Roma y la renovación de la imagen y el espacio sacro en Chile durante el siglo XIX

Summary

Since the 1840s the Chilean intellectual elite began to think about the renovation of sacred spaces and images. The building of the new nation required a modern Church that encouraged an ‘enlightened piety’ among worshipers, for which it was necessary to suppress the Baroque space and images whose forms promoted a religiosity considered to be inappropriate. The same elite placed Rome in a position of prestige, its churches, altarpieces, and images, as the guide that architects, sculptors, and painters, who played a key role in the renovation of sacred spaces and images, had to follow. The presence in Chile of architects and sculptors trained in Rome, as well as the commission of artworks from the Eternal City ateliers, were critical to materialize the renovation project. Nevertheless, contemporary documents show people’s passive resistance against the changes conceived by the elite. The cases of the churches of the Recoleta Dominica, the Chiloé Archipielago, Andacollo, San Ignacio, and the Seminar chapel analyzed in this study allow us to understand how the transference and appropriation of these new models were articulated.