Santas: The Feminine Divine

By Carol Lopez

The Christian faith’s importance expanded due to the Spanish and Portuguese Viceroyalty, much of the art was influenced by Spanish, Italian, and Flemish Renaissance and Baroque paintings, prints, and sculptures. Throughout Christianity, female saints became models of holiness, emotional and spiritual solidarity. Saints such as St.Theresa, St. Katherine, St.Barbra, St. Lucy, St. Anne, and St. Veronica were popular during the colonial times, which produced varying hybrid and new artworks and devotions throughout the colonies. Latin American’s first female saint was St. Rosa de Lima, a Creole (European born in the viceroyalty), is remembered for her piety, chastity, and iconography of crowned thorn roses. This devotion to female saints and Catholicism as a whole, greatly impacted the daily lives and art production of all the inhabitants in the Spanish and Portuguese viceroyalties, up to revolution to the modern-day. This virtual exhibition explores the cultural, political, social, material, and artistic significance and female sainthood in Latin America from the permanent collection of the International Museum of Science.