Archbishop Aguiar y Seijas


Source: Margo Glanz, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; saberes y placeres. Toluca, México: Instituto Mexiquense de Cultura, 1996, p. 42.
Image: Portrait of Archbishop Aguiar y Seijas Ulloa (anonymous, 18th century). The Rev. Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas was a Jesuit priest. This painting shows him when he became Archbishop of New Spain (Nueva España) in 1680.
Comments: Archbishop Aguiar y Seijas was a "self-denying" ascetic who, backed by the Inquisition, was severe in his moralizing campaigns in Mexico. He outlawed cock fighting, bullfights, and all public theater. He was sternly opposed to Sor Juana due to the secular content of most of her works.
Humanities issues
: (A) Identify the major images and elements in this painting: analyze them, and evaluate them in their separate parts and as parts of a whole. (B) What is this painting communicating? (C) Does this portrait give any hint that he would be Sor Juana's enemy? ( Remember that this is a serious official portrait of a powerful man. Sor Juana was fairly low on his list of concerns or priorities, and there is no notion whatsoever that the artist would take Sor Juana's side in the dispute we are studying, in part because the painter was a man painting on Church commissions in a "man's world."