Santiago Matamoros

1745-1755

Name(s) currently unknown

New Orleans, LA, USA, New Orleans Museum of Art (current location)

This oil-on-canvas painting was probably created in Cuzco, Peru. It depicts St. James the Moor-Killer (Santiago Matamoros), with his sword raised, his horse galloping over the bodies of those who dare challenge Christianity.

Santiago Matamoros, St. James the Moor-Killer, symbolized a militant Christianity. The combat scene in the background refers to the Battle of Clavijo in the 9th century, when Santiago appeared to King Ramirez, helping the Christian monarch rout Muslim warriors. In this painting, Santiago's horse tramples the bodies of dead Muslims. His energetic movement forward, across the front of the scene, creates an impression of unstoppable force. The trampled figures represent “the Moors” that Santiago vanquished—Muslim warriors who fought against the Spanish troops. This one leans back, his arms raised—perhaps in horror or a gesture of surrender. Santiago’s sword is raised to smite him. A symbol associated with Santiago was scallop shell, and in this image he wears it upon his hat. Pilgrims journeying to his shrine in Santiago Compostela in Spain would also wear it. The red cross that Santiago wears on his cloak was also worn by knights of the Order of Santiago, an honor granted by the King of Spain.

This painting is but one of many images of Santiago Matamoros created in Spanish America. Based on the style of the painting, the painter of this image may have worked in Cuzco, in one of the many workshops run by indigenous painters. Their often-unsigned works, called “Cuzco School” by modern scholars, met the needs of the 18th century market in highland Perú and their patrons included both the church and affluent (and sometimes indigenous) residents of the region.

This is an oil on canvas painting. Both the materials and the iconography of the scene were well-known in Cuzco in the 18th century.

In Cuzco, where this image was probably painted, the legend of Santiago had special currency. During a battle to retake the city from its Inka ruler, Manco Inka II, in 1536, Spanish troops believed they saw the saint. Like their Iberian forbearers aided by Santiago in wars against the Muslims, the conquistadors in Peru won their battle. The original setting of this painting is not known, although it may well have been a church. Today this work belongs to the New Orleans Museum of Art.

In the 16th century, after Spanish forces defeated the Inka Ruler, Manco Inka II, images of Santiago began to signify Spanish domination—not strictly over turbaned Muslims of the past but also over indigenous people of the Americas. By the 18th century, when this image was created, Christian viewers of this image included Spaniards, Creoles and Andeans. And Santiago was a symbol of the Church’s triumph over its enemies. For Peruvian Catholics, who most likely saw this large painting in a church, the imagery depicts a both a historical event from the past and the ongoing power of Saint James to vanquish all who threatened their Christian world.

Reproduced courtesy of the New Orleans Museum of Art. Museum purchase.

Dana Leibsohn and Barbara E. Mundy.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820. http://www.fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.

Gisbert, Teresa. 1999. El paraíso de los pájaros parlantes: la imagen del otro en la cultura andina. La Paz, Bolivia: Universidad Nuestra Señora de La Paz.

Navarro Castro, F. 1992. “Latin American Iconography of St. James the Killer of Moors.” In America, Bride of the Sun, 500 Years of America and the Low Countries. Pp. 186-196. Brussels: Flemish Community, Administration of External Relations, and Ghent: Imschoot Books.