Summary

The study of Passion imagery in the New World is located at the crossroads of artistic expressions, historical moments, and interests. It must consider issues of iconography, local devotion, agency, identity, and the materiality of artworks, but also connections to belief, piety, and the colonial context. The Passion of Christ encompasses the last moments in the life of Jesus: from his death sentence and the torments he suffered, to his execution through Crucifixion at Mount Golgotha. Although Passion imagery depicts moments narrated in the four canonical Gospels, artists also found inspiration in apocryphal texts, Spanish mystic literature, and European images that traveled in the form of engravings, which were sources abundantly used in Ibero-America. Spanish, Flemish, and Italian sources circulated in America, providing Passion images with particular characteristics. At the same time, local history was incorporated into the representation of these last moments of the life of Jesus, such as in cases of the Christ of Ixmiquilpan in colonial Mexico or the Christ of the Earthquakes, in Cusco, Peru. Generic Passion images became specific cult images due to their miracles, which were particularly important in the Americas as part of the evangelization process and the preservation of the colonial political order. The indigenous populations of America were in many occasions intertwined in these stories around images of Christ. Soon after the conquest, indigenous people also became manufacturers of these images. Passion imagery is found in the form of painting, sculpture, engraving, and architecture, becoming, in certain cases, Gesamtkunstwerk, or total works of art, since buildings and their interiors make use of many art forms under a unifying concept related to the Passion of Christ, such as sanctuaries dedicated to Jesus or architectural renditions of the Way of the Cross.