Susan Verdi Webster is the Jane Williams Mahoney Professor of Art History and American Studies at the College of William & Mary. She has published extensively in both English and Spanish on the history of painting, sculpture, architecture, and visual culture in Spain, Ecuador, and Mexico.
Based on extensive archival research, [Webster's] study brings to
light a veritable trove of new documents, in so doing radically
altering understanding of the art profession in colonial Quito. . .
. She challenges many assumptions about colonial Ecuadorian artists
and makes a compelling argument for the vital role they played as
cultural intermediaries who were masters of both the literary pen
and the painterly brush. . . . Webster's prose is compelling and
elegant.
*CHOICE*
Lettered Artists and the Languages of Empire will richly challenge
students' established points of reference, in which task it is
helped by its lucid language and clear organization...promises to
be a premier English-language resource, and likely the most
thoroughly researched one, on the art of colonial Quito for years
to come.
*Hispanic American Historical Review*
An extremely important contribution to viceregal
scholarship…[Webster's] meticulous study…importantly demonstrates
the integraton of artists, materials, and languages that flourished
from the very beginning of Quito's colonial existence.
*Renaissance Quarterly*
[A] significant new study of painters in early colonial Quito…Verdi
Webster does the important work of recognizing quiteño artists,
many of whose names are unfamiliar, as learned makers,
entrepreneurs, and landowners.
*Sixteenth Century Journal*
This magnificent book is directed at a specialist audience;
however, its contents will also be relevant to Latin Americanist
historians of the period and to students of literacy in general. It
contains superb color plates and is written in fluid prose.
*The Americas*
[Lettered Artists and the Languages of Empire] offers a compelling
and innovative insight on the work of painters in sixteenth and
seventeenth century Quito…By reconsidering in depth and with
attention the extensive presence of indigenous painters in Quito
and the vitality of their style comparatively to Western canons,
Webster invites her readers to reconsider the interactions between
ethnic groups in colonial Ecuador, offering a more complex and
nuanced portrait of the relationship between colonial subjects and
Spanish rulers.
*Confraternitas*
The painters of Quito were interpreters and intermediaries who
communicated to multiple audiences and whom the languages of
empires shaped in their creations and professional
practices...Webster makes these lettered artists vital in their
context, painting, and profession.
*Renaissance and Reformation*
It is an understatement to say that Susan Verdi Webster’s new book
exponentially expands our knowledge of early colonial Quito
artists, their working practices, and their socio-cultural
milieu...Webster’s new book overturns previous notions about the
anonymity of artists in early colonial Quito.
*Ethnohistory*
More than a Vasari-like gallery of greats, Webster reveals a whole
hidden sector of colonial society, changing over time and venturing
out to test new methods and forms, but also embedded within a
Euro-Andean socio-cultural matrix. In more than just mining
the archives for 'smoking gun' evidence of this or that
interpretation of a puzzling piece, Webster deploys a lifetime’s
worth of archival and other evidence to portray a dynamic city of
diverse and versatile artists rather than the linear origins of a
prosaic school...[a] benchmark book.
*Revista Hispánica Moderna*
This book will soon become a vital resource for scholars of
colonial Ecuador and colonial Latin American art more
widely…[Webster] provides a deep and well-founded analysis of
painting in one colonial city that can now be compared with other
areas and used to confirm or complicate prior assumptions.
*Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies*
A welcome and much-needed contribution to the field...In Lettered
Artists and the Languages of Empire, Susan Verdi Webster rewrites
the history of art in Quito during the early colonial period...The
rich information collected in this volume not only corrects the art
historical record, it also provides new and valuable material for
scholars.
*The Art Bulletin*
An exhaustive and intensely illuminating excavation of Quito’s
archives...Webster’s documentation of the artists active in Quito
through the mid-seventeenth century will provide an enduring
touchstone for future investigation...Illuminating the local
intricacies of a global center, her study offers a nuanced story of
early modern Andean mobilities, ambitions, and conceits.
*Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture*
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