 235 00:28:43,123 --> 00:28:51,053 One wonders if greater awareness of this history might lessen current apprehension about the power of art. 236 00:28:51,053 --> 00:29:01,503 But what if we look beyond protesters claims that holding figures are being dishonoured or paganized, and attempt to understand artists' objectives? 237 00:29:01,503 --> 00:29:04,233 A different interpretation emerges. 238 00:29:04,233 --> 00:29:14,373 The case at hand of the lactating Mary represents attempts to humanise the holy figure in order to heighten viewer identification. 239 00:29:14,373 --> 00:29:23,163 In other words, beneath public protests and Inquisition pronouncement, lies fear of humanising the Madonna. 240 00:29:23,163 --> 00:29:33,633 Does this not camouflage in reality, a fear of our own humanity, and more specifically, a fear of recognising women's full humanity? 241 00:29:33,633 --> 00:29:39,903 In response, I close today by quoting Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros, 242 00:29:39,903 --> 00:29:49,353 whose essay Guadalupe The Sex Goddess inspired Alma Lopez to create her controversial image of Our Lady. ‘Blessed Art, 243 00:29:49,353 --> 00:30:01,899 Thou, Lupe, and therefore blessed am I. Thank you. 244 00:30:01,899 --> 00:30:15,669 [ANNA ESPINOLA LYNN]: Well, Charlene, thank you so much for just a really brilliant and thought-provoking talk. Incredibly rich. I have many questions, but I will use my chair's prerogative to kick off our Q&A with a kind of more reflective question. 245 00:30:15,669 --> 00:30:22,929 I was really, really interested in your account, on the one hand of inquisitorial censorship of nudity, 246 00:30:22,929 --> 00:30:32,659 particularly the nudity of the Virgin, alongside this kind of evasion or inversion of censors by artists or patrons or viewers of art. 247 00:30:32,659 --> 00:30:40,479 And so, to me, I think that that relationship you're talking about really cuts to the quick of a motivating tension in Art History, 248 00:30:40,479 --> 00:30:47,319 which is this kind of dialectic between tradition and transformation and between convention and creativity. 249 00:30:47,319 --> 00:30:54,259 And so, my question is twofold. First, I'm curious how and why you decided. 250 00:30:54,259 --> 00:31:03,519 I mean, there's some kind of obvious historical circumstances that incur using frameworks of censorship in response to censorship. 251 00:31:03,519 --> 00:31:09,609 But I'm curious kind of what how you arrived at that framework of thinking about censorship and then response? 252 00:31:09,609 --> 00:31:14,949 And then maybe if you would like to share any reflections on the relationship between 253 00:31:14,949 --> 00:31:22,439 the censorship of imagery and then visual conventions and then [INAUDIBLE] 254 00:31:22,439 --> 00:31:26,589 Thank you so much again. 255 00:31:26,589 --> 00:31:36,789 [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK] Thank you. That's a great question. I love how you framed it as this tension that's really central to art history, to what we do. 256 00:31:36,789 --> 00:31:44,259 I think I became interested in censorship because we have these great texts that lay out how you should depict things. 257 00:31:44,259 --> 00:31:51,919 But I kept noticing artists who weren't following the rules, and I'm also interested in agency. 258 00:31:51,919 --> 00:31:56,769 I'm interested in people's agency and I'm also I'm interested in people who don't do what they're supposed to do, 259 00:31:56,769 --> 00:32:05,349 which like, tells, tells you something about me. So, I'm interested in people who are refusing to follow the Inquisition guidelines, 260 00:32:05,349 --> 00:32:10,989 and I actually think it's been extremely important for my work on New Spain. 261 00:32:10,989 --> 00:32:20,679 And this is part of the book that's coming out in July. And part of what I'm looking at in New Spain is in the context of forced conversion. 262 00:32:20,679 --> 00:32:27,189 How do people indigenous people, for example, in New Spain, make religion their own? 263 00:32:27,189 --> 00:32:34,449 So, I'm interested in in in agency and trying to see if we can recover any sense of agency. 