On the painted walls of some churches in the southern Andean region and, in particular, those along the so-called Silver Route, it is common to see images in which the figures represented are located in different spaces, framed in objects or located within architectural forms that suggest a spatiality that opens up on the wall. This happens, for example, in the walls of the churches of Pachama and Parinacota and also in Curahuara de Carangas (José Cárcamo 2020). Following the notion of image-lieu coined by Jerôme Baschet (2015), these representations make the temple, at the same time, a place of images in which each one of them is constituted as a space to be visited by the spectator or faithful who enters it.
The presence of this painted architecture, however, and of any object whose function seems to be to locate the image in a place, or to refer to a space other than the wall, brings us face to face with several problems worthy of study. First, there is the apparent paradox that these elements generate a place (lieu) within the "image-lieu". Second, it is necessary to reflect on the materiality alluded to by this painted architecture, since different materials are suggested to the viewer: wood, textiles and stone are the support of permanent constructions and ephemeral works painted on the interior walls of these churches. In this sense, this communication aims, on the one hand, to determine and reflect on the status of each of these materials alluded to in the mural painting, and, at the same time, to study the origin and sources of a possible typology of architectural forms and objects painted on the walls of these churches. In this way, also to discuss the possible liturgical, cultic, devotional or simply ornamental function of these material allusions and their particular collaboration in the composition of the new space created inside the painted image, as an "image-lieu".
The sources that served as a base to draw these architectures of the XVIII century could have been the same temples of the doctrine in which they are located, however, the typologies have no relation with the physiognomy of those, nor with the surrounding ones. The transit of canvases, textiles, books and engravings through the royal roads of the trade routes in the Peruvian viceroyalty, had, at the same time, internal circulations in which the different religious orders collaborated, which promoted their evangelizing methodology, as well as their own circuits of art and artists (Maya Stanfield-Mazzi 2013).
In this case, we will check the circuit established by the missionaries of the Franciscan order in the South Andean area (Leonor Matas 2016), who, through the objects kept in their convents located in the surroundings of Cuzco, Arequipa, La Paz, Potosí, allow us to account for a series of exchanges and itinerancies of images and iconographies for the indoctrination of community members and, in turn, the adornment of the temples that were part of the doctrines of indigenous reductions in their charge.
Baschet ,Jerome et al., Les images dans lóccident médiéval. LÁtelier Médiéviste 14, 2015. Brepols Publishers, Belgium 2015.
Cárcamo, José et. al., Materialidades en la pintura mural de las iglesias de la ruta de la plata: Bitácora de una investigación. En: Materia Americana: El cuerpo de las imágenes hispanoamericanas (siglos XVI a mediados del XIX). Editorial: Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, 2020.
Stanfield-Mazzi, Maya. Object and Apparition. Envisioning the Christian Divine in the Colonial Andes. The University of Arizona Press. 2013.
Matas, Josefina. "Protagonistas de la arquitectura franciscana en la provincia de San Antonio de los Charcas". Revista Ciencia y cultura n 37. Diciembre 2016.
Paola CORTI, Associate Professor, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Chile ; Ph.D. in Medieval History by Université de Poitiers, France, 2014. Researcher of the Centre for Heritage Studies at the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez. https://artesliberales.uai.cl/profesor/paola-corti/
Magdalena PEREIRA. Assistant Professor, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez. Director of the Center for Heritage Studies at the same University. Ph.D. in History, mention in Art History, University of Seville, 2019. https://artesliberales.uai.cl/profesor/magdalena-pereira/
On the painted walls of some churches in the so-called Silver Route, it is common to see images in which the figures are located in different spaces, framed in objects, or located within architectural forms. Through the objects the missionaries of the Franciscan order in the South Andean area kept in their convents located in the surroundings of Cuzco, Arequipa, La Paz, Potosí, we will account a series of exchanges and itinerancies of images and iconographies for the indoctrination of community members and, in turn, the adornment of the temples that were part of the doctrines in their charge.