Images at War: Mexico From Columbus to Blade Runner (1492-2019)
Serge Gruzinski
“If colonial America was the melting pot of modernity, it
was
because it was also a fabulous laboratory of images. . . .
Just as much as speech and writing, the image can be a
vehicle for all sorts of power and resistance.” So writes
Serge Gruzinski in the introduction to Images at War, his
striking reinterpretation of the Spanish colonization of
Mexico. Concentrating on the political meaning of the
baroque image and its function within a multicultural
society, Gruzinski compares its ubiquity in Mexico to our
modern fascination with images and their meaning.
Although the baroque image played a decisive role in many
arenas, especially that of conquest and New World
colonization, its powerful resonance in the sphere of
religion is a focal point of Gruzinski's study. In his analysis
of how images conveyed meaning across linguistic barriers,
he uncovers recurring themes of false images,
less-than-perfect replicas, the uprooting of peoples and
cultural memories, and the violence of iconoclastic
destruction. He shows how various ethnic groups—Indians,
blacks, Europeans—left their distinct marks on images of
colonialism and religion, coopting them into expressions of
identity or instruments of rebellion. As Gruzinski's story
unfolds, he tells of Aztec idols, the cult of the Virgin of
Guadalupe, conquistadors, Franciscans, and neoclassical
attempts to repress the baroque. In the final chapter he
discusses the political and religious implications of
contemporary imagery—such as that in Mexican soap
operas—and speculates about the future of images in Latin
America.
Originally written in French, this work makes available to an
English audience a seminal study of Mexico and the role of
the image in the New World.
“A magnificent study—already influential in
its field. One gets a far richer sense of
colonial Mexico in these pages than is
offered by the kind of literary or cultural
history that can only draw on a few scanty
documents and verbal testimonials. This
book speaks powerfully to our
contemporary appetite for a renewal of
our views of the colonial and postcolonial
eras.”—Fredric Jameson
Serge Gruzinski is Director of Research at the Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris and author
of several books, among them The Conquest of Mexico
and Man-Gods in the Mexican Highlands.
Heather MacLean is a translator who lives in Forest Grove,
Oregon.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter One: Points of Reference
Chapter Two: War
Chapter Three: The Walls of Images
Chapter Four: The Admirable Effects of the Baroque Image
Chapter Five: Image Consumers
Conclusion: From the Enlightenment to Televisa
Bibliography
Related subjects:
Latin American Studies
Art
Postcolonial Studies
296 pages (April 2001)
20 b and w photographs, 1 map
ISBN 0-8223-2653-1 Cloth - $59.95
ISBN 0-8223-2643-4 Paperback - $19.95
Update June 12, 2001