INSTITUTE FOR DOCTORAL STUDIES
IN THE VISUAL ARTS
By Jon Benjamin ’24 and JC Camelio ’24
Before the Spanish conquest of the New World, highly organized civilizations flourished across Mesoamerica and the Andean region of South America. While trade and cultural exchange may have occurred between the two regions, a distinguishing feature of the Mesoamerican civilizations was their early focus and profound interest in religious ideology. Spirituality was not merely an aspect of daily life, it was the organizing principle of their architecture, art, and civilization.
In January 2025, IDSVA brought first- and second-year students to Mexico City for a topological study of its rich and layered artistic and cultural heritage. The Mexico City Residency was marked by an atmosphere of mystery, concluding with an optional excursion to the Teotihuacan archeological complex. The tour guide described the mysterious origins of the city: when the Aztecs discovered its empty ruins around 1300 CE, they assumed the city had been built by gods, hence the name Teotihuacan, which translates to 'the place where men become gods' (Shear). Archaeological evidence suggests initial settlement around 400 BCE and city construction around 100 CE.
The architectural enigma of Teotihuacan persists: Who built it? How was such a vast city constructed? What cosmological principles guided its layout? Predating both the Mayan and Aztec empires, Teotihuacan reached its zenith between 100 BCE and 550 CE. Its colorful murals and finely crafted ceramics depict deities, mythological creatures, and symbolic geometries. The visual culture reflects a deeply ritualized society in which spiritual life was inseparable from urban design. The central Avenue of the Dead, flanked by the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, aligns with astronomical cycles and may have staged processions meant to mirror cosmic events. What survives is not only architecture but a theological worldview rendered in stone and space. Wandering through architectural wonders, one considers the layers of history as if walking among 80 generations of ghosts. Ominous ceremonies with priests conducting sacrifices using sacred artifacts are imagined.
From this ancient economic, political, and spiritual center, one is swept forward in time but not, perhaps, out of mystery. The final day of the residency was a free day, and a visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe to see Juan Diego’s tilma was decided upon. The Basilica is a significant pilgrimage site, attracting approximately 20 million visitors yearly (Campos). According to Catholic tradition, the image of Mary had miraculously formed on Juan Diego’s cloak (Schmal). Juan was from the nomadic Chichimec people, who inhabited the area near Mexico City long before the Aztecs arrived (Schmal). While attending the Mass, I looked around at the more than one thousand seated attendees engaged in a newer form of religious sacrifice. Visiting these sites was an encounter with a 2000-year nexus, providing a testament to the enduring dialogue between Mesoamerican and Spanish worlds. The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, located at the foot of Tepeyac Hill, houses the tilma of Juan Diego, upon which the Blessed Virgin is said to have miraculously appeared in 1531. Unlike Teotihuacan, where anonymity and collective construction prevail, the tilma centers on an individual vision, its inexplicable material permanence, and spiritual resonance with believers, yet its image has become equally constitutive of a nation’s spiritual identity. The Virgin's mestiza features, the constellation of stars on her robe, and the desert flora beneath her all draw upon indigenous iconography while simultaneously establishing a Catholic narrative. The tilma functions as a syncretic relic, bridging the spiritual traditions of pre-Hispanic and colonial Mexico.
Philosopher and historian of religion Mircea Eliade observed that in moments of sacred manifestation, we are faced with “a reality that does not belong to our world, [yet appears] in objects that are an integral part of our natural ‘profane’ world” (Eliade 11). Though one mystery is made of volcanic stone and the other of agave fiber, both Teotihuacan and the tilma resist absolute explanation. They persist as enigmas. Their very opacity, that is, what cannot be definitively known about them, continues to compel interpretation and devotion. What binds them may not be a linear historical connection but rather a shared ontological role where each operates as a site of encounter with the sacred, embedded in the landscape and lived ritual. Both also function as visual reminders. Teotihuacan’s monumental geometry and the tilma’s symbolic imagery each demand a hermeneutics of the image: to look is to interpret, and to interpret is to risk belief. In both cases, visual culture becomes a medium for spiritual transmission, one that is ancient and one colonial, both contemporary in their power, meaning, and character.
Works Cited:
Campos, Regina. “The Basílica of Guadalupe, the Most Visited Sanctuary in America.” Lolo, Lolo - Modern Mexican Mercadito, 6 Dec. 2022, https://lolomercadito.com/blogs/news/the-basilica-of-guadalupe-the-most-visited-sanctuary-in-america
Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and The Profane The Nature of Religion.
Translated by Willard R. Trask. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 23 Oct. 1987.
Patterson, Thomas C., Sanders, William T., Coe, Michael Douglas, Bushnell, Geoffrey H.S.,
Soustelle, Jacques, Murra, John V., Willey, Gordon R., Hagen, Victor Wolfgang von.
"pre-Columbian civilizations". Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Apr. 2025,
https://www.britannica.com/topic/pre-Columbian-civilizations. Accessed 15 April 2025.
Schmal, John. “Who Were the Chichimecas?” Indigenous Mexico, Indigenous Mexico, 4 Sept.
2024, www.indigenousmexico.org/articles/who-were-the-chichimecas.
Shaer, Matthew. “A Secret Tunnel Found in Mexico May Finally Solve the Mysteries of Teotihuacán.” Smithsonian.Com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 June 2016, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/discovery-secret-tunnel-mexico-solve-mysteries-teotihuacan-180959070/