Mexico: European Influence On Featherwork Art

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The Art of Featherwork in Mexico, a book, focuses on the influence how the European settlers influenced the featherwork art of the indigenous people in Mexico. One of the specific paintings that had been created by the indigenous and influenced by the Europeans was the Mass of Saint Gregory (Misa de San Gregorio). The picture was created to show the Mystery of the Eucharist while incorporating various symbols associated with the Passion of Christ. The image is said to have been influenced by previous works of art including Flemish engraving created by two artists from Amsterdam in 1520. According to the text, the image of Christ in the scene was the typical representation of him in the sixteenth century. The image contains a lot of symbolism …show more content…

This is another Christian belief that was presented to the indigenous people and incorporated into their featherwork art. The featherwork includes many Christian symbols including wings on humans (angels), an older man in the sky (God), and a crown depicting on the woman to distinguish her as the Virgin Mary. The Assumption has been seen in Christian artwork since the 13th century and has found its influence on the indigenous people, especially in the Asunción de la Virgen. This provides evidence of the influence of the Europeans on the artwork of the indigenous. Instead of creating feather head dresses and designs depicting Indian lifestyle, the artwork was created for the purpose of placing these pieces of work within the Christian churches and giving them as gifts to higher …show more content…

The greatest influence came from the religion, Christianity, brought by the Spaniards to the Indians. During their evangelization by the Spaniards, the native people used their artistic featherwork skills to created pictures of Christian proverbs to be hung in the churches and given as gifts. Many of the works contain hybridity of the two cultures and can be seen in the skin tone of some of the people in the Christian pictures. As in Salvador del Mundo, Christ has more of an olive skin tone than the typical Spanish settler would have had. The author includes many examples of evidence within the book to show the influence of the

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