Virtually explore the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City with Smarthistory as your guide
Some background
videos + essays
Link to the Museo Nacional de Arte's website
Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz, Christ Consoled by Angels
An 18th-century painting from New Spain visualizes Christ's suffering in New Spain
Manuel Vilar, Tlahuicole
Vilar's sculpture of Tlahuicole draws on the style of Neoclassicism to show the heroic Tlaxcalan warrior Tlahuicole who battled the Aztecs
José María Velasco, The Candelabrum
An enormous cactus in the Mexican landscape is captured in amazing detail by the painter José María Velasco in teh 19th century
Francisco Goitia, Tata Jesucristo
Francisco Goitia's image of universal suffering confronts us directly
Félix Parra, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas
Parra uses a 16th-century friar to comment on 19th-century events, as artists began to make a new art for a new nation.
What does the music of heaven sound like? St. Cecilia in New Spain
What does the music of heaven sound like?
Baltasar de Echave Ibía, The Hermits
A continuous narrative, this shows three different parts of the story, each in a different part of the landscape.
Miguel Cabrera, Virgin of the Apocalypse
Cabrera fancied himself the Michelangelo of Mexico, but chose to borrow the format and iconography of Rubens.
José María Velasco, The Valley of Mexico from the Santa Isabel Mountain Range
Velasco shows us the history of the land, both the natural and the built environments.
