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“Pinturas de Casta” Article by Masheli del Val Essay (Literature Review)

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In the article Pinturas de Casta: Mexican Caste Paintings, a Foucauldian Reading, Masheli del Val examines the peculiarities of the caste genre in painting. The main point is to study the relationship between the content of paintings and the social structure of New Spain in the 18th century. The author, based on the research of other scholars and his own observations, concludes that the genre is not a direct representation of the features of caste division in Mexico.

The main contradiction to which the reader’s attention is drawn is that the new colonial society cannot fit into the traditional framework of caste structure. The latter, with its inherently clear hierarchy, is not a credible depiction of Mexico’s internal picture. The main argument is that the ethnic diversity that is an inherent feature of the colonial state (Nasheli 1). The different nationalities, divided into indigenous and immigrant, could not fit into the classic system of hierarchy, and therefore required particular flexibility.

The Mexican society is a fluid social system, in which citizens can move from one caste to another or receive different labels depending on the context. The author of the study insists that the genre of caste is not a direct representation of the social structure, but an attempt to regulate a rather precarious system of relations between people (Nasheli 8). In this context, the genre is seen as a systematization of a complex structure. Which ethnic group should be given the right to acquire, although presented quite clearly in the paintings, is only a schematic representation of what it would look like in a traditional frame. Thus, the article’s examination of a single genre of painting touched on such themes as social inequality and colonial stereotypes.

Work Cited

Del Val, Nasheli Cardiff University, vol. 10, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1–17. New Readings, Web.

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