Nacimiento de San Francisco, Basilio Santa Cruz

Basilio Pacheco de Santa Cruz Pumacallao (1635–1710)
''Artnet''. (retrieved 21 June 2009) or Basilio de Santa Cruz Puma Callao was a

Peruvian Peruvians ( es, peruanos) are the citizens of Peru. There were Andean and coastal ancient civilizations like Caral, which inhabited what is now Peruvian territory for several millennia before the Spanish conquest of Peru, Spanish conquest in th ...

painter of

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...

(Inca) and Ladino origin from

Cusco, Peru Cusco, often spelled Cuzco (; qu, Qusqu ()), is a city in Southeastern Peru near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region and of the Cusco Province. The city is the seventh most populous in Peru ...

. He was part of the Cuzco School, a colonial movement of indigenous painters educated in the Baroque religious painting tradition of Spain.

Background

Basilio Santa Cruz is also known by his Quechua name, Pumaqallo or Pumacallo, and with Diego Quispe Tito, is regarded as one of the most famous painters in the

Cusco School The Cusco School (''Escuela cuzqueña'') or Cuzco School, was a Roman Catholic artistic tradition based in Cusco, Peru (the former capital of the Inca Empire) during the Colonial period, in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. It was not limited to ...

tradition.Dean, Carolyn
''Inka bodies and the body of Christ: Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco, Peru.''
Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1999: 77-78. (retrieved through Google Books, 22 June 2009) . He lived during the colonial era of the 17th century in the

Viceroyalty of Peru The Viceroyalty of Peru ( es, Virreinato del Perú, links=no) was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed fro ...

. His primary patron was Bishop Manuel de Mollinedo. His work combined the parallel influences of

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

and

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and is characterized by its dynamic composition, lavish decoration, and large scale. Initially art historians believed Basilio Santa Cruz to be a Spanish

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...

, but historian Jorge Cornejo Bouroncle discovered contracts commissioning paintings from the artist, revealed that he was Basilio de Santa Cruz Pumacallao, with a distinctly Quechua surname, confirming his identity as an Indian.

Style

His style is highly distinct from that of contemporary artist Diego Quispe Tito, because it is not based specifically on engravings imported from Europe but also paintings by Spanish artists. This influence can be attributed to the artworks that the Bishop Mollinedo brought back from

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

. His studio created an extensive series of paintings depicted the life of St. Francis.

Collections

Santa Cruz's artwork can be seen at the Cathedral of Cusco. In its

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's Forum (Roman), forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building ...

are two enormous paintings by him, featuring Saint Christopher's Apotheosis and Saint Isidore, respectively. Past the

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building wi ...

hang two more of Santa Cruz's large canvases, the "Chasuble Imposition to Saint Ildephonsus" and "The Ecstasy of

Saint Philip Neri Philip Romolo Neri ( ; it, italics=no, Filippo Romolo Neri, ; 22 July 151526 May 1595), known as the "Second Apostle of Rome", after Saint Peter, was an Italian priest noted for founding a society of secular clergy called the Congregation of t ...

." A final piece of his work hangs in the Chapel of Saint Joseph. It is entitled, "Royal Saint Mary of Almudena", portraying a Virgin widely revered in Spain. The cathedral also owns his monumental oil paintings, ''Charles II and the Queen of Spain Adoring the Virgin of Almudena'' and ''Virgin of Bethlehem with Bishop Mollinedo''. His work also still stands in Convento de San Francisco del Cusco (Church and Convent of San Francisco, Cuzco) and includes "Series of the life of Saint Francis", in which only the last picture is signed by the artist. It is dated 1667. The Iglesia de la Merced has Santa Cruz's "Martyrdom of

Saint Laurence Saint Lawrence or Laurence ( la, Laurentius, lit. " laurelled"; 31 December AD 225 – 10 August 258) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roma ...

", a painting with angels in the style of Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Basilio Santa Cruz de Pumacallao created iconographies of arcabuceros, that is, angels with muzzle-loaded firearms, so characteristic of the Cuzco School and so different from the angels imagined in Europe at the same time. ''Corpus Christi Procession in Cuzco'', a late 17th-century oil on canvas painting in the collection of the Museo Arzobispol del Arte Religioso, has been attributed to him.Stratton-Pruitt 21

Notes

References

*Stratton-Pruitt, Suzanne, ed. ''The Virgin, Saints, and Angels: South American Paintings 1600—1825 from the Thomas Collection''. Milan, Italy: Skira, 2006. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Santa Cruz de Pumacallao, Basilio 1635 births 1710 deaths Peruvian people of Quechua descent Latin American artists of indigenous descent Peruvian Mannerist painters Cusco School 17th-century indigenous painters of the Americas 17th-century Peruvian people 18th-century Peruvian people Catholic painters