As a lover of Puerto Rican art, there is a painting that has long appealed to me for many reasons. It’s this 1808 work by the great 18th-century Puerto Rican artist José Campeche, Niño Juan Pantaleón Avilés.
The painting was commissioned in 1804 by Juan Alejo de Arizmendi , the, then, newly appointed Bishop of Puerto Rico — and the first native Puerto Rican to hold that post(Campeche also painted him, see below). Niño Juan Pantaleón Avilés doubles as a medical record of the child’s condition.
The portrait depicts Juan Pantaleón Avilés de Luna Alvarado, who was born in Coamo on July 2, 1806 — 220 years ago this month — and was brought to the capital by his parents so the Bishop could examine his case and confirm him in the church.1 It’s believed the child was living with amelia, a congenital condition marked by the partial or complete absence of one or more limbs. The word comes from Greek roots meaning “without limbs.”
Notable details in the painting include the intricate mundillo lace on the cushion where the child rests, and a landscape typical of Campeche’s work. The piece is significant for being one of the earliest known visual references to mundillo (a traditional bobbin lace made in Puerto Rico) lace, and it shows off the painter’s extraordinary gift as a miniaturist as the painting is small, 27 3/4 x 19 5/8 inches.
What strikes me first is that we know this person’s name. Record-keeping was one of the church’s functions at the time — this was a record of a medical condition, yes, but his parents also brought him to the Bishop to be confirmed, a sacrament in the Catholic Church. That detail changes how I read the painting. It tells me they were caring for his soul, that they saw divinity in him. There’s a tenderness in how he’s arranged in his surroundings — the pillows, the lace — that reads less like a specimen and more like someone being held.
And yet the fact that he isn’t dressed is genuinely uncomfortable to sit with. Confirmation, of course, is a fully clothed sacrament. Was he dressed for the ceremony itself, then undressed for this painting that doubled as a medical document? In the early 19th century, Catholic children were typically confirmed between the ages of 11 and 15. This is the age where kids feel embarrassed so easily, which makes me wonder how he was processing ll of this. Could he speak? Could he express himself? There’s a melancholy in his stare that I keep returning to. Did he feel trapped in his own body? I have so many questions for him — not just about his disability and this particular event, though, but also about him. How did he live? What did he like to do? What did he dream about? Was there joy in his life?
It’s a comfort to know I’m not the only one haunted by this work. The art historian Claire Farago2, of the University of Colorado, asks strikingly similar questions. Writing about the painting, she argues that it complicates our modern ideas about individuality — that it is somehow both more and less than a portrait of a single person. In her reading, the work does two things at once: it names and documents a real child, while also serving as a case study made for a distant scientific audience that “had no interest in Pantaléon Aviles other than his congenital condition.” Considered purely as a painting, though, she notes it also functions as a tender record of a real person, made by one of the era’s leading portraitists — which is exactly why it resists being filed neatly into either category, medical illustration or portrait.
But I do have an interest in Juan Pantaléon Avilés in the same way that I think about my own son, who has severe autism. My son doesn’t speak and needs supervision and care that will likely last his whole life. But the disabled body — or mind — cannot be contained by the record someone else keeps of it. My son loves, he’s deeply affectionate, he sings, he dances. His disability is intellectual where as Avilés’ was physical, but the lesson is the same: personality, humanity, cannot be filed away as a case.
This is also the last known painting by Campeche, who died in 1809, and it was one of the first Campeche works acquired by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. The first and the last, the duality continues. Avilés keeps making his presence known — we’re still thinking about him 220 years later. He will not be contained.
Footnotes
- Biographical details on Juan Pantaleón Avilés de Luna Alvarado and the painting’s commission are drawn from the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña’s records and Google Arts & Culture’s entry on the work.
- August 2017. The face of the other: the particular versus the individual by Claire Farago. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi Ciências Humanas 12(2):289-313
Other References
Trelles, Mercedes, Carmen T Ruiz de Fischler, and P.R.) Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (San Juan. Los Tesoros De La Pintura Puertorriqueña =: Treasures of Puerto Rican Painting. San Juan, P.R.: Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, 2000.