Picture in Focus: Amate Paper Color Woodcut of the Virgin of Guadalupe by Unknown Mexican Artist

May 29, 2016

Picture in Focus: Amate Paper Color Woodcut of the Virgin of Guadalupe by Unknown Mexican Artist

On the last Sunday of May, I am ending my series on new artworks of the Virgin Mary from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection with a Marian image from Mexico that has found favor among Roman Catholics around the globe: the Virgin of Guadalupe. According to tradition, the Virgin appeared to the Aztec peasant, Juan Diego, on December 1531 atop a hill in what is now northern Mexico City, leaving behind her sacred image on a cloak, which can be seen in a basilica specially built on the site. An unknown Mexican folk artist has created a color woodcut reproducing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the holy tilma cactus fibre cloak of Juan Diego in the Mexico City shrine. She is framed by the roses that miraculously bloomed at the site of her visitation. The two-color print is on hand-made amate tree bark paper, which is considered to be the papyrus of the Americas, used during the Aztec Empire for royal records, sacred rituals, and tax payments. This new image of the Virgin of Guadalupe can be found in the gallery of the Amate Paper Art page in the Schools of Sacred Art section. (John Kohan)