What is a Costumbrista painting?

What is a Costumbrista painting?

costumbrismo, (from Spanish costumbre, “custom”), a trend in Spanish literature that emphasized the depiction of the everyday manners and customs of a particular social or provincial milieu.

What is a costumbrist novel?

: a Spanish or Latin-American writer whose work is marked by usually realistic depiction of local or regional customs and types. costumbrista. adjective. Definition of costumbrista (Entry 2 of 2) : depicting local or regional customs, scenes, or types in literature or art a costumbrista novel a costumbrista picture.

What is Costumbrismo in Latin America?

Costumbrismo designates a cultural trend in Latin America and Spain toward representing local customs, types, costumes, and scenes of everyday life, and it offers a powerful statement about shifting terms of Mexican identity that had a lasting impact on Mexican history.

What were Casta paintings used for?

The casta paintings were displayed in official public spaces, such as museums, universities, high ranking officials’ residences and palaces, as well as in unofficial spaces when some private collections would be opened up to limited public viewing.

How many casta paintings are there?

Some 2,000 casta paintings are known to have been made in 18th-century Mexico, a large output that indicates the demand for this work, according to Katzew.

When was Casta Painting made?

18th century
Casta paintings were made in both New Spain and Perú in the 18th century, primarily for patrons of the upper classes—often Spaniards who had been in the colonies or had strong curiosity about the Americas.

What was the purpose of Casta paintings?

The painting displays a Spanish father and Indigenous mother with their son, and it belongs to a larger series of works that seek to document the inter-ethnic mixing occurring in New Spain among Europeans, indigenous peoples, Africans, and the existing mixed-race population.

What did casta paintings do?

Countering those anxieties, casta paintings depict colonial social life and mixed-race people in idealized terms. Many owners of casta paintings were high-ranking colonial bureaucrats, military officials, and clergy, who took their casta paintings back to Spain with them when they completed their service in America.

Why were casta paintings so popular?

In addition, European desires for exotica and the growing popularity of natural history contributed to the demand for casta paintings. The only extant casta series from Peru was commissioned as a gift specifically for the natural history collection of the Prince of Asturias (the future Charles IV of Spain).

What is La Casta?

Casta (Spanish: [ˈkasta]) is a term which means “lineage” in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier.

What were the casta paintings?

The 1763 work, titled “From Spaniard and Morisca, Albino,” is a casta painting — a type of artwork that was unique to the Americas (particularly Mexico) during the colonial era, in which painters assiduously chronicled different racial, ethnic and class groups.