The Academy of San Carlos and Mexican Art History

The first substantial Mexican colonial art historiography in English, this book examines the origin of the study of colonial art in Mexico as a symptom of the development of modern museum practice in mid-nineteenth-century Mexico City. Also an intellectual history, this study recognizes the role of nationalism in the initiation of art historical practice in what is understood today more broadly as Latin America. Viceregal or colonial Mexican, Spanish colonial, and colonial Latin American art continues to be underplayed or overlooked by most art historians; Ray Hernández-Durán redresses that omission, presenting a detailed examination of the origin of the study of colonial art in Mexico.