Recently the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe was celebrated. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is "a venerated image on a cloak enshrined within the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City".1 The image is on a Tilma, which a is hand woven cloth made from the coarse fibres of the Maguey cactus and is close to 500 years old.2 On it is the picture of the Virgin Mary with child (signified by the dark waist tassel seen below her clasped hands) and she is wearing a blue mantle with stars on it. There are many claims about it such as the stars on Mary's mantle are in the same configuration as the stars in the sky on the morning of Dec. 12 1531 when the image was miraculously created.3 I recall also reading a claim that the temperature of parts of the icon are always the same - around the temperature of the human body.4 However, I want to focus on the results of the scientific study that Philip Serna Callahan carried out using Infrared (IR) photography.
Historical Background
But first a couple of stories to put things in context. For that we have to go back in time to the fourteen hundreds. At that time the Aztec civilization was at its height. This was a civilization that was in many ways as advanced as the European one at that time.5 However, it had a dark side: its people followed a demonic religion that demanded the sacrifice of 50,000 or more victims every year. "Nowhere else in human history has Satan so formalized and institutionalized his worship with so many of his actual titles and symbols."6 There was a long running prophecy among the Aztecs that one day bearded men would come from the east, overturn their religion and establish worship of the one true God. It would be a time of tribulation for the people.7, 8 The fulfillment of that prophecy began when Hernan Cortés arrived on the Mexican coast on Holy Thursday, the eve of Good Friday 1519 and subsequently upon discovering the native peoples and learning about their culture, became appalled by many of their practices of which human sacrifice was only one.9 Probably one of the best books to read about this is "The conquest of New Spain", a first hand account written by Bernal Díaz who was with Cortés at the time the Spanish waged war on the Aztecs.10
After Hernan Cortés and his men brought down this civilization, a little over two years later, the Aztec nation and its religion were no more. This left a spiritual vacuum that was proving difficult for missionaries to fill. The religious who came there made little progress in converting the indigenous people. This was likely in part due to the terrible behaviour of the men Spain sent over as administrators. Many of these men treated the indigenous people very poorly.11 Although it should be pointed out that a terrible leader is a terrible leader, and although in most cases they not only mistreated the indigenous people but they also treated their own people poorly, the defenceless natives were particularly vulnerable, and not just in Mexico but throughout the West Indies12. Given this, why would the Mexican Natives convert to the faith of a foreign land of which their own citizens did not even bother to follow?
So, enter Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is said to have first appeared to Juan Diego, a native Mexican, on December 9, 1531, roughly 10 years after the fall of the Aztec empire. She requested that a chapel in her honour be built on Tepeyac Hill, the site of her appearances to Juan. In order to convince the bishop that Juan was truly being visited by Mary she gave him a sign - a tilma full of roses and other flowers during a time of year when there was not supposed to be any roses or flowers growing - winter. When Juan opened his tilma to show Bishop Zumárraga the flowers, the image you see below appeared on his tilma.13 What followed was a flood of conversions over a period of less than seven years - eight million conversions.14 So many that the clergy were hard pressed to baptize all of the converts.
Why Study the Tilma?
But back to the Tilma. Why should we be interested in conducting a scientific study of this sacred object? In answer to this question here is a quote I came across some time ago while researching this image (apologies - I cannot dig up the reference):
More recent shrines, such as Lourdes, have had a standardized story from the outset, thanks to modern means of communication, but in early Mexico such standardization was impeded by great diversity of languages and separation of social classes and rivalries even within those classes. Thus the Guadalupe story, like that of Jesus Himself, was initially transmitted only orally and in a variety of settings, and was put into writing, as print, only after many decades.
In fact, in the 1940s a Mexican historian highlighted this fact by paralleling four early accounts of Guadalupe with the four Gospels of the New Testament.
Jody Brant and Philip Callahan
In the 20th century there were two men who became involved in a study of the Tilma. The person who did the work to set up this investigation by Philip Callahan was himself fascinated by this image, and was not a Catholic - Jody Brant Smith. Smith chose Callahan because he was an expert in infrared studies. Initially, because of other commitments Callahan was considering bowing out of the investigation in early 1979, until he discovered at that time that the ancestry of his Mexican mother led back to one member of a group of missionaries and explorers who set out from Mexico for a sparsely settled northern territory named California. They founded the city of San Francisco. However, before embarking on their journey they stopped at a shrine to pray for the success of their mission. That shrine was none other than the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the previously mentioned Tepeyac hill!15
Callahan wrote in his monogram, "The Tilma Under Infra-Red Radiation":
To this day I do not know why I went to Mexico on May 4, 1979. Between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. May 7-8, I worked for over three hours examining and photographing the image on the Virgin of Guadalupe. I was there at the invitation of Professor Jody Smith of Pensacola, Florida, and Monsignor Enrique Salazar of the Basilica of Guadalupe. I had funded my own trip despite the fact that there was no assurance that I would even be allowed to approach the image, much less take it from the glass and metal frame, high above the altar, in order to photograph it with infrared radiation.16
Why use IR Photography?
