The Arts in Latin America, 1492–1820

Hardcover
592 pages, 12 x 10 in.
431 color + 45 b/w illus.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2006
ISBN 9780876332511

This monumental book transcends geographic boundaries and explores the history of the confluence of styles, materials, and techniques among Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas from Columbus’s historic journey through the end of the colonial era. Written by distinguished international scholars, essays cover a full range of topics, including city planning, iconography in painting and sculpture, East–West connections, the power of images, and the role of the artist. Beautifully illustrated with some three hundred works of art—many published for the first time—this book presents a spectacular selection of decorative arts, textiles, silver, sculpture, painting, and furniture. Scholarly entries on each of the objects highlight the various cultural influences and differences throughout this vast region. This groundbreaking book also includes an illustrated chronology, informative maps, and an exhaustive bibliography.

Joseph J. Rishel is the Gisela and Dennis Alter Senior Curator of European Painting before 1900, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt is a scholar of Spanish and Spanish American art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.