264 00:32:34,449 --> 00:32:40,989 [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK] So that's the short version of. [ANNA ESPINOLA LYNN] That's brilliant, thank you. 265 00:32:40,989 --> 00:32:46,599 I think that's something we can continue to think about in terms of production of these images, 266 00:32:46,599 --> 00:32:55,509 but also, their interpretation of how we can glean moments of agency and historical archive that has that is very biased. 267 00:32:55,509 --> 00:32:58,859 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. Well, I want to open up. 268 00:32:58,859 --> 00:33:06,189 I mean, I have a backlog of questions here, but I'm eager to open up the floor and invite anybody by the question, 269 00:33:06,189 --> 00:33:11,259 either to raise their hand to chime in or great right away. 270 00:33:11,259 --> 00:33:17,548 First one - I saw [NAME] hand pop up. 271 00:33:17,548 --> 00:33:21,348 [AUDIENCE] Thanks, Charlene. That was, yeah, fascinating. Fascinating talk. 272 00:33:21,348 --> 00:33:24,798 Yeah. What wonderful kind of selection of artworks to think about. 273 00:33:24,798 --> 00:33:29,808 I was wondering what your thoughts are of. 274 00:33:29,808 --> 00:33:34,468 I mean, this is probably more of a like a methodological question, but. 275 00:33:34,468 --> 00:33:43,708 And some of the implications of proposing these comparisons between a really contemporary kind of radical practice and, 276 00:33:43,708 --> 00:33:55,468 you know, that’s art history, that one tends to like box in the 17th century Counter-Reformation. 277 00:33:55,468 --> 00:34:01,308 You know, we have these kinds of received ideas and just how you feel, 278 00:34:01,308 --> 00:34:10,318 I guess your own practise of working across these historical boundaries. It’s really stimulating and exciting to see it. 279 00:34:10,318 --> 00:34:22,468 Hmm. Yeah, I just I just wondered what your reflections are and the risks or you know, how you negotiate this, this this kind of way of working. 280 00:34:22,468 --> 00:34:32,188 [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK]: OK, thank you that. That's a brilliant question. And it gets really to, I think, the heart of some of the issues in the talk. 281 00:34:32,188 --> 00:34:41,818 I am interested in working trans-historically. I am interested in making those comparisons between the early, modern and contemporary moment. 282 00:34:41,818 --> 00:34:47,248 And I think they began when I look back over my career. 283 00:34:47,248 --> 00:34:59,068 They began as a way of making myself visible in my research as a Latina woman, so I think that was the original impetus that I had. 284 00:34:59,068 --> 00:35:01,738 But I'm very interested in. 285 00:35:01,738 --> 00:35:10,018 I don't believe in objective truth, so I believe that any time we're looking at the past, we're looking through our current lenses. 286 00:35:10,018 --> 00:35:16,348 So, I, on the other hand, I don't want to invent things in the 17th century, right? 287 00:35:16,348 --> 00:35:24,268 So, I am aware of what I'm thinking now and what the concerns and issues are of our current moment. 288 00:35:24,268 --> 00:35:30,718 And I think that sensitises me to look for those things in the 17th century. 289 00:35:30,718 --> 00:35:38,518 So, I try to balance, you know, Judith Butler's excitable speech or Foucault with what inquisition censors were actually saying, 290 00:35:38,518 --> 00:35:46,168 what artists were actually doing. So, I think it's hard. I think the risk is that we deform the past, right? 291 00:35:46,168 --> 00:35:49,648 But I think people claiming to be objective are probably doing that already. 292 00:35:49,648 --> 00:35:58,868 So, I think if I make what I'm doing clear and open and I'm also open to the possibility that I may change my mind or make mistakes. 293 00:35:58,868 --> 00:36:06,418 So yeah, and that dialogue. Dialogue as a scholar, is everything so. 294 00:36:06,418 --> 00:36:13,678 [AUDIENCE]: Thank you. Brilliant. 295 00:36:13,678 --> 00:36:18,025 [ANNA ESPINOLA LYNN]: Anybody have any? We've got another hand, whoever just put their hand up. 296 00:36:18,025 --> 00:36:30,535 [AUDIENCE]: Thank you Charlene. So interesting, especially to those of us who don't know nearly enough about things across the Atlantic. 297 00:36:30,535 --> 00:36:40,225 You'll know very well that the notion of Catholic reform you talked about the Inquisition and the whole Catholic reform with its missions. 