1. Architecture.

City planning and architecture were principal concerns in the 16th century, especially in the capital city, which had to be rebuilt after the conquest. The grid plan, based on Hellenistic and Roman precedents, was favored, and in 1573 King Philip II (reg. 1556–1598) made it official policy for new towns throughout Spanish America.

Major efforts were dedicated to the erection of churches, usually the most impressive buildings in the cities and towns of all of New Spain. In contrast to indigenous practices, the Spaniards celebrated their most important public religious ceremonies indoors. The first churches had wooden roofs, and fine woodwork continued throughout the Spanish period. However, by the end of the 17th century, major churches were vaulted, a technology introduced, along with the arch, by masters from Spain in the 16th century, and enhanced by the use of local, lightweight volcanic stone (tezontle). Another innovation for indigenous builders was European metal tools, which enabled them to augment their skills in stonework, as well as woodwork. In domestic buildings, the interior courtyard was a standard feature throughout the colonial period.

Important projects in 16th-century architecture centered on the monumental, stone churches of indigenous towns, supervised and administered by the religious orders, and on the cathedrals of principal cities, directly patronized by the monarchy, at Mexico City, Puebla, Mérida, Guadalajara, Pátzcuaro (moved to Valladolid—now Morelia), Oaxaca, and Durango, all of which were vaulted and crowned by domes by the end of the 17th century. Claudio de Arciniega and Martín Casillas were notable Spanish architects in New Spain in the 16th century. In the 17th century, the parish churches of some towns were also vaulted. By then, most important buildings were the work of local masters, like Pedro de Arrieta, who was the architect of the Jesuit church of La Profesa and the Palace of the Inquisition in Mexico City, and of the Basilica of Guadalupe.

Basic building types changed relatively little in the later colonial period. Important churches were vaulted, and palaces for residential, religious, or other public use continued to be erected on quadrangular plans, around enclosed courtyards. However, proportions, some spatial organization, and decorative elements did change. Architectural historians, under the influence of classical traditions, categorize the history of Mexican colonial architecture by using terms derived from the use of different supports, particularly in the facades, which implicated changes in proportions and decorative vocabulary: Renaissance, Solomonic Baroque, estípite Baroque, and neoclassical. Solomonic Baroque is named for the twisted columns, thought to have come from Solomon’s temple, of the original altar at St. Peter’s at the Vatican. The estípite is a pillar composed of two elongated pyramids joined together, the lower one inverted to meet the base of the upper one at a central cubic element. Its surface ornament includes Rococo elements. The estípite was introduced into New Spain by Jerónimo de Balbás, who arrived in 1718 to erect the Retablo de los Reyes in the apse of the Mexico City cathedral. Another Spanish master, Lorenzo Rodríguez, used the estípite support on the facades of the Sagrario, next to Mexico City cathedral, and columns in its interior. Francisco Antonio de Guerrero y Torres, the most important late Baroque architect of New Spain, followed his lead in combining classical vocabulary with the elongated proportions of estípite Baroque in original and inventive floor plans, such as in the Capilla del Pocito next to the Basilica of Guadalupe, and in the Palace of the Counts of San Mateo de Valparaíso in Mexico City (now Banco Nacional de México). Like all the arts, architecture in New Spain was the work of masters and apprentices organized in a guild. This changed with the establishment of the Academia de San Carlos in 1781, which promoted the strict neoclassicism of European academies and a new organization of labor under the centralized supervision of the Academia. The Palacio de Minería, designed by the Spanish sculptor and architect, Manuel Tolsá, is the best known of the first neoclassical buildings in Mexico City.

Finally, it is important to note that throughout the colonial period, older, local building traditions did not entirely disappear, and some survive to this day. These are dependent on native, usually natural materials, such as palm and wood, but also, of course, earth and stone.

