Holy Organ or Unholy Idol? : The Sacred Heart in the Art, Religion, and Politics of New Spain

Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank examines the complex meanings encoded in images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in eighteenth-century New Spain. Holy Organ or Unholy Idol?' focuses on the significance of the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and its accompanying imagery in eighteenth-century New Spain. Lauren G. Kilroy-Ewbank considers paintings, prints, devotional texts, and archival sources within the Mexican context alongside issues and debates occurring in Europe to situate the New Spanish cult within local and global developments. She examines the iconography of these religious images and frames them within broader socio-political and religious discourses related to the Eucharist, the sun, the Jesuits, scientific and anatomical ideas, and mysticism. Images of the Heart helped to champion the cult's validity as it was attacked by religious reformers. Contents Acknowledgments Figures and Tables Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1 Shaping the Devotion Chapter 2 Matters of the Heart Chapter 3 Reading, Meditating, Fixating Chapter 4 The Eucharistic Heart Chapter 5 Christ’s Heart as the Sacramented Sun Chapter 6 Divine Champions Chapter 7 Politicizing the Heart after 1767 Conclusion: Forming a New History of the Sacred Heart Bibliography Index