Virtual Event: Inventiveness and Invention in Spanish Colonial Art

The act of copying may have connotations of a lack of originality. Visual artists, however, know that it is the best path to master technique and find unique inspiration. Join us for a lively conversation about the use of European engravings as one of many fundamental sources of the art of the Spanish Americas, and the ways local artists enhanced their own inventiveness through this practice, allowing for a robust exchange between different generations of painters and their publics both in Mexico and Peru.

Speakers: Almerindo E. Ojeda, Founding Director of the Project for the Engraved Sources of Spanish Colonial Art (PESSCA) and Professor Emeritus (in Linguistics), University of California at Davis and Aaron M. Hyman, Assistant Professor, Department of the History of Art, Johns Hopkins University.

Moderator: Rosario I. Granados, Marilynn Thoma Associate Curator, Art of the Spanish Americas, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin.

Feature Image: (Left) Johann Andreas Pfeffel (1674-1748) after Johann Georg Bergmüller (1688-1762), ’The Presentation in the Temple,’ 1723 (detail), Mezzotint. Photo taken from http://www.manuscriptorium.com. (Right) Workshop of Bernardo Rodríguez, ’The Holy Kinship,’ Quito, Ecuador, late 18^th century (detail), Oil on canvas, Carl & Marilynn Thoma Collection.