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The Image
The "tilma" or "ayate", a kind of cloak worn by primitive native Mexicans, is the place where the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was miraculously stamped on the 12th of December, 1531. It consists of two pieces of coarse cloth made of agave fibers of about 1.70 per 1.05 meters, joined together in the center by a seam of thread made of the same material.
Baroque painter Miguel Cabrera (1695 – 1768), commissioned by the ecclesiastic authority, meticulously studied the "ayate" and he published his results in the book entitled "American Wonder" (Maravilla Americana) (1756). The worshipped "ayate" does not present any specific priming for the pictorial techniques that some of the portions of the sacred image resemble: gilded, oil, tempera and water-color painting.
According to studies carried out by Dr. Hernández Illescas in 1984, the "ayate" presents the elements of composition and volume of the rectangle and aureate proportion, of the art of modeling of the early Renaissance, a fact that makes it remarkably beautiful. An unpublished angle, is the iconological and iconographic study of the worshipped image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The result of such studies is the extraordinary discovery of the fact that both the American and the Mediterranean-occidental symbols are present in the image. It is worth remembering that Iconography and Iconology are part of the History of Art, both disciplines study the images and their particular or universal meanings.
The encounter of the symbolic language of the occident with the pre-Hispanic iconography tradition, creates its own force, enriched by a message of Redemption, which very soon is to be adopted as the legitimate expression of the emerging culture – a culture which was the result of the dramatic perspective of the conquest.
The morphology and the symbolic content of the sacred image, refers us to the argument that corresponds to a sacred "Amoxtli" (*), with an innumerable number of messages which turn it into true hieroglyphic writing. All these would be vital in order to evangelize the people in the New Spain.
The most important symbols of Christianity are synthesized in Our Lady of Guadalupe, in a very unusual language. It contains the sediment of both cultures, the Hispanic and the Indigenous, represented through an iconography that summarizes the most precious symbols of both cultures.
The original, complete and without additions, has inexplicably been preserved, in spite of the fact that, for over 400 years, it has been touched and handled by many
people, it has been exposed to humidity, saltpeter, acid, and that it has suffered several attempts. It is located in the Tepeyac Shrine in Mexico City.
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