The Arts

Introductory page. Antiphonary [choir book]. Spain. Black, red, and blue ink on vellum. Early sixteenth century. Antiphons are chant melodies usually sung before and after a psalm verse and are performed by the alternate singing of two singers or choirs. This page contains musical notations and text from the choir part for the celebration of the feast of Saint Andrew. Elaborately decorated liturgical manuscripts (Bibles, Missals, Books of Hours) have a long tradition in medieval and Renaissance Europe. The border design of this work, with its emphasis on repetition and fluid calligraphic swirls, seems to rely on an Islamic decorative tradition rooted in the visual arts and architecture. The mental world of early modern Spain, although dominated by the Roman Catholic Church, included Islamic and Jewish features as well. (Music Division)

Folio. Graduale Dominicale, secudum normam Missalis noui: exdecreto Sancti Concilij Triden denuo. Mexico, Pedro Ocharte, 1576. Received by the Music Division in 1940 as a gift from the Friends of Music in the Library of Congress, the Graduale Dominicale is the first sixteenth-century American musical imprint in the collections, the second edition of the 1571 original of the same title. Earlier, Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, first Bishop in Mexico in 1528, was instrumental in the introduction of the printing press into the Spanish American colonies. At his insistence, Juan Cromberger established a branch of his Sevillian publishing house in Mexico City and shipped to America all the equipment and supplies vital to its operation. Juan Pablos, of Brescia, Italy, became Cromberger's Mexican agent and later the owner of the press on which he printed the 1539 edition of the Breve y má compendiosa doctrina christiana en lengua mexicana y castellana, the first American book. The 1544 edition, the earliest example of a book printed by Pablos's press in American collections, is found in the Library of Congress's Rare Book and Special Collections Division. (Music Division)

From the early sixteenth-century vellum antiphonary to remarkable examples of modern architecture in the Luso-Hispanic world, the Library of Congress possesses unparalleled art materials from its diverse general and special collections. Through these documents, one is able to study in detail a particular period or compare many periods and genres of cultural expression. The Library's historical record of music from the Luso-Hispanic world is complemented by materials in the Music Division from more contemporary composers and artists. In the Music Division are found the printed and manuscript compositions of the Brazilian composer Alberto Nepomuceno; in the KOUSSEVITZKY ARCHIVE OF MUSICAL MANUSCRIPTS is found Heitor Villa-Lobos's Symphony no. 11; and correspondence of Pablo Casals is in the CHARLES MARTIN TORNOV LOEFFLER COLLECTION. The Library of Congress received a major bequest of compositions, letters, and photographs from Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968), in the Music Division, which included holdings pertaining to Isaac Albeñiz (1860-1909), Pablo Casals (1876-1973), Manuel de Falla (1876-1916), Cristobal Halffter Jiménez (1930- ), Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), Josep María Mestres-Quadreny 1929- ), Frederico Mompow (1893-1989), Joaquin Nin (1879-1949), Luis de Pablo (1930- ), and Andrés Segovia (1893-1987).

The comprehensive LAURO AYESTARAN COLLECTION, in the Music Division, is a 6100- item collection of all music published in Uruguay, and music published outside of the country by Uruguayan composers. Genres represented in the collection include concert, theater, dance, popular, and folk music in printed and manuscript forms, published from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1960s.

The Recorded Sound Reference Center of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division has substantial holdings of Hispanic and Portuguese classical, popular, and folk recordings. More than two hundred recordings of Villa-Lobos and nearly fifty by Ginastera appear, along with contemporary recordings by Chicana singer Lydia Mendoza.

Among the items in the DAYTON C. MILLER FLUTE COLLECTION--a collection of flutes and books, manuscripts, music, and pictorial material relating to the flute's history and performance in the Music Division--are pre-Columbian Guatemalan and Peruvian whistles and flutes.

Over the years, numerous concerts of Luso-Hispanic music have been presented in the Library of Congress, including performances of Las Cantigas de Santa María by the Waverly Consort; solo performances by Brazilian pianist Arthur Moreira Lima, by pianist Frederick Marvin in honor of the 200th anniversary of the death of Padre Antonio Soler y Ramos, Spanish guitarist Josep Joan Henríquez, pianist Janet Ahlquist of eighteenth- and twentieth-century Portuguese compositions, Spanish pianist Antonio Baciero of Spanish baroque music, and Mexican ethnomusicologist Antonio Zepeda of pre-Columbian music; and outdoor concerts of jarocho, Puerto Rican, mambo, cumbia, and other Luso-Hispanic and Caribbean folk music through the American Folklife Center's program.

Documentation of culture through photographic and print form is well represented in the Library of Congress. The ARCHIVE OF HISPANIC CULTURE is a photographic reference collection for the study of Latin American art and architecture in the Prints and Photographs Division, initially funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The collection illustrates indigenous art works dating from the colonial period through the twentieth century in Latin America and artistically influential Hispanic and Portuguese monuments in Spain, Portugal, the Philippines, and the United States. Over the years the ARCHIVE has amassed some 19,000 photographs, 3,200 color slides, and 2,500 negatives from the 1880s to the 1940s.

