Colonial Art in Mexico

xxvi+493 pages with frontispiece, index, bibliography and 395 plates. Quarto (11 1/4" x 9"). bound in original publisher's gold cloth with black and gilt decorative lettering to spine in original pictorial jacket. Translated and edited by Elizabeth Wilder Weismann from the second Spanish edition. First American edition.

The three hundred years between conquest by Spain and the winning of independence saw a special and characteristic culture develop in Mexico. This was a frontier society, but a rich one, with all the resources of imperial Spain and the Roman church to develop and support the natural wealth of the land. Public and private buildings were ornamented with rich sculpture and embellished with colorful paintings depicting religious scenes and views of daily life. In this period the preponderantly Indian population was converted to the Christian faith and introduced to the civilization of post-Renaissance Europe. Artists came to Mexico from the Old World and brought with them the current styles, but most of the practicing artisians had never seen Europe, Natives of New Spain, of both Indian and Spanish blood, developed the imported styles in new modes appropriate to the new country that was to be come Mexico. It is this great corpus of art, ranging from the Primitive and Medieval through Renaissance and Baroque to the nineteenth century Neoclassic and popular art, which this book presents. It is the cornerstone of the study of Mexican colonial art.

Condition:

Edges bumped. Jacket spine sunned, edges chipped with tears and closed tears, front edges sunned, spine ends chipped else a very good copy in like jacket.