298 00:36:40,225 --> 00:36:45,475 It's confessors. And then the Inquisition is the kind of third 299 00:36:45,475 --> 00:36:52,585 arm of this. Three arms - is much debated on the European side. 300 00:36:52,585 --> 00:36:56,155 And I guess a generation ago, 301 00:36:56,155 --> 00:37:06,635 the prevailing view was that it just transformed everything and there is still that view out there [INAUDIBLE] the book Tribunals of Countries, 302 00:37:06,635 --> 00:37:09,485 you know, just basically says that was the transformative moment. 303 00:37:09,485 --> 00:37:17,845 And Europe and in fact, Western culture has been in the grip of the Catholic Church, whether it knows it or not. 304 00:37:17,845 --> 00:37:24,165 Since the 17th century, cutting across that, there’s a different historiography, 305 00:37:24,165 --> 00:37:30,025 and I think it's much more fragmented, but it takes a form analogous to your approach to 306 00:37:30,025 --> 00:37:35,755 these images a question is ahead about well. How effective is this inquisitorial process anyway? 307 00:37:35,755 --> 00:37:42,385 And what do we find people actually doing when they make images or when they venerate them? 308 00:37:42,385 --> 00:37:49,915 And one finds all sorts of inconsistencies with the rules. So, my question, my question, that was a comment. 309 00:37:49,915 --> 00:37:55,225 But then my question to you is you did refer quite a lot of the Inquisition into what it said, 310 00:37:55,225 --> 00:38:03,195 but could you send off a bit more about what it actually did? And if I can put it this way, your context? 311 00:38:03,195 --> 00:38:13,825 [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK]: OK, yeah, that's another that's another just brilliant question. And you're right that it is really it's impossible to generalise and we cannot. 312 00:38:13,825 --> 00:38:21,115 I don't think we should overestimate the power of the Inquisition. And I think they actually have more power over text than they do over images. 313 00:38:21,115 --> 00:38:27,925 OK. Yes, we have these censors who are, we have images that are confiscated, destroyed, changed. 314 00:38:27,925 --> 00:38:34,135 I found expurgated hagiographies with images crossed out and things like that. 315 00:38:34,135 --> 00:38:41,605 But we also find, particularly in New Spain, where the Inquisition is even less effective. 316 00:38:41,605 --> 00:38:52,045 We also find these local responses. I'm trying to balance trying to keep in mind the local and specific as much as I love macro history, 317 00:38:52,045 --> 00:38:59,095 but to keep in mind these local moments where we can actually document something concrete, right? 318 00:38:59,095 --> 00:39:09,805 And so, I think that's the trick. I'm always thinking, like do I have enough examples that can add up to a generalisation here and in New Spain, 319 00:39:09,805 --> 00:39:19,045 one could argue, well, the church is busier with conversion, maybe in the new world, but in new Spain, 320 00:39:19,045 --> 00:39:24,895 the people simply are not following those guidelines, even though those texts are circulating there. 321 00:39:24,895 --> 00:39:34,455 So, it's very interesting to me to do that comparison. I don't know if I answered your question, but if you had another thought. 322 00:39:34,455 --> 00:39:40,185 [AUDIENCE]: You know what I meant, just a comment, I mean, insofar as there are, for example, letters back from bishops, 323 00:39:40,185 --> 00:39:49,245 I think they come from New Spain as well as from other parts of the world in the aftermath of the 1563 decree on committees. 324 00:39:49,245 --> 00:39:59,175 Insofar as they have been looked, at and a base, they’ve done a bit, they have quite a lot to say about things that bishops are worried about. 325 00:39:59,175 --> 00:40:03,265 Bishops worry about all sorts of things, to the art historian, 326 00:40:03,265 --> 00:40:09,135 it is quite striking that they are not so far as I know, I'm aware, really focussing. 327 00:40:09,135 --> 00:40:13,015 They think maybe they've got other things to worry about, they’ve got heresies to be concerned about. 328 00:40:13,015 --> 00:40:17,685 Hmm. And so, there's rather less interest. 329 00:40:17,685 --> 00:40:26,755 I mean, you do find visitation comments on images being wrongly venerated that should be moved and put it proper places. 