Ribeiro House, Largo do Boticário, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. [1940]. Black and white photograph. The Archive of Hispanic Culture is replete with examples of the art and architecture of historical and contemporary Luso-Hispanic America. Many of the reproductions serve to illustrate the relationship of the structure to the environment, as this photograph vividly reveals. Among noteworthy examples in the Archive are the works of the newly emerging architects of the Americas, e.g., Oscar Niemeyer, in the immediate pre- and post-World War II period. (Archive of Hispanic Culture, Prints and Photographs Division)

The ARCHIVE focuses on Latin American architecture (ecclesiastical and civil, particularly from Mexico and Brazil), painting (photocopies of colonial religious paintings, santos, portraits, and modern Mexican murals), sculpture (some pre-Columbian and modern, mostly colonial religious sculpture from Ecuador), graphic arts (photos of sixteenth-century codices, nineteenth-century engravings, lithographs, genre prints, modern etchings, woodcuts, and posters), minor arts (textile, furniture, jewelry, and ceramics) and general scenes of Latin America. The ARCHIVE also comprises a large postcard collection containing excellent scenes of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century daily life, by country.

The MEXICAN INDIAN PICTORIAL DOCUMENTS COLLECTION, in the Prints and Photographs Division, has substantial photographic reproductions of original pre- and post-contact indigenous records, including codices, related to Meso American Indian cultures. These reproductions were collected by John B. Glass during his participation in the preparation of the multivolume Handbook of Middle American Indians.

Calendar wheel, no. 7. In Mariano Fernández Echeverría y Veytia. Historia del orígen de las gentes que poblaron la America septentrional. [early nineteenth-century manuscript facsimile]. The tonalpohualli, or sacred calendar, ruled the life of each Mexica (Aztec) and was consulted on all important occasions. It was made up of 260 days, or 13 months of 20 days. The inner portions of this calendar represent the symbols for the 20 days and the sun, moon, and stars. Death in 1780 cut short Echeverría y Veytia's effort to complete a study of the calendars used in Mexico before the early sixteenth-century Spanish conquest. A manuscript copy of his original work (which included the illustration of Mexica seven calendar wheels) in the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid was prepared early in the nineteenth century and entered the Library of Congress through the acquisition of the Peter Force Collection in 1867. (Peter Force Collection, Manuscript Division)

The Prints and Photographs Division's GUDIOL COLLECTION consists of about 1,750 photoprints of Spanish architecture, paintings, and sculpture from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Prints by Goya and Picasso and the Salvadorean Toño Salazar's and Mexican Miguel Covarrubias's collections are found in that Division's fine prints collection. In the LESSING J. ROSENWALD COLLECTION in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division is an outstanding selection of livre d'artiste, a type developed in France during the first quarter of the twentieth century that spread throughout Europe. These limited editions contained special illustrations, in many cases signed by noted contemporary artists. Works illustrated by Pablo Picasso, Maurice Utrillo, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Juan Gris, and Oscar Domínguez, among others, are found in that collection.

Plate II. Joan Miró. Les essencies de la tierra. Barcelona, Ediciones Poligrafa (1968). The Catalan Joan Miró (1893-1983), over his long career, was a bold experimenter who left milestones for modern art. For those who view the provocative works of Miró, whether paintings or sculptures, the undeniable message left by this craftsman and artist seems one of joyous creations and the desire to share invisible feelings and translate them into visible works of art. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division and the Prints and Photographs Division possess representative holdings of various Hispanic and Portuguese artists. (Rare Book and Special Collections Division)

The HISTORICAL PRINTS COLLECTION, in the Prints and Photographs Division, includes pre-twentieth-century lithographs, engravings, and other illustrations of Latin America, Spain, and Portugal, as well as items on such topics as Christopher Columbus, Discovery and Exploration, Indians, Mexican War, Spanish American War, and the Punitive Expedition Against Pancho Villa. A fascinating collection of stereographs contains views of Latin American daily life for the period 1875 to 1920, and the poster collection in the Prints and Photographs Division addresses political and many other themes from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Spain.

Courret Hermanos, Fotografos. Gaucho of the Argentine Republic. Albumen silver print, 1868 in Recuerdos del Peru. Lot 4831 H Vol. 1, Plate 50. This photograph of an Argentine gaucho was included in a two-volume souvenir album, Recuerdos del Peru, prepared by the Lima firm of Courret Hermanos. The album contains several views of Lima, Arequipa, Callao, Arica, La Paz, and portraits of muleteers, bullfighters, Andean Indian peoples, and a gaucho. The photographs contained in the album and other photographic collections for the Luso-Hispanic world from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries provide an added dimension in the understanding of these cultures. (Prints and Photographs Division)

