Maya Christian Murals of Yucatán: Indigenous Catholicism in Early Modern New Spain

FAIN: RZ-266080-19

Penn State (University Park, PA 16802-1503)
Amara Solari (Project Director: December 2018 to July 2024)
Linda Kristine Williams (Co Project Director: February 2019 to July 2024)

Preparation of a co-authored book and supplementary website relating religious murals painted by Christianized Maya artists in Yucatán, Mexico, between 1550 and 1750. (36 months)

Our multidisciplinary project analyzes religious murals painted by Christianized Maya artists in Yucatán, Mexico, between 1550 and 1750. The first study of its kind, we examine the extant corpus of 22 mural cycles to illuminate the processes of intercultural reciprocation, ideological interchange, and economic exchange that defined the “Encounter” between Europe and the Americas. As art historians, we utilize humanistic methodologies in correlation with empirical methods to reconstruct the circulation of the material goods – print culture and painting pigments – necessary for the murals’ production. We center Maya artists in the vast networks of exchange that marked the Counter Reformation, querying how the visual adaptation of pre-Columbian artistic practices impacted the emergence of Maya Catholic identity. Our final products, a scholarly book and a supplementary interactive website, will allow the interested public and scholars access to our research findings.