Given the interest in conducting a scientific study of this sacred object that tradition holds was not made by human hands, what is the advantage of using infrared photography to study it?
Infrared light that falls with [sic] the 780-3000 nm range (near infrared) of the electromagnetic spectrum can be particularly useful for revealing preliminary sketches, underdrawings, or compositional changes that lie beneath visible paint layers. The technique is non-destructive and has more recently been coupled with other types of imaging (hyper/multi-spectral imaging) to provide additional information relating to the characterization of pigments and binders.17
However, there are some caveats with this method. If the underdrawings and sketches were made using certain materials that were not rich in carbon black they can be difficult to detect (e.g. iron-gall ink, metalpoint, etc.)18 Furthermore:
An ideal painting for IRR imaging contains a white, reflective ground; thinly applied layers of paint, and carbon-containing materials in the preliminary sketch or underdrawing. Certain pigments can be difficult for the IR system to penetrate ... unless it is able to work beyond the 1000 nm range. Carbon-containing materials (e.g. carbon black) are particularly absorptive in the IR region while a light or white ground reflects the IR light. This creates a contrast within the IR image that allows to viewer to perceive features that lie beneath the paint film.19
Since Callahan did his study over 40 years ago he could not use some of the newer technologies available today such as digital photography. His cameras used Kodak high speed infrared film.20
The Rays, Stars and Mantle Trim
What Callahan noted about the rays, and the trim and stars on the mantle were that they were cracked with age. The fact that the gold used for the sunbeams or rays surrounding the woman is missing in large sections is evident in the photo shown here. He also noticed that there were guide lines for laying on the gold trim. Although the sunbursts were of gold, the stars and trim were believed to be composed of a yellow pigment which is fading with age. Thus these components are believed to have been added long after its creation by human hands.21
The Moon and Waist Tassel
Both the moon and tassel have also deteriorated with time with the paint breaking away and the black appearance a result of darkening with age. Also, note in the figure the two parallel horizontal fold lines, of which the lower one crosses near the top of the exposed tassel below the Virgin's clasped hands. These fold lines do not show up in the background surrounding the figure of the Virgin. From this Callahan concluded that the sunburst background was added after the rest of the painting was formed, and the tassel and even the angel, who's hair is cracking away, must have been added by human hands before the sunburst background was added.22
The Blue Mantle
The mantle contains a back border on the outer edge of the gold strip, which is cracking. As it crosses the two parallel horizontal fold lines it is believed to have been added after the tassel and moon but around the same time as the gold border and sunburst which also cover the fold lines. However, the infrared images indicate that it was added after the sun burst was applied. In addition one of the gold stars overlays the black border. Thus Callahan fixed the order as 1. sunburst, 2. black and gold borders, and 3. gold stars.23
Regarding the pigment used:
The mantle is of a dark turquoise blue... The mantle shade of blue is quite close to the hue seen on early Mayan wall paintings, or on the cured animal skin "books" of the Mextecs; such colors were, in all probability copper oxide "Mayan" blues. This presents an inexplicable phenomenon because all such pigments are semipermanent and known to be subject to considerable fading with time, especially in hot climates. The Indian Mayan blue wall paintings are already badly faded. The blue mantle, however, is bright enough to have been laid last week.24
The Robe
Callahan was fascinated with the robe.
The most notable feature of the robe is its remarkable luminosity. It is highly reflective of visible radiation yet transparent to the infrared rays. ... Of all the pigments it is by far the most transparent and unlike the blue, which fills the spaces between the weave of the tilma; it appears to barely lie on the surface of the weave. ... As in the case of the blue mantle, the shadowing of the pink robe is blended into the paint layer and no drawing or sketch is evident under the pink pigment.25
And he was unable to determine the nature of the pigment, stating that, "The pink pigment appears to be inexplicable". He also found that "one of the really strange aspects of this painting" was that in spite of a lack of any varnish overcoat to protect it, "the robe and mantle are as bright and colored as if the paint were newly laid."26
You will also notice that the robe contains gold embroidery. Callahan noted that it is composed of the same pigment as the stars but less cracked and faded. Even though folds are depicted on the mantle, the embroidery is laid down as if on a flat surface. As a result, Callahan concluded that this was a later add on since "If it were a unified painting and completed in the same period, each line would follow the fold down into a shadowed area then offset slightly as it came out of the shadow towards the viewer."27
The Face
Callahan reserved his highest praise for the artistry and beauty of the depiction of the face of the Virgin on the Tilma.
