ABSTRACT
During the eighteenth century, many artists in viceregal Mexico produced series of paintings dedicated to showcasing the demographic diversity of their country. These cuadros de casta or casta paintings usually presented a sequence of scenes in which family groups were identified by their skin colour, environment, and behaviours. A complex system of racial classifications located each family within a spectrum of chromatic shades and labours that moved from lighter subjects (Europeans, Indians, and their mestizo offspring) to darker subjects (Black people, mulattos, and other variants). The cuadros illustrated how lighter and darker families were made and potentially unmade by different types of couplings. The gestural grammar of these domestic scenes has been linked to the skills of classical rhetoric and popular dramatic practices. Nevertheless, a more detailed study of how these expressive elements inflect our understanding of the contents of the casta paintings demonstrates how they contributed to mobilise viewers, inviting them to actively participate in a personal evaluation of pluricultural families and their social roles. The casta paintings were not only representations but hailings that turned their spectators into actants, guiding them through gesture and reference into a particular relation that involved nothing less than the assembling and judgement of a complete community.
