Guzmán, Fernando, Corti, Paola, and Pereira, Magdalena
Abstract
The Church of Saint Joseph of Soracachi was built in the middle of the eighteenth century; its walls preserve a significant set of mural paintings with a clear emphasis in the scenes corresponding to Saint Joseph's life, patron of the town. The main objective of this paper is to reflect on the moral messages contained in this Josephine iconographic program. A second purpose is to identify the function that these images had in the context of Amerindian catechesis, specifically in promoting lifestyles compatible with Christian models of family and matrimony. Finally, it investigates the possibility that the moral message contained in the paintings could have been designed to take into account the specific conditions of the Amerindians who lived in Soracachi, at the end of the colonial period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]