2. Sculpture.

Stone and wooden figure sculptures dominated the production of three-dimensional artistic objects. Examples of stone sculptures of divine and saintly figures abound on church facades from the entire three centuries of the colonial period: most often in niches, or other specific places, within compositions resembling the generally wooden altarpieces within. The material is usually limestone, varying in color and quality in different geographic locations; for example, greenish in Oaxaca and reddish in Zacatecas. Some stone figures, as well as architectural and decorative elements, situated within churches and on facades are—or were—painted. This has hardly been studied because many examples have been cleaned or concealed, as has happened with ancient and medieval European examples, as well. There are also sculptures in alabaster (tecali) in the Puebla area, used for important figures on facades and for church furniture, such as altars and pulpits. Facades in and near Puebla in the 18th century also incorporated glazed tiles and even some glazed clay figures, since the city was a major producer of such objects.

Wood sculpture for interiors is closely related to European, and especially Hispanic, traditions of carved, gilded, and polychromed figures, usually within gilded and painted altarpieces (retablos), whose designs are akin to those of the stone church facades. Spanish and Flemish masters brought these techniques to New Spain in the 16th century, and they developed in fairly predictable ways over time, following the basic Renaissance–Baroque–neoclassical sequence. Relatively few Renaissance examples, as exemplified in the main altarpiece at Xochimilco, have survived. Solomonic retablos have come down to us in greater numbers. A few examples of complete sets of estípite retablos exist within the 18th-century churches for which they were made, such as in the church of S. Prisca, Taxco, and that of the Jesuit novitiate church at Tepotzotlán. Finally, there are anástilo retablos, that is, without architectural supports, and covered by Rococo ornament. The figures in the retablos were frontal and static at the beginning, more elongated and tending towards spiral movement by the 18th century, and finally grave once again with neoclassicism. The polychromy itself also changed: Mannerist and brightly decorated at first, then incorporating more naturalistic forms, as well as chinoiserie, and solid colors in the mid-18th century, and finally, colors tending to the opaque, when gilding was abandoned as neoclassical tastes took over. Other elements of church furniture made of wood, which included figure sculptures, usually in relief, are pulpits and choir stalls. As for the artists, a few European masters arrived in the 16th century, and soon locals of both Spanish and native descent became dominant.

The sculpture of important religious cult figures is a subject unto itself in the history of Mexican art. These objects underwent notable material changes during the colonial period, beyond the stylistic tendencies just noted. Since wooden sculptures could be and often were produced in separate parts, the heads could be of different materials, such as ivory, or they might be finely painted wooden heads imported from Naples or Rome. The desire for realism and the need to express devotion by giving gifts of clothing and jewelry to important religious figures led to the construction of sculptures that consisted only of heads with wigs on simple mannequins which were completely covered by elaborate, rich clothing, despite church attempts at limiting these practices. Some 18th-century altar figures, therefore, are no more than a head, upper bust, and hands on a simple wooden armature that was never to be seen by the general public.

Metal sculpture was also produced in New Spain, but the principal and usually cited examples are the brass figures from the Philippines in Mexico City Cathedral, and the greater than life-size, bronze, equestrian figure of King Charles IV by Manuel Tolsá, who arrived from Spain in 1791 to teach at the recently (1781) established Academia de San Carlos. Local work in metal in New Spain engaged in the utilitarian production of tools and instruments of many kinds, including the great bells of the churches. The other extreme was in luxury objects, especially silver. Silversmiths were active in Mexico City and elsewhere, and production of both religious and secular objects was abundant throughout the years of the viceroyalty and beyond.

3. Painting.

The art of painting had its first manifestations among natives in Franciscan monasteries in Mexico City. A Flemish friar, believed to have been related to Emperor Charles V, Pedro de Gante, had a major role in its progress. Certainly, the natives had painted before, but Christian subject matter had to be introduced via European prints and other models, and plans had to be made for new subjects in new spaces. Wall painting was important in 16th-century churches and monasteries in native towns, where, as at Cholula or Malinalco, one can see native plants and animals along with Christian themes. Much of this early Christian painting in New Spain is monochromatic, but there are colors, as well. The topic of the reciprocal influence of native and European subjects finds parallels in the study of materials, some European and some native. In addition to wall paintings, there are manuscripts. Of great importance is the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España or Florentine Codex (1576–1577; Florence, Bib. Medicea–Laurenziana, MS. Palat. 218–20). It is an encyclopedic treatment of Nahua culture, written and illustrated under the aegis of another Franciscan, Bernardino de Sahagún, at the Colegio de la Santa Cruz for young native men in Mexico City. Finally, plumaria, referring to relatively small “paintings” in which feathers are the actual pigments, was a much appreciated native art form, produced throughout the colonial period.

