¡SOLAS Interviews!
Annick Benavides
Annick earned her M.A. in Art History in 2013 from UNM.
Defense of the Eucharist paintings portray an eternal conflict - that between Spanish monarch and non-believers, but more importantly, that between balanced and complementary opponents. Defense paintings ultimately honor the reciprocity between idolatry and orthodox religion, and they owe their inception to the unique circumstances of viceregal Peru. The invention of the iconography can be attributed to an Andean affinity for understanding triumph as the coming together of festive, complementary opponents. Colonial dictionaries describe tinku (tinkuy) and its many linguistic permutations, both in Quechua and Aymara, as a place of union where two opposing yet complementary forces have come together to form something new and powerful.