330 00:40:26,755 --> 00:40:32,505 rather less than you might have expected, given the books, given the publications 331 00:40:32,505 --> 00:40:39,525 that you mentioned on the actual content of pictures and apart from now famous cases of Caravaggio and Veronese(?), 332 00:40:39,525 --> 00:40:47,985 I was not aware of many artists actually being hauled up before Inquisitors in Europe. 333 00:40:47,985 --> 00:40:54,645 I mean, there are some interesting cases in new Spain that, yeah, yeah, they're definitely there. 334 00:40:54,645 --> 00:40:58,395 [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK]: There there's a controversy over depictions of the Trinity. 335 00:40:58,395 --> 00:41:09,655 For example, there are in the National Library in Spain, I found a cache of drawings that depict nudity that have been pulled by the Inquisition. 336 00:41:09,655 --> 00:41:13,305 I know, I know. Isn't that just like incredible? 337 00:41:13,305 --> 00:41:24,045 There's a famous case in New Spain of a Flemish artist, Simon Pereyns(?), who makes this outrageous comment that, oh, 338 00:41:24,045 --> 00:41:31,205 I'd rather paint portraits than religious images and the Inquisition gets him, and he's made to paint an altar piece in response. 339 00:41:31,205 --> 00:41:36,915 So, there are, but I think it's a good. 340 00:41:36,915 --> 00:41:44,535 I think it's a good warning to be specific about like what, you know, we have these guidelines, but what's actually happening on the ground. 341 00:41:44,535 --> 00:41:53,565 Yeah, I mean, I think about I was trying to think of inquisition censorship as having a chilling effect more than like, 342 00:41:53,565 --> 00:41:58,185 here are these commandments you can't. [AUDIENCE]: Yeah, yeah, it's a cold wind. 343 00:41:58,185 --> 00:42:04,667 I agree about that. [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK]: Thank you. Thank you. 344 00:42:04,667 --> 00:42:11,987 [AUDIENCE]: So just sort of following up on that. So, I think it would be interesting to think also about the difficulties of enforcing these kinds of things because it's actually, 345 00:42:11,987 --> 00:42:17,957 you know, in a pre-photographic, you know, there's no Tik Tok videos of that inappropriate cult worship. 346 00:42:17,957 --> 00:42:25,107 You know, it has to be all the images. What the problem with them is has to become translated into words that then get described to someone else. 347 00:42:25,107 --> 00:42:27,737 And there are these visitations people might go and see them. 348 00:42:27,737 --> 00:42:31,727 But I think especially when you're thinking about the more far flung places, in a way, 349 00:42:31,727 --> 00:42:38,327 it's easier to describe problematic behaviour, perhaps than a problematic image, because there's a kind of layers of translation. 350 00:42:38,327 --> 00:42:40,877 And I guess one question I had just because, you know, 351 00:42:40,877 --> 00:42:46,647 there are some examples of the difference between different media and I'm thinking specifically about prints. 352 00:42:46,647 --> 00:42:53,537 Yes, because prints. Actually, that object, that image can travel and then become, you know, be seen. 353 00:42:53,537 --> 00:42:57,317 I'm thinking of, for example, the classic cases the Modi by [INAUDIBLE]. 354 00:42:57,317 --> 00:43:02,147 And you know that the problem wasn't so much with the drawings, but when prints were made, that then could be circulated. 355 00:43:02,147 --> 00:43:08,867 Also, because that means that rather than a small elite group that can hopefully, you know, handle the nudity or the pornography or whatever, 356 00:43:08,867 --> 00:43:15,437 we want to call it, that it becomes suddenly available to a wider and presumably less controllable, less educated, whatever audience. 357 00:43:15,437 --> 00:43:26,057 So, I guess I wonder whether you see more or different kinds of issues of censorship and of the, well, the kinds of images, but also, you know, 358 00:43:26,057 --> 00:43:32,807 the reactions to them in prints that may circulate more widely and whether there's a question of simply that they're more accessible 359 00:43:32,807 --> 00:43:44,447 or also whether there's additional worry of but now they'll be available in a broader geographic and socioeconomic context. 