The Memory of Fire Trilogy: Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind

by Eduardo Galeano

1692: Guápulo Nationalization of Colonial Art In the sanctuary of Guápulo, a village overlooking Quito, Miguel de Santiago begins to show his canvases. In homage to the local Virgin, who is a great miracle worker, Miguel de Santiago offers these mountains and plains, this cordillera and this sky, landscapes that would have little life if the people who move in them did not light them up: local people moving through local settings in procession or alone. The artist no longer copies works from Madrid or Rome about the life of St. Augustine. Now he paints the luminous city of Quito surrounded by volcanos, the towers of these churches, the Indians of Pujilí and Machángara Canyon, Bellavista Hill and the Valley of Guápulo; and the suns behind the mountains, the rising bonfire-smoke clouds, and the misty rivers that never stop singing all belong here. Nor is it only Miguel de Santiago. The anonymous hands of indigenous or mestizo artisans sneak contraband llamas into their Christmas paintings instead of camels, and pineapples and palms and corncobs and avocados into church-façade greenery carvings; and even head-banded suns up close to the altars. On all sides there are pregnant Virgins, and Christs that grieve like men, like men of these parts, for the sadness of this world. (215)