Spanish creation of the conquest of Mexico

The eight Conquest of Mexico paintings in the Kislak Collection contain a number of themes that were central to the way Spaniards in seventeenth-century Mexico viewed the Conquest. The paintings also reflect a number of larger cultural phenomena. Many of these are discussed elsewhere in this volume, but two are worth mentioning as significant backdrops to this chapter. One was the development of Baroque painting, specifically the ongoing popularity of battle scenes and the florescence of secular-themed paintings commissioned by local elites and executed on a scale suitable for elite homes (far larger than non-elite houses but offering smaller hanging spaces than churches and royal palaces). The second larger phenomenon of particular relevance here was the dawn in late-seventeenth-century Mexico of an interest in, perhaps even a preference for, local themes. This interest-which might arguably be seen as a kind of proto-nationalism-was manifested in the social topic of mestizaje and the historical one of the Conquest, both of which were explored in print (as in the writings of Sigüenza y Góngora) (Leonard 1959; Sigüenza y Góngora 1992) and on canvas (as in casta paintings and the Kislak series) (Carrera 2003; Katzew 2004).