Plate 27: Christ Crucified, Mora: From Portfolio "Spanish Colonial Designs of New Mexico" 1935 - 1942

Curator: This is Plate 27: Christ Crucified, Mora, part of the portfolio "Spanish Colonial Designs of New Mexico." It's a drawing created between 1935 and 1942. What’s your immediate reaction to it? Editor: Well, it’s...striking. Primitive in a way, almost deliberately so. The stylization has an interesting effect. A weird, unsettling sort of folk art crucifixion. Curator: The portrayal of Christ, the use of bold lines and somewhat flattened perspective, do reflect an intriguing blend of Spanish Colonial artistic traditions and indigenous interpretations. It’s a powerful example of cultural syncretism. Editor: Definitely unsettling. All that… stylized blood. It’s almost decorative. Like painful candy drops glued all over him! And what’s up with the patterned loincloth? Not your typical Christ, right? Curator: Precisely! The loincloth suggests a deliberate Indigeneity, pulling from local motifs. These depictions were often pedagogical tools for religious instruction. But also assertions of cultural identity amidst colonial power dynamics. It's both devotional and quietly defiant. Editor: Defiant… yeah, I can see that simmering under the surface. It makes you wonder about the artist’s intent, about their worldview. Did they see Christ as a symbol of hope, oppression, or maybe something in between? Curator: That tension is key! Christ here is neither purely European nor entirely Indigenous; it's a figure occupying that conflicted in-between space. The image reflects this, both honoring religious iconography and reimagining it through a distinctly New Mexican lens. Editor: The ambiguity, the clash of styles... It’s almost like the drawing is asking you: who is this Christ? What does he represent, really? And does the image reinforce or question dominant narratives? Pretty clever for what might seem a straightforward religious icon. Curator: These are the crucial questions it pushes us to consider. It invites us to examine the intertwined legacies of colonialism, faith, and cultural resilience that define New Mexico's complex history and the narratives we inherit. Editor: It makes you realize there is so much hidden, and yet on display right on the surface of this drawing. Alright then. Good food for thought indeed.