The Casta Paintings, commissioned by Spain during the mid 17th-century, were a series of images painted by several prominent Mexican artists depicting the vast spectrum of racial combinations that existed throughout Mexico and Latin America. The purpose of these paintings was to develop a complex hierarchical society where socio-economic and political status would be determined by ones skin color. This was achieved through the construction of an elaborate system of racial classification which reflected the Spaniards own sense of racial superiority and ranked all other groups according to their degree of whiteness and purity of blood. The various mixtures of African, AmerIndian and Spanish blood led to the total of 110 possible racial categories- each one with its own rightful place on the chart. The Castas system gave birth to the notion of color-based identity and is largely responsible for our own contemporary conceptualization of race.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 10:21:38 +0000
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