Defendiendo la Montaña Sagrada. La pintura ‘Paisaje de las Indias Occidentales’ de Jan Mostaert y la Conquista de Gran Canaria

Abstract

The painting Landscape of the West Indies at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is attributed to Jan Mostaert from Haarlem (ca. 1475-1555 / 56). Several identifications have been proposed for the region that is represented and for the event that takes place there (a conflict between Spanish conquerors and an indigenous people that defends a great mountain). After critically reviewing the existing hypotheses, this article continues the path indicated by Martínez de la Peña (1970) and Peter Mason (2015, 2017), who have identified

several details of the painting as typical of the Canary Islands and its original inhabitants. This article proposes that the mountain of central importance in the painting corresponds to the Roque Bentaiga of Gran Canaria, that the striking stone arch is the nearby rock formation called “Ventana del Bentaiga” and that the snow-topped mountain in the background must be the Teide, a volcano on the neighbouring island of Tenerife, visible from this area. The conclusion is that the painting depicts the battle that took place at this site in 1483 between the troops of the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Vera and the Canaries who opposed them with fierce resistance.