Adoration of the Magi

This Adoration of the Magi is an example of the development and autonomy achieved by the Cusco school of painting early in the eighteenth century. To compose the work, its author –probably a native master– literally copied a print, a common practice at the time in the workshop of any Western artist. It is based on a composition by Peter Paul Rubens, studied through an engraving by Paul Pontius. The intense dynamism and psychological complexity of the Flemish original contrasts with the canvas for which it served as model. The spatial depth of the painting by Rubens is flattened here for lack of contrast of light and shadow, a characteristic that additionally contributes to define stiff gestures and attitudes. The painter sacrifices all naturalistic intention in order to express an ideal world whose beauty is codified by the rigid pictorial conventions of the period. This formal emphasis is accentuated by the bright pallete of the canvas and its polished surface, qualities that only remotely evoke the subtlety of Flemish painting. The elderly San Joseph of the Rubens design has been replaced here by a young man, as it was usual in the Hispanic world to emphasize the chastity of Jesus’s father. (RK)