The head of the Virgin of Guadalupe is one of the great masterpieces of artistic facial expression. In subtleness of form, simplicity of execution, hue and coloring it has few equals among the masterpieces of the world. Furthermore, there are no portraits that I have ever observed which are executed in a similar manner.28
Infra-red photography did not reveal an underdrawing or sizing of any kind nor could the pigment used for highlighting the left cheek be identified. Callahan thought it unusual, given the age of the painting, that although this white pigment appeared to be "caked" on the fabric of the tilma, which has a very coarse weave, there was no cracking evident. In addition the positioning and application of the pigments and lines used to create the face onto the tilma was done in such a way so as to take advantage of the imperfections in the weave of the tilma.29
Conclusion
There are many who do not consider Callahan's Study as conclusive in that they believe many components of the image which he concluded were add ons are not add ons. For example, Callahan concluded that the bottom part of the robe, which has an Aztec fold, and the bottom part of the mantle were later add ons.30 However, the image was not protected by glass for over one hundred years and would likely have become discoloured from being exposed during that time to the environment and the veneration of the faithful and as a result would have been in need of touching up.31, 32 Miguel Cabrera in his examination of the Tilma in the 16th century found that the floral design on the robe was inexplicable - it appeared as if it had been applied to the maguey fibres not only before they had been woven into the cloth but even before they had been twisted together.33 Some believe event the sunburst surrounding the Virgin was an original part of the image. Note that fifteen of the sunburst rays look to be in very good condition on the lower left of the Virgin.
There certainly is debate among experts as to which parts of the image are later add ons. However, the fact that there are no underdrawings for the face and hands, the colour of the robe and mantle have not faded and the associated pigments have never been identified, and even more surprising is that the tilma which bears the image is made of maguey fibre which should have disintegrated centuries ago34 leaves no question that this image was not created by the hands of men.
Image Credit: Fr. Lawrence OP, St Juan Diego sees the Immaculate Virgin
References.
1. Our Lady of Guadalupe. (2022, December 20). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe
2. Bartholoew, T. (n.d.). Sacred Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. https://ourladyofguadalupe.weebly.com/tilma-and-the-sacred-image.html
3. Ibid.
4. Barber, J. (2001). The Tilma and Juan Diego. A Handbook on Guadalupe (p. 62). The Academy of the Immaculate.
5. Wahlig, C. (2001). The Aztec Empire and Civilization. A Handbook on Guadalupe (pp. 27-31). The Academy of the Immaculate.
6. Barber, J. (2001). Of Aztec Human Sacrifice. A Handbook on Guadalupe (p. 139). The Academy of the Immaculate.
7. Collis, M. (1954). Cortés & Montezuma (pp. 28, 31, 52, 54-58). New Directions Books.
8. Wahlig, C. (2001). The Aztec Empire and Civilization. A Handbook on Guadalupe (pp. 31-32, 37). The Academy of the Immaculate.
9. Díaz, B. (1963). The Conquest of New Spain (p. 88). Penguin Books.
10. Ibid
11. Brant Smith, J. (1994). The Image of Guadalupe (p. 18). Fowler Wright Books Ltd.
12. Collis, M. (1954). Cortés & Montezuma (pp. 22, 23). New Directions Books.
13. Brant Smith, J. (1994). The Image of Guadalupe (pp. 3-6). Fowler Wright Books Ltd.
14. Herbert, M. (2001). Guadalupe Miracles for Her Beloved Children. A Handbook on Guadalupe (p. 97). The Academy of the Immaculate.
15. Brant Smith, J. (1994). The Image of Guadalupe (p. 32). Fowler Wright Books Ltd.
16. Callahan, P. S. (1981). The Tilma Under Infra-Red Radiation. CARA Studies on Popular Devotion, II, vi. https://cara.georgetown.edu/cara-research-archives
17. University of Delaware, The Department of Art Conservation (n.d.). INFRARED REFLECTOGRAPHY., The University of Delaware.
18. Ibid
19. Ibid
20. Callahan, P. S. (1981). The Tilma Under Infra-Red Radiation. CARA Studies on Popular Devotion, II, 5. https://cara.georgetown.edu/cara-research-archives
21. Ibid, (p. 6-7)
22. Ibid, (p. 8)
23. Ibid, (p. 6-7)
24. Ibid, (p. 9)
25. Ibid, (p. 9-10)
26. Ibid, (p. 11)
27. Ibid, (p. 11)
28. Ibid, (p. 14)
29. Ibid, (p. 14)
30. Ibid, (pp. 12-13)
31. Barber, J. (2001). The Tilma and Its Miraculous Image. A Handbook on Guadalupe (pp. 56, 58). The Academy of the Immaculate.
32. Barber, J. (2001). The Sacred image is a... Divine Codex. A Handbook on Guadalupe (p. 70). The Academy of the Immaculate.
33. Ibid, (p. 70)
34. Barber, J. (2001). The Tilma and Its Miraculous Image. A Handbook on Guadalupe (pp. 58). The Academy of the Immaculate.