To support and control the production of painting, and probably also to reduce the power of the religious orders, a guild was established in Mexico City in 1557. It must have included European artists who would have been familiar with such institutions, and there is information about such artists. Of particular importance in the 16th and early 17th centuries, because of their production and because they stayed in New Spain, were the Flemish painter Simón Pereyns and the Spaniards Andrés de la Concha, Baltasar de Echave Orio, and Luis Lagarto (c. 1556–1624, arrived in New Spain in 1585). Paintings were also imported from Europe, such as those by Marten de Vos for the main altarpiece of the cathedral of Mexico City. These artists often worked from prints that further contributed to the diffusion of European visual language throughout New Spain.

Henceforth, the history of painting, especially in Mexico City, which is the most studied, can be traced by master–apprentice relationships, often including various generations from the same family, such as the descendants of Echave Orio, who was followed by Baltasar de Echave Ibía and Baltasar de Echave Rioja, whose combined work spanned almost the entire 17th century. Luis Juárez was also a pupil of Echave Orio, and his son, José Juárez, was the most gifted Mexican painter of the mid-17th century. Sebastian López de Arteaga, who came in 1640 from Seville, was the last Spanish painter of note to arrive in New Spain, until the establishment of the Academia de San Carlos.

José Juárez, López de Arteaga, and, especially, Echave Rioja introduced Baroque painting in New Spain, but it was Cristóbal de Villalpando, who probably had been the latter’s pupil, who produced religious and allegorical compositions in the full Baroque manner of Rubens and some of his Spanish contemporaries. He was the author of grand allegorical compositions in the sacristies of the cathedrals of Mexico City, one of which includes a self-portrait, and Guadalajara, as well as the inventor of the extraordinary vision of heaven, honoring Mary as bearer of Christ, on the dome of the apse chapel of the Puebla Cathedral (1688–1689). He was a master of visual narrative who stretched out or compressed European print and written sources to tell the stories of, for example, St. Francis of Assisi in forty-nine paintings for the convent of his order in Guatemala, and that of St. Ignatius in twenty-two lunettes, most with several episodes expertly combined, for the Jesuit novitiate at Tepotzotlán. A prolific contemporary was the mulatto painter, Juan Correa, who finished the decoration of the sacristy of Mexico City Cathedral.

Among Villalpando’s successors in the 18th century, Juán Rodríguez Juárez, the grandson of José Juárez, and José de Ibarra stand out. The first is the author of the paintings of the great apse altarpiece of Mexico City Cathedral.

Besides stylistic shifts towards relatively smaller figures in large spaces, and tighter control of contours and forms, 18th-century painters in New Spain innovated in many ways. On the one hand, Ibarra and painters after him, especially Miguel Cabrera, wrote about painting and could be counted among the learned. Cabrera’s fascinating text about the miraculous Virgin of Guadalupe icon casts it as a vindication of the art of painting. The 18th century also saw the growth of unusual or outright new genres of painting: portraiture of individuals who were not only viceroys or bishops, narrative in landscapes, casta paintings (pintura de castas; the depiction of varieties of racial types in New Spain), still lifes, mythological scenes, and scenes from human history. Patronage for these subjects went beyond the Church, which had largely dominated artistic production in earlier times.

The establishment of the Academia de San Carlos in 1781 brought change in the organization of art production and in style, which assimilated neoclassical norms. Under the leadership of teachers from Spain (Jerónimo Gil, Rafael Ximeno y Planes, and Manuel Tolsá), the guild system was practically eliminated. Plaster casts provided models never seen before, and drawing was emphasized. Besides major architectural works in Mexico City and the remodeling of many church interiors, neoclassical tastes also spread to other urban areas and, notably, to more remote places, such as Upper California.