La Virgen del Cerro

By Dietmar Mübig

Book Description

In the colonial highlands of Bolivia, indigenous artists faced an impossible choice: abandon their sacred traditions or risk persecution for their beliefs. Instead, they chose a third path that would preserve their spiritual heritage for centuries to come.

La Virgen del Cerro explores how Andean artists ingeniously wove their ancestral wisdom into Christian religious paintings, creating a hidden visual language that protected their cosmovision while appearing to conform to colonial expectations. Through careful analysis of the famous Virgin of the Silver Mountain painting from Potosí, Dietmar Mübig reveals how these artists embedded sacred concepts like holy mountains and Mother Earth into seemingly orthodox Catholic imagery.

This scholarly yet accessible work demonstrates how postcolonial studies, image philosophy, and ethnological approaches can unlock the deeper meanings within hybrid religious art. The author shows how this creative resistance not only preserved indigenous spiritual concepts but also gave birth to a unique theological synthesis that continues to influence Bolivian popular religiosity today.

Beyond its historical significance, the book reveals how this ancient practice of blending spiritual traditions offers surprisingly relevant insights for contemporary challenges, particularly our current ecological crisis. Readers interested in the intersection of spirituality, cultural resistance, and environmental consciousness will discover how indigenous wisdom, carefully preserved through artistic expression, speaks directly to modern spiritual and ecological concerns.

This comprehensive 417-page study illuminates how creative spiritual adaptation can preserve sacred knowledge across generations of cultural upheaval.