Imagery of Chiloé: the sacred art of carving an insular faith

Abstract

This article refers to the historical, iconographic, patrimonial and territorial description of the School of Religious Imagery of Chiloé in the namesake archipelago (Region of Los Lagos, Chile). This particular religious sculpture combines Hispanic influence with indigenous artisanship, achieving a relevant patrimonial and vernacular valorization, both by establishing a special type of cultural syncretism, and by forming a prodigious school of imagery, with distinctive features and with a transcendental benefit such as intangible heritage linked to community’s dogmas and practices. The school of imagery of Chiloé developed throughout the Chiloé’s territory and diaspora, from the seventeenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, declining with the arrival in the archipelago of religious images made with other manufacture and materiality. However, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, this sacred art is revalued along with the temples of Chiloé, by UNESCO and the Chilean State.

KEYWORDS: religious art, imagery of Chiloé, Archipelago of Chiloé, vernacular heritage, cultural syncretism.