360 00:43:44,447 --> 00:43:53,117 [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK]: Thank you. Another brilliant question. And there's actually pretty good evidence for new Spain in prints, 361 00:43:53,117 --> 00:43:59,147 and it's actually the work of Kelly Donoghue Wallace, who, yeah, it was my student at University of New Mexico. 362 00:43:59,147 --> 00:44:07,937 And there are cases. A lot of the cases are people mistreating images like, Oh, they got mad and they folded up the image and put it in their shoe, 363 00:44:07,937 --> 00:44:13,607 or they got mad at the Virgin Mary didn't grant this, so they did something bad to the image. 364 00:44:13,607 --> 00:44:19,397 But there are also clear restrictions on the two that come to mind the Trinity again. 365 00:44:19,397 --> 00:44:27,317 In New Spain, the Trinity is depicted as the triplets. The triplet figures of Christ and the church is like, No, no, we can't, can't do that. 366 00:44:27,317 --> 00:44:29,597 The other is in New Spain. 367 00:44:29,597 --> 00:44:40,697 The controversy over these depictions of Christ's suffering that are really gory and bloody and that show his bones showing through his back. 368 00:44:40,697 --> 00:44:47,027 So those are the two cases I can think of specifically concerning prints. 369 00:44:47,027 --> 00:44:53,087 Now, I can't think of any examples for Spain. Yeah. 370 00:44:53,087 --> 00:44:56,127 I don't know if anyone else. I can't think of any. 371 00:44:56,127 --> 00:45:01,847 [AUDIENCE]: Now, I guess, I mean, I guess I was just raising. And there'd be other ways to think about how do these things work differently in different media. 372 00:45:01,847 --> 00:45:05,357 The other one, which I mean, I haven't really thought through, but for example, sculpture, you know, 373 00:45:05,357 --> 00:45:10,127 is there something about the three dimensionality of the object that maybe raises more concerns? 374 00:45:10,127 --> 00:45:15,677 Or maybe interestingly, doesn't you know the same problem that prints by being more diffuse raised new questions? 375 00:45:15,677 --> 00:45:16,857 Does the three dimensionality? 376 00:45:16,857 --> 00:45:23,357 I mean, and we can think of, you know, the amazing one thinking that more of images of the dead Christ that one knows from [INAUDIBLE]. 377 00:45:23,357 --> 00:45:30,137 You know how those images function differently? Is there in a kind of equivalent or different kinds of worries about the incarnation 378 00:45:30,137 --> 00:45:34,937 in a literal three-dimensional form of the female body in images of the Madonna? 379 00:45:34,937 --> 00:45:41,387 I mean, anyway, it doesn’t have to be that question. I think it would be interesting to think in terms of media diffusion and other kinds of issues that that might 380 00:45:41,387 --> 00:45:48,707 raise and whether or whether it raises other issues in the context that you're working on, 381 00:45:48,707 --> 00:45:52,287 The question about sculpture is a great one, and I don't I don't know. 382 00:45:52,287 --> 00:45:56,777 And that's a great. The cases that I can think of are about paintings or prints. 383 00:45:56,777 --> 00:46:01,517 So that's a really you would think they'd be really concerned about sculpture. In New Spain. 384 00:46:01,517 --> 00:46:07,337 They're definitely worried about prints, right? Yeah, for sure. Because, yeah, their circulation. 385 00:46:07,337 --> 00:46:20,360 [ANNA ESPINOLA LYNN]: Does anybody have any other questions percolating, Geraldine? 386 00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:22,890 [AUDIENCE]: It wasn't a question was just a kind of slightly random comment. 387 00:46:22,890 --> 00:46:30,230 So, having worked on bare breasts both kind of earlier and later than the period you work on and not particularly in a Spanish context at all. 388 00:46:30,230 --> 00:46:33,050 But one thing that's interesting, especially thinking back some of the earlier ones, 389 00:46:33,050 --> 00:46:37,190 So, there is this - this is just sort of throwing out is a further thought - 390 00:46:37,190 --> 00:46:43,370 So, there's a question about, you know, good mothers have to be like the virgin and themselves, you know, breastfeed the baby. 391 00:46:43,370 --> 00:46:50,690 But there is. I seem to remember certain discussions, especially again in the in the earlier Italian context that I work on a bit more. 392 00:46:50,690 --> 00:46:57,290 That one of the problems is with the kind of biology of breastfeeding, 393 00:46:57,290 --> 00:47:02,630 meaning that when you're breastfeeding, you're less likely to be able to get pregnant again, 394 00:47:02,630 --> 00:47:10,250 and that there was a kind of tension amongst especially elite women or elite families that the pressure to breastfeed, 395 00:47:10,250 --> 00:47:19,190 which on the one hand was being put on by particularly clerics, was coming into conflict with sort of dynastic concerns. 