Hispano-Indian School.—Echoes have come down of a school of Indian painters, who flour ished during the first 50 years following the fall of Tenochtitlan, in Texcoco and Cuautitlin, both towns near the capital. Under their Spanish masters they had learned to paint the saints and to represent graphically biblical and religious legendary subjects. They painted the pieces of eescenarioa necessary for the production of the miracle plays and other dramatic representations by means of which the Christian Church attempted to teach the natives the principles and dogmas of its faith. Little or none of the art of this period has survived, with the exception of one picture of inter national fame which, on account of the material on which it is painted and the artist's treat ment of his subject., almost certainly belongs to this early Ibero-Indian school. This is the famous picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which made its appearance within eight years after the fall of the City of Mexico, or before 1530. The religious legend asserts that the picture of the patroness of the Mexican people was miraculously made by the tilma or shoulder covering of a poor Indian named Juan Diego; historical. investigation has shown that it was painted for a miracle play given in one of the new convent schools in the City of Mexico very shortly after the Conquest. This picture shows very considerable artistic talent, which is neither Spanish nor Indian, but a blending of the two. The drawing is bold and free and the coloring anticipates, by three-quarters of a cen tury, the soft, pleasing tone of the artists of the first great Mexican school.
The demands of the ever tireless, ever active church upon the Spanish-born and native artists alike were insistent and persistent and many hundreds of canvases belonging to the first three-quarters of a century following the Conquest were produced at the wave of her miraculous wand, for the churches, schools, convents, monasteries and episcopal palaces. that sprang up, phantom-like, throughout the land. Spanish artists of note were brought from old Spain to superintend the work of the native artists in New Spain; and they all attested the wonderful aptitude of their pupils.
Early Spanish Masters.— One of the earli est of these masters was Rodrigo de Cifuentes., who arrived in Mexico shortly after the Con quest. He appears to have had the patronage of the conqueror, Cones, of whom he painted several portraits. The picture of the baptism of Magiscatzin in the church of San Fran cisco, Tlaxcala, is said to be his work. He also painted the portraits of the first audencia and also of Doha Marina, the Indian querida of Cones, about 1536.
Andres de Concha, who arrived in Mexico during the time of the first viceroy, and his Indian pupils enjoyed a high reputation as interior decorators of churches and convents and they were often called to interior cities to do decorative work. The group of paintings over the high altar of Santo Domingo Church in Yanhuitlin, Oaxaca, is the work of Concha, whom Padre Burgoaque calls the Apeles of the New World.
Arteaga, another master painter, is said to have reached Mexico City three years after the Conquest and to have been very active in build ing up the Indian school. There was one of his pictures, 'The Visitation of the Virgin,' in the old church of Santa Teresa about the middle of the 18th century; and it is probably still in existence.
Simon Pereyns, a Flemish artist, painted the pictures for the main altar of La Merced church, and a 'Virgin with a Child) in the National Academy is supposed to be his work. Fran cisco Zumaya and Francisco Morales were his contemporaries. Alonzo Vazquez, who was somewhat younger than Pereyns, was also active as an artist and a teacher. The 'Assump tion' and the 'Redemption,' in the National Academy are credited to him. Juan de Rua, one of Vazquez' pupils, has left a fairly good series of scenes from the life of the Virgin, in the church of San Francisco, Cuautinchan, Puebla.
Pupils of these masters, also famous in their day, have come down to us. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, the first historian of the Conquest and one of the soldiers who took part in it, praises three Indian painters and lapidaries, Andres de Aquino, Juan de la Cruz and El Crespillo whom he likens to the best artists of Italy and Spain in his day. Alonzo Vazquez and his pupil Juan de Rua, already mentioned, are credited with having introduced correct European methods of art into Mexico; and they and their school undoubtedly paved the way for the flourishing and excellent school of artists of the 17th century. In fact we know, by the results already obtained and by the reports that have come down to us, that there had been a wonderful quickening of life in all the arts between 1521 and 1600. This was but a re-echo of the animation in art in Spain her self, in Italy, in the Netherlands and throughout the vast Spanish empire in America. Industries, arts, trades, commerce, mining, agriculture took on a new existence, and Mexico City became the first metropolis of the New World, and the centre of this new-born progress in America. The genius of the Spaniard for organization laid its hand upon the immense domains of the Moctezumas and that hand was never lifted for 300 years, during all of which time the artistic life of the luxurious capital of New Spain was ever in touch with that of the mother country. With the coming of the first viceroy in 1535, this activity of the favorite colony increased. A year later printing was introduced into Mex ico City the court of Spain began to take a peculiar interest in the educational and artistic development of her favorite colony. To this interest and the strong encouragement which accompanied it is due, in part at least, the eagerness with which the native artists worked. The hundreds of Spanish and Flemish paintings and the thousands of art prints that flooded the land, affording means of study and advance ment not before possessed by the natives, made possible the successful school of native art with which the 17th century opened.