Portrait of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz

Form

• Set in realistic space
• Realistic treatment of the body
  • Well proportioned
• Big difference in New Spanish painting
• Use of variety in the backgrounds hints at texture
• Table draws the viewer into the woman along with the low horizon line

Function

• Reinterpreting her legacy
• The portrait shows her status despite being a nun
• Intellectual side
  • Modeled after men
  • Books around her
  • Right hand turns page in book
• From the Geronimite religious order
• Wears the frame painting as a necklace
• Balancing religion and intellect
• Completed 55 years after her death by her admirers
  • Famous nun

Context

• Depiction of the esteemed nun and writer
• What she wears is a “Nun’s badge” which shows Mary during the Annunciation called the Escura
• Intellectual side looking towards us being direct and assertive
• Books in the wall are well rounded with multiple subjects
  • Philosophy
  • Natural science
  • Theology
  • Mythology
  • History
• Book in front of her is by St. Jerome (She is a Jeronimite nun)

Context

• She was a Creole which meant she was a European born in the New World in 1648
• At 18 she exceeded in her studies
• Lived as a lady in waiting in the Visceroi house
• Hated it and became a nun to avoid the wedding
• Became a Jeronimite in 1669
• Nun of privilege with servants and households
• Corresponded with scientists, theologists, and intellectuals and was a writer
• In 1690 she was in a dispute with the Bishops of Mexico and Puebla
• Defended her reasoning in a piece called “The Answer” which defended her right to write as a woman
• Despite her defense the church made her dispense her literary persuits and was forced to give up her instruments and books and her ability to write
• Wrote her “resignation” in her own blood

Learning Objective

18th c. “Natural” New Spanish portraiture

Themes

• Commemoration
• Portrait
• Status
• Ideal woman
• Appropreation
• Religion
• Duality