The Visitation Of The Virgin Mary. Colonial School. 18th Century. Peru. Bolivia.

The Visitation of the Virgin Mary. Potosí School. First half of the 18th century. Attributed to Gaspar Miguel de Berrio (Potosí, Bolivia, c. 1706 - c. 1762). Old relining, no visible restorations. 19th-century carved and gilded wooden frame. The Colonial School, the most famous of which is the Cuzco School (Escuela Cusqueña), is a Catholic artistic movement that developed in the Viceroyalty of Peru during the 16th and 18th centuries, particularly in Cuzco (the former capital of the Inca Empire), but also in other Andean cities, in Bolivia and Ecuador. On May 31, Catholics celebrate the Visitation of the Virgin Mary. They commemorate this passage from the Gospel where Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth. It is also the meeting in utero of Jesus and John the Baptist. Symbolically, it represents the continuity between the Old and New Testaments. The style of the Cuzco school lies at the confluence of Baroque influences brought by the Spanish conquistadors and indigenous and mestizo artistic traditions. The artworks of the Potosí school are similar to those of the Cuzco school, but are characterized by a more marked primitivism, chiaroscuro, rigidity of figures and an abundance of narrative scenes.