396 00:47:19,190 --> 00:47:22,970 Because actually, if you're an elite woman, the reason you put your baby out to a wet nurse, 397 00:47:22,970 --> 00:47:29,750 and in fact, if you're wealthy enough, you don't have to put them out in the countryside. You just have your servant, your in-house nanny, basically. 398 00:47:29,750 --> 00:47:35,300 But it meant you would be able to get pregnant more quickly. And if you're at the sort of top of the social scale, 399 00:47:35,300 --> 00:47:43,430 you know your husband and his family want you to be pregnant more rather than taking possibly a year or two out and not be pregnant. 400 00:47:43,430 --> 00:47:52,340 So, I just wonder and then there's a bit less sort of sort of textual evidence supporting that, but it's just worth thinking about that, 401 00:47:52,340 --> 00:48:01,670 that there is a tension between kind of secular dynastic concerns about increasing ideally the male children that the wife 402 00:48:01,670 --> 00:48:06,950 is going to bear versus the kind of moralising more clerical like be like a good mother like the Virgin. 403 00:48:06,950 --> 00:48:12,950 Anyway, just maybe I don't know if that if that spills over into later periods, whether people thinking about it from the biology point of view. 404 00:48:12,950 --> 00:48:18,230 But it is a sort of another angle about where there's some pressure of why women and their families, 405 00:48:18,230 --> 00:48:20,900 perhaps including the sort of male head of the family, 406 00:48:20,900 --> 00:48:27,860 might not want to be like the Virgin because you you'll have fewer male heirs, potentially anyway. 407 00:48:27,860 --> 00:48:32,360 Yeah. Well, I don't know if it comes up anywhere, but it is something I think that is discussed a bit in the earlier period. 408 00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:39,830 But whether it comes up in later discussions about encouraging breastfeeding through visual or other means, I don't know. 409 00:48:39,830 --> 00:48:49,520 [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK]: There is that one medical text that I quoted by Juan Alonso […INAUDIBLE] who talks about 410 00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:55,160 well, women should breastfeed, but royal women, we can make an exception for them. 411 00:48:55,160 --> 00:49:00,290 And it's interesting because I read that is in terms of class difference, but I mean that you're probably right. 412 00:49:00,290 --> 00:49:08,420 That's what it is that. And there I can't think of anything that explicitly says what you're suggesting in the Spanish context, 413 00:49:08,420 --> 00:49:12,820 but I suspect that's what's at the heart of that. 414 00:49:12,820 --> 00:49:20,690 Yeah. What about text? Yeah. Yeah, it's just, worth thinking of as another sort of thing that crosses over with some of this material. 415 00:49:20,690 --> 00:49:23,810 Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes. 416 00:49:23,810 --> 00:49:34,130 [ANNA ESPINOLA LYNN]: So, if I may just ask another question, just kind of building on the question around kind of a humanisation of women's sacred women, 417 00:49:34,130 --> 00:49:39,710 and what really that means if it's a grounding in a body is a grounding in historical moment. 418 00:49:39,710 --> 00:49:49,220 And it made me think of some of your earlier work on St Anne, right. In the apocryphal state, a constructed state, 419 00:49:49,220 --> 00:49:51,650 Who, certainly in the context of late mediaeval Europe, 420 00:49:51,650 --> 00:50:03,290 Northern Europe offers a kind of point of identification and model for bourgeois women follow a model of piety because she married perhaps three times, 421 00:50:03,290 --> 00:50:12,080 is the matriarch of a massive family. And all of the images of her of the nativity of the Virgin are often, you know, 422 00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:18,680 situated within a bourgeois interior and St Anne and is an actually accessible model of 423 00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:24,920 femininity because her soul was not created in time before time to the impossibly [INAUDIBLE]. 