Formal and Contextual Analysis of “La Virgen De Guadalupe”

Formal and Contextual Analysis of “La Virgen De Guadalupe”

Introduction

Miguel Cabrera was a painter born in Oaxaca and later resided in Mexico. He was considered as the most professional painter in New Spain. Among his works was the creation of secular and religious art for wealthy patrons as well as the Catholic Church. La Virgin De Guadalupe is also known as our lady of Guadalupe. It is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is significantly associated with the apparition, which is Marian and enshrined within the minor basilica of our lady of Guadalupe, which is located in Mexico. This place is one of the catholic pilgrims that receive most visitors as a sacred place. Virgin of Guadalupe represents a master symbol This paper will provide a formal and contextual analysis of La Virgen De Guadalupe according to the research of Miguel Cabrera as well as considering the strategies that were used by the artist and the critical elements in this sacred place

Formal analysis of La Virgen De Guadalupe

Formal analysis involves giving a visual description of an art that is providing the visible structures, including the arrangement and functioning of the visual elements within the concerned art. The Virgin Mary occupies a unique position in the Christian saints in Latin American history. This art is has risen over the other images in estimating the adjustable model of motherhood, salvation, national destiny, nourishment in Mexico.

The Virgin of Guadalupe, as one of the images of the Virgin of Immaculate, has political importance. Guadalupe first appeared on December 8, 1531, on Tepayacac hill in the Northern city of Mexico. The creator of the Guadalupe icon made use of it as a model engraving the book of revelation. She is covered with the sun, and the moon is located at her feet, which is crescent in shape. The rays of the sun, on the other hand, are creating an almond-shaped mandorla. The stars in her image are twelve in number and crown her head, which is spread over her blue covering.

The Virgin Guadalupe, like any other earth deities of the pre-Columbian, had authority over the natural disaster, fertility as well as diseases. The campaign of legitimizing Guadalupe as the dominant Virgin Mary in New Spain started in 1648, with the first account of the apparition written by Miguel Sanchez. She has embodied all the elements of the creole program, which are verification of miraculous apparitions of Guadalupe as a phenomenon of America, justification of the conquest, and glorification of Mexico.

Contextual analysis of La Virgen De Guadalupe

Contextual analysis of an artwork implies placing art in its context for the reception as well as creation. Contextual analysis can include political circumstances, life, and training of the artist; the philosophical bodies were present, the setting of the art, and its original use.  God and Christ were feared mostly than the way they are loved in the Spanish belief. Christ was represented as sacrificed on the cross or a young child, on the other hand, Mary worked to deflect harsh rulings of God since she is the most loved.

In Spain, the Virgin Mary was linked with fertility and the land.  Much is not known about the person who made the shrine at Tepeyac, something which is of spiritual geography can be traced from property records and baptism. It is an indication of when and where parents gave names to their young ones for her and the location of the states, which was referred to as Guadalupe.  The Virgin of Guadalupe was much forgotten in central Mexico before 1810; this art was linked to an idea of idealistic reconquest.

The leader of theocratic Utopia named himself a savior and his companion as Virgin of Guadalupe, it was used during the first months of independence by Miguel Hidalgo as well as other curates who beseeched her fortification against the gachupines. The Virgin of Guadalupe and Indian rebellion connections during colonial times have ambiguous connections.

The Virgin of Guadalupe has several roles in which includes it serves as national emblem. This cult joined together all the strata of New Spain. Secondly, from the sixteenth century, Guadalupe served as a sign of freedom of the populations who are natives. With time the meaning was reinterpreted due to the reconstitution of sociopolitical organizations; hence Guadalupe was used as a symbol of accommodation and control also accommodation.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is a symbol which enshrines the aspirations and the hopes of the entire society. Her image led the revolutionaries into the battle during the Mexican war of independence against Spain. The image of Guadalupe and her shrine at Tepeyac are surrounded by a myth that tells its origin. According to this myth, Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego and talked to him in Nahuatl. The Virgin asked Juan Diego to seek out the archbishop of Mexico and make him informed of her desire to see a church built in her honor at Tepeyac Hill.

The majority of the Mexican Americans in the United States have chosen to maintain the Virgin of Guadalupe as the precious element in the creation of communal solidarity. The Virgin of Guadalupe, in her intercessory role she was a model for mediating the secular sanctions networks of the colonial rule. The apocalyptic iconography of Guadalupe made a promise of a new start of a creole that is an ambitious constituency. The Guadalupe symbol acts as a connection between families, religion, colonial past, interdependent present Mexican and Indian, as well as politics. She is a reflection of the social relations of the life of Mexicans and expresses the feelings which they produce.

Conclusion

The Virgin of Guadalupe is a signifier of submission,, as well as a sign of of foreshowing autonomy. More research needsneeds to be conducted on where and how the cult of Guadalupe came into place, what changed when the change took place as well as the history of the Mexican image of Mary. Currently, the image of Virgin Guadalupe is still embedded in the ethnic identity of Mexicans descent considered far much beyond being a catholic.

The Guadalupe symbol shows a cultural idiom in which the feelings and tenor of these link can be demonstrated. It is a joint representation of the Mexican community. The visual analysis has included the visual description of the Virgin of Mary basing on what a viewer can see while the contextual analysis has included the original setting of the work, cultural expression, religious circumstances when the Virgin of Guadalupe was made as well as political circumstance when this image was made.