Cusco Legacy

In Peru, we all know that pictures of the Cusco School deserve a very important place in the discussion, research and trade of local art. But little is known of its history, importance and contributions to universal art.
Even though pre Hispanic American cultures developed a rich tradition in the handling of form and color, they did not use the form of canvas or picture as a way of expression. Although ceramics, goldsmith’s or silversmith’s trade, architecture, wall paintings and pre Columbian textiles, contain a wide variety of colors and forms, abstract as well as representative, it was only with the arrival of Spaniards, that the European concepts of “canvas”, “picture”, “artist”, painter”, technique” or “school” were imposed, as well as the relations among them.More than one hundred years had to pass in order that the difficult interaction of both worlds – native and European – would give birth to the Cusco School, which is considered by many, as the first expression of American cultural syncretism.Although the pre Columbian American culture was a mix of various and heterogeneous cultures, at the arrival of the Spaniards, the Inca consolidation process had succeeded centralizing in Cusco the best artists of the region, those who provided the royal coffers with the objects that – with art, light and color- enhanced their magic, political and religious power.It is not surprising that it was precisely there, in Cusco, where the fusion of the native and European cultural traditions, had its origin. But the process took more than one hundred years until the beginning of the 17th century. In comparison with the speed of current technology, in the past everything went in a slower pace.The so called Cusco School, was completely established by the 18th Century, as an original and firm American culture, expressed in wall paintings as well as in partitions and particularly, in canvas. Even though the artists who developed this culture did not come only from Cusco, that city was its cultural center par excellence, as Vienna was so for the classic music. They took from here to America and Europe, these canvas which, in spite of keeping the undeniable European baroque influence, they exhibited important local innovations in the materials, techniques, icons and subjects, to a limit that many times it defied in a tacit but firm manner, the Spanish power of those times.