Latin American Art in the Colonial Period

Latin American Art in the Colonial Period, c. 1492 – c. 1820

Spanish explorers first traveled to the Americas in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Spanish immigrants settled in sociopolitical units called encomiendas, which were in effect government grants of land and people led by individual powerful Spaniards. Under the encomendero, the head of the encomienda, indigenous peoples served in a variety of capacities, and African slaves were often imported for their labor as well. Churchmen increasingly went to the Americas to function within these encomiendas and to convert indigenous peoples to Christianity.

The Portuguese were slower to become involved in the region. Although they claimed Brazil for many decades, it was not until the mid-1530s that they became more directly involved, granting sesmerías, or land grants, to prominent citizens. As in Spanish America, Christian missionaries became part of this framework. Large numbers of African slaves were imported to Brazil, partly because of the needs of the sugar industry and partly because only a small number of often intractable native peoples remained in the area.

As the colonial period began, there was at first a clear divide between indigenous artists and European emigrants. In some cases, indigenous artists continued to explore their own traditions and themes without alteration. Many European artists also borrowed styles and themes from Europe in a literal way that had little to do with Latin American culture. Increasingly, however, reciprocal influences from both groups could be felt as greater cultural and ethnic mixing came to define the region.
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