Invaluable photographic collections in the Prints and Photographs Division, both from the point of view of the art of photography as well as of cultural expression, reinforce resources on the Luso-Hispanic world found throughout the Library. A very brief listing of such gems includes forty Mathew B. Brady photographs of the first Pan American conference in Washington (1889-1890); the William Howard Taft collection from his 1907 trip to Panama, Cuba, and Puerto Rico; the John Pershing photographic collection relating to his 1916 Mexican Punitive Expedition and his subsequent Latin American travels; the Josephus Daniels collection of more than six thousand photographs from his 1933-1941 ambassadorship in Mexico; the Hovey collection of 100 photos of Peruvian and other southern South American views (1868); the Depaz and Moreau collection of sixteen views of late nineteenth century village life and operations of St. James sugar plantation in Martinique; the Escudero y Arias collection of nearly two hundred carte-de-visite photographs of major figures and events in 1850-1880 Mexico, including photographs of Maximilian's execution in 1867; the Detroit Publishing photographic collection of 1885-1914 Mexico and the Caribbean, including 125 photographs of the Spanish American War; the Shaw collection of twenty photographs of Panama (1884-1885); the Milhollen collection of fifty Peruvian photographs (1895-1905); the Archambault collection of photographs of Nicaraguan Canal construction and related street scenes 1899-1900; the Cuban Department of Public Works collection of 225 photographs of road conditions and buildings in Cuba 1907-1908; the Leland Harrison collection of photographs taken during his post-World War I tour of duty as Ambassador to Colombia; the William Henry Jackson collection of photographs of the West Indies, the Bahamas, Venezuela 1900-1905, and Mexico 1884-1885; and a collection of some 124 photographs of the United Fruit Company's Central American operations, primarily for 1948 but including items from 1876-1936, are indicative of the variety of themes in the Library's photographic collections. Many more photographic collections related to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin American living conditions and architecture, the Spanish American War, interoceanic canal construction, the Cuban missile crisis, the Spanish Civil War, and many other subjects are found in the Prints and Photographs Division.

Joseph Pennell. The Bottom of Gatun Lock. Lithograph, 1912. Panama Canal Series. The history surrounding the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 and various nineteenth century Isthmian Canal ventures is richly represented in the collections of the Library of Congress. Pennell's classic works record the crucial moments when the grandeur of canal construction ushered in a unique age of U.S. engineering prowess. (Gift of Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell, Prints and Photographs Division)

The Library of Congress has collected early recordings of indigenous peoples. Carl Lumholtz's 1898 recording of the Huichol peoples in Mexico is found in the HELEN H. ROBERTS COLLECTION of ethnomusicological field recordings in the Archive of Folk Song, along with Roberts's own 1920s and 1930s recordings done in Jamaica.

Ethnomusicologist Henrietta Yurchenco has been responsible for large portions of Luso-Hispanic folk recordings now in the Library of Congress. Her collection in the Archive of Folk Song contains field recordings of Mexican and Guatemalan Indian music and field recordings of the traditional ballads, wedding songs, and stories sung by Sephardic Jews made in Spain and Morocco in 1954 and 1956. Following her 1942 recording expedition among Mexico's Tarascan Indians, Dr. Yurchenco was employed by the Library of Congress, the Inter-American Indian Institute, and the Mexican Department of Education to document the music of some of the most isolated Indian communities of Mexico and Guatemala. She recorded from 1944 to 1946 the Seri and Yaqui of the state of Sonora, the Tarahumara of Chihuahua, the Cora of Nayarit, the Huichol of Jalisco, the Tzotzil Maya and Tzeltal Maya of Chiapas, and the Quiché, Kekchi, and Ixil of Guatemala. Aside from the hunting kivee and the war songs of the Seri, the resulting 151-disc collection primarily consists of vocal and instrumental music from religious festivals and rituals performed on both indigenous and European instruments. The Archive of Folk Culture contains recordings of Mexican indigenous and European music as well as music from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Surinam, Trinidad, and Luso-Hispanics in the United States.

Idol at Copan. In Frederick Catherwood. Detail. View of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. New York, 1844. The rich architecture and writing of the Mayan peoples of Central America and Mexico were captured in the nineteenth-century lithographic prints of John Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, who visited the sites. Mayan culture rivaled that of the Incas and Mexicas (Aztecs); however, its period of prominence predated late fifteenth-century contact with Europe. Currently, a number of exciting developments in the deciphering of the Mayan language are stimulating heightened interest in the study of Mayan societies. (Rare Book and Special Collections Division)

The Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division possesses copies of rare Mexican and Argentine silent films, feature motion pictures by major Hispanic and Portuguese directors, including Luís Buñuel, and numerous commercial films produced by Latin American subsidiaries of Hollywood studios (Columbia and RKO). Over fifty feature-length movies from Mexico, the earliest from 1933, are in the collection, including Juárez y Maximiliano (1933), Flor de caña (1948), and Pulgarcito (1958).

Complementing these special collections are the extensive general book holdings which provide coverage of every period and geographical location of Luso-Hispanic culture. Use of the various guides to these materials, such as the annual Handbook of Latin American Studies compiled in the Hispanic Division, and consultations with reference specialists in the Hispanic Division and in the other special collections of the Library will increase access to this rich body of material.

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