Casta Paintings

Jesse Hernandez

ART 33 MON 6-850

Professor Lugo

Essay 3: Casta Paintings

In a brief summary, Katzew outlines the background, premises, and major questions of her study, proposing that casta paintings produced in the earlier part of the eighteenth century stress the prosperity of New Spain and colonial pride. Chapter 1, “Painters and Painting: A Visual Tradition and Historiography,” begins with the compassionate statement: “Casta paintings construct racial identity through visual representation; it is one of the most compelling pictorial genres from the colonial period in Mexico in particular and the eighteenth century in general” (5). Katzew explains this statement by reviewing literature that has added and suggested insights into the production and consumption of these paintings.

From what I have read and seen casta paintings were presented most commonly in a series of sixteen individual canvases or a single canvas divided into sixteen partz. The series usually depict a man, woman, and child, arranged according to a hierarchies of race and status, the latter increasingly represented by occupation as well as dress by the mid-eighteenth century. The paintings are usually numbered and the racial mixtures identified in inscriptions.  Spanish men are often portrayed as men of leisure or professionals, blacks as coachmen, Indians as food vendors, and mestizos as tailors, shoemakers, and tobacconists. Mulattas and mestizas are often represented as cooks. Despite clear duplications, significant variations occur in casta sets produced throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Whereas some series restrict themselves to representation and specification of racial mixtures, dress styles, and material culture, others are more detailed in their representation of the New World.

According to Katzew works range widely in size but scale and quality do not correspond. Paintings by known artist tend to be a bit larger than many artists who remain anonymous whose sets are small and highly accomplished. It drew wide popularity during the eighteenth century and helped attract new avid clientele.

The casta images reproduced an idealized colonial racial hierarchy with the Spaniards, pure-blooded and white, dominating the social ladder, followed by Indians, and Africans, regarded as slaves, occupying one of the lowest positions in society. Unconverted races such as the Indians took their place on the very bottom rung of the social ladder and were often depicted partially naked, and living outdoors, flanked by traditional weapons such as bows and arrows. I agree with Katzew that established social and racial categories were being constantly challenged and uprooted and that casta paintings sought to visualize and stabilize anxieties of race, gender and social status that were present in colonial Mexico. Although I am interested in the social and historical context of casta images, I have sought to place these images within the larger spectrum of visual culture.

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