Andean Baroque is an artistic movement that appeared in colonial Peru between 1680 and 1780. It is located geographically between Arequipa and Lake Titicaca in what is now Peru and Bolivia, where rules over the highlands and spreads over the entire altiplano. From the Portuguese word barrueco meaning impure, mottled, flamboyant, daring, the most striking example of Andean Baroque art is in religious architecture, where criollo and indigenous craftsmen together gave it a unique character, as happened in the New Spanish Baroque.
The mermaid appears in the churches bordering the Lake Titicaca and although it is an item from the classical antiquity, remember the Indigenous tradition of two fishes women who seduced the god Tunupa.
Regional variants
Arequipa
In Arequipa, the key building of mestizo architecture is the church of la Compañía by the architect Gaspar Báez built in 1578.
Quito Baroque
The extension of the Quito Baroque cover the territories of the former Royal Audiencia of Quito in Spanish colonial times. Especially the Altiplano of Quito and the Andes from Pasto in Colombia to Cajamarca in Peru. Represented in the arts called "Quito School" which was characterized by a high proportion of indigenous Kichwas representations. Features that characterize the indigenous roots in Andean Quito art are:
There is a "quiteanization" of the characters, many have mixed features and local attire
Indigenous ancestral customs often appear;
The scenes are located in the ambiance of the Andean landscape, its cities, its architecture;
There is a presence of local wildlife as well as the adoption of vernacular plant replacing the traditional iconography of European; in sculpture and painting are present characters and customs characteristic of the environment; the executor of the work art is the local craftsman of ancient artistic tradition itself, there is an adoption of "naturalization" of European saints, for example, Poland's San Jacinto is called San Jacinto of Yaguachi.
The indigenous groups that inhabit the region are the Kollas and Lupacas in present Peruvian territory and Omasuyos and pacajes on Bolivian. All were subject to the Mita de Potosí and periodically migrated to the valleys and coastal lowlands. The Baroque of Arequipa and Potosí is a conjunction in this region with a strong Pre-Columbian flavor. The Puno Cathedral picks iconographic elements as mermaids, pumas, papayas and a monkey and even the charango. Lake Titicaca was named in honor of the puma, Titi, in Aymara, because of its shape. In the region of lupacas rise the three groups of baroque churches: Juli, Pomata and Zepita. Juli has been the great Jesuit missionary center of the altiplano, had four churches: San Juan de Letrán, Santa Cruz de Jerusalén, Nuestra Señorade la Asunción and San Pedro Mártir. The Dominicans possessed the Pomata Sanctuary where they venerate Our Lady of the Rosary, the most famous of this region after the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana who was in charge of the Augustinians. The church of St. James of Pomata marks the culmination of the mestizo style.
