Art History
ARTH 489: Art and Architecture of Inca and Colonial Peru
Summer 2011
Instructor: Yumi Park, parky7@vcu.edu
Description and Aims of the Course:
This course examines the art and architecture of Peru, c. 1500 – 1800
It focuses particularly on the art of Cuzco and its environs. It has two aims. First, it will provide students with knowledge of the art of the Inca, the dominant empire in the Andes prior to the Spanish conquest (c. 1534) as well as that of the colonial culture that emerged under Spanish rule in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Second, it will explore the visual and artistic dynamics of culture contact in the forms of both colonialism and modern tourism.
Course Requirement:
1) Check their VCU e-mail account and the Blackboard website frequently prior to departure for additional course information
2) Participate in all activities in Peru that comprise the art history component of the program. This includes visits to museums, archaeological sites, etc, as well as lecture, daily group meetings and discussions of the readings with the professor. This counts for 50 % of your final grade.
3) Complete course readings prior to each related activity on the itinerary.
4) Complete each workbook unit during or after each of the related activities.
5) Submit the completed workbook to the professor at the end of the program for evaluation. This counts for 50% of your final grade.
NOTE: Students will need to stay in close communication with the instructor since the itinerary is subject to change.
1. Read before arrival in Lima
On Inca and Pre-Inca art in Peru:
Rebecca Stone Miller, “Introduction,” in Art of the Andes from Chavín to Inca
(London: Thames and Hudson, 2002). 9 – 16
Esther Pasztory, “Andean Aesthetics,” in Thinking with Things: Toward a New
Vision of Art (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 197 – 207
On Colonial Lima and Cuzco:
Tom Cummins, “A Tale of Two Cities: Cuzco, Lima and the Construction of
Colonial Representation,” in Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish
America (New York: Brooklyn Museum and Henry N. Abrams, 1996), 157 – 70.
2. Pisac. Read these before our visit to the site.
Carolyn Dean, “The Inka Married the Earth: Integrated Outcrops and the Making
of Place.” Art Bulletin 89. No. 3 (Sept. 2007):502 -18.
Jane Henrici, “Trading Culture: Tourism and Tourist Art in Pisac, Peru,” in
Tourism and Cultural Conflicts. edited by Mike Robinson and Priscilla Boniface
(New York: CABI Publishers, 1999), 161 – 80.
3. Ollantaytambo. Read these before our visit to the site.
Carolyn Dean, “The Trouble with (the term)Art,” Art Journal (Summer 2006): 25
– 32.
Jean-Pierre Protzen, “Inca Quarrying and Stonecutting,” Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians 44, no. 2 (1985): 161 – 82
4. Coricancha/Santo Domingo. Read this before our visit to the site.
Helaine Silverman, “Touring Ancient Times: The Present and Presented Past in
Contemporary Peru,” American Anthropologist 104, no. 3 (2002): 881 – 902. Stop
at the end of the section on Cuzco. We will read the section on Nazca when we
go there.
“The Revenge of the Incas,” The Economist 331 (21 May 1994): 48.
5. The Cathedral. Read this before out visit to the site.
Maya Stanfield-Mazzi, “Shifting Ground: Elite Sponsorship and the Cult of
Christ of the Earthquakes in Eightieth-Century Peru,” Hispanic Research Journal
8, no. 5 (Dec. 2007): 445 – 65.
6. Machu Picchu, Read this before our visit to the site.
Lucy C. Salazar, “Machu Picchu: Mysterious Royal Estate in the Cloud Forest,”
in Richard L. Burger and Lucy C. Salazar, eds., Machu Picchu: Unveiling the
Mystery of the Inca (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), 21 – 47.
7. Sacashuaman. Read this before our visit to the site.
Carolyn Dean, “Creating a Ruin in Colonial Cuzco: Sacsahuaman and What was
made of it,” Andean Past 5 (1998): 161 – 83.
8. Andahuaylillas. Read this before our visit to the site.
Sabine MacCormack, “Art in a Missionary Context: Images from Europe and the
Andes in the Church of Andahuaylillas near Cuzco,” in The World Made Image
(Boston: Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, 1998), 103 – 126.
9. Nazca. Read these during our visit to Nazca.
On the Nazca Lines
Anthony Aveni, “An Assessment of Previous Studies of the Nazca Geoglyphs,”
in the Lines of Nazca (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1990), 3-40.
On Tourism in Nazca
Helaine Silverman, “Touring Ancient Times: The Present and Presented Past in
Contemporary Peru,” American Anthropologist 104, no. 3 (2002): 881 – 902. Read
the section on Nazca.
10. Lima. Read this before our tour of downtown Lima
Pedro de Leon Portocarrero, “Description of Lima, Peru (early-seventeenth
century),” and “The Church and Monastery of San Franciso,” in Colonial Spanish
America: A Documentary History (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1998), 165 – 77.
