ABSTRACT
In New Spain and New Mexico, the lacerated body of Christ was painted (and sculpted) in exemplary performances in which penitent friars whipped them until their flesh turned into pulp and drenched everything in blood. During the sixteenth century, mysterious Indians, described as angels in disguise (dressed in white and with a beautiful countenance), delivered miraculous images to Mexican convents and then vanished, never to be seen again. In 1543, a carved crucifix was presented to the Augustinian convent of Totolapan. The image is intriguing in many ways. It is painted on tanned hide (buffalo or deer)—an indigenous art, practiced by mainly by Mexican and Pueblo Indians that serviced the local missions, lay patrons, and the Mexico City market. The classical, linear style of the painting recalls the great monastic murals of sixteenth-century Mexico. Christ is looking straight at the viewer with a fixed gaze.
