Tag: mexico

Biannual roundup of your favorite posts

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Above photo from Postcard from Toulouse, France: Falling in love one quirky detail at a time

The year 2022 brought a reshuffling of what blog entries caught your attention. You dove back as far as 2010, an indication of how long I have been blogging.

Barton Springs in Zilker Park, Austin History Center

You politely made one of the stories drawn from research for An Ostrich-Plumed Hat, And Yes, She Shot Him Dead your number one favorite, clearly attracted by Texans’ love of pralines. You continue to support efforts to populate Brackenridge Park with ghosts, and thanks for welcoming a post about my new hometown focusing on the history of Zilker Park. And the quirkiness that is Toulouse sparked your attention. In other words, your interests are as unpredictably wide-ranging as my posts.

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Caste discrimination woven into Spanish Colonial art of the Americas

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Above: “Virgin of the Tailors,” Cusco, Peru, circa 1750, on loan from Museo Pedro de Osma, Lima

Late-colonial New Spain was awash with conflicting energies: American-born Spaniards (Creoles), like their North American counterparts, felt a growing desire for independence, yet needed their identification with Europe to cement their sense of superiority over the racialized indigenous, African, and mixed-race lower classes….”

“Casta Painting and the Rhetorical Body,” Christa Olson, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Fall 2009

And 18th-century fashion statements as recorded in paintings and sculpture became a tool to exhibit the claimed superiority of those with pure, or at least high, percentages of Spanish blood flowing through their veins. On display at the Blanton Museum of Art through January 8, Painted Cloth: Fashion and Ritual in Colonial Latin America focuses on the societal role of textiles in conveying class distinctions.

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Postcard from Toulouse, France: A far from humble home for city’s leaders

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Above: Under renovation this past fall, the distinctive pink brick Neoclassical facade of the Capitole stretches across the entire eastern side of an impressive plaza.

The city government of Toulouse has headquartered itself on the same expansive plaza since the 12th century.

In the early 16th century, the people of Toulouse lived in fear of invasion by Spanish forces under the flag of King Charles V (1500-1556). The threat was ongoing because Charles V was at constant war somewhere on the continent as he tried to defend his multiple titles in a far-flung Hapsburg Empire. Charles simultaneously was King in Germany, King of Italy and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. This powerful threat inspired city leaders to build what is now the oldest remaining governmental portion of its Capitole compound, a brick tower designed to protect the city’s archives and gunpowder. The tower often is referred to as Le Donjon, or The Keep. Le Donjon’s centuries newer belfry was added by the architect known for remodeling Notre Dame in Paris, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879).

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