Colonial Andean painting: Symbolic structure and sincretism

Abstract

Andean painting, as a characteristic form of colonial art in the central Andes, constituted an art that was primarily symbolic. Surrounding hierophantic symbols, a medium for the reproduction of the operation of ornamentation was made available in which the exploration of the fundamental structure of the medium of meaning was put at the service of the observation of the transcendental dimension of reality. As a structure of intercultural communication, this mode of organization of communication through images made possible the occurrence of processes of iconographic and stylistic syncretism, which have been the main object of interest in the social history of colonial Andean painting.