424 00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:38,040 So, I guess my question is, have you come across any images of Saint Anne lactating or any images of [INAUDIBLE] the Virgin as a kind of. 425 00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:44,900 all the more human, sacred woman. 426 00:50:44,900 --> 00:50:49,040 [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK]: Wow, OK, that's an interesting question. That's a great question. 427 00:50:49,040 --> 00:51:01,070 The images that show Anne and Mary Mary's older are usually too old to breastfeed, but I have this vague memory. 428 00:51:01,070 --> 00:51:12,050 I've seen something where maybe, but I actually think it's Joachim, maybe holding Mary as an infant, I cannot think of any Saint. 429 00:51:12,050 --> 00:51:18,410 I'm pretty sure it's Joachim, but that, yeah, that would be. 430 00:51:18,410 --> 00:51:24,290 Wow, that would really make the point, wouldn't that to women about the importance of breastfeeding? 431 00:51:24,290 --> 00:51:33,560 My sense with this Catholic imagery at this point is that it's a very delicate balancing game like they're models for us to follow, 432 00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:38,300 but they're not like us, right? So, there's this constant tension going back and forth. 433 00:51:38,300 --> 00:51:44,300 You're like Mary, but not totally like Mary, right? So, they have to maintain that distinction. 434 00:51:44,300 --> 00:51:47,850 I think, so there's always this delicate balancing act. 435 00:51:47,850 --> 00:51:58,070 I suspect. [ANNA ESPINOLA LYNN]: Yeah, I mean, that kind of idea of humanisation can really put that tension within Mary. 436 00:51:58,070 --> 00:52:03,200 On the one hand, particularly after the council's trend of really grounding Mary in the sense of a real 437 00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:09,950 world and kind of historical moment in the kind of historical human incarnation. 438 00:52:09,950 --> 00:52:21,500 And then, on the other hand, is this kind of person outside of time and outside of the kind of logic or laws of the universe? 439 00:52:21,500 --> 00:52:29,720 [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK]: There's of course, I mean, as you probably know, there's a really interesting twist to what happens in New Spain, 440 00:52:29,720 --> 00:52:34,700 where, you know, First the Franciscans are like, Wow, they're really interested in Madonna and child. 441 00:52:34,700 --> 00:52:39,020 But then there are almost no images of the Madonna and child. 442 00:52:39,020 --> 00:52:48,530 I mean, there are relatively few in new Spanish art. And then it turns out that indigenous converts are not interested in Mary, the humble mother. 443 00:52:48,530 --> 00:53:00,440 They're interested in Mary as the celestial queen. And the idea that she fits somehow better into existing notions around female deities. 444 00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:11,330 So that's a really interesting case. And even when artists in New Spain copy European artworks, either from copies or from engravings, 445 00:53:11,330 --> 00:53:19,130 they go out of their way to make Mary more celestial more queenly to make her less humble, cover her up. 446 00:53:19,130 --> 00:53:23,980 And it's really fascinating. It was not what I expected at all. 447 00:53:23,980 --> 00:53:40,560 [ANNA ESPINOLA LYNN]: That's really brilliant. Well, I'm mindful of time, and we have really asked loads of questions already, but if anybody has any final question. 448 00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:48,660 All right, well, Charlene, thank you so much for a really, brilliant fascinating talk and very thought-provoking. 449 00:53:48,660 --> 00:53:53,550 Thank you so much for sharing it with us. [PROF. CHARLENE VILLASENOR BLACK]: Thank you for the invitation. I appreciate the dialogue.