II.

Early Development

Among the early European settlers of Latin America were Roman Catholic clergy, who came to convert the Native American population to the Christian religion. By necessity, religious leaders initially relied on indigenous artists to decorate the many new missions and churches that were built. Government officials similarly relied on native labor to build and decorate government buildings. To provide European models for these artists, the colonists imported European prints, statues, crosses, and other objects of worship. As a result, 16th-century sculpture in Latin America typically mixed European and indigenous elements into an artistic hybrid known as mestizo art (a Spanish word also applied to people of mixed European and Native American ancestry). In Mexico this cultural mixture appeared in 16th-century courtyard crosses, baptismal fonts, and other stone objects, and is usually referred to as Indochristian art.

By the middle of the 16th century the European population in Latin America had significantly increased, and European sculptors began setting up workshops to compete with indigenous artists. Bernardo Bitti, an Italian Jesuit painter and sculptor, established a workshop in Peru in the late 16th century. In Mexico, immigrant sculptors and carpenters formed a guild in 1568, and although the guild did not exclude artists on the basis of race, it did enforce European artistic values such as an emphasis on realism, Renaissance idealism, and the use of Christian imagery.

By the 17th century, European styles dominated sculpture—even the work of mestizo artists—in such centers of colonial power as Mexico City and Puebla, Mexico, and Lima, Peru. Mestizo styles generally moved to the periphery, where they survived as folk art, although indigenous leaders and mestizo patrons continued to encourage mestizo art in some regions, especially in Pátzcuaro Michoacán, Mexico; Cuzco, Peru; and the booming mining area of Potosí, Bolivia.