This week I had to read a chapter about Christian murals by Indians artist for my Latin American Art History class. Reading about this, I really found the art work interesting; it was simple but somehow still had small details within the delicate pieces. A couple of pages into the reading the author says, “When Indians achieved artistic quality in the Renaissance style, it was because they were talented creators not just servile imitators,” which I thought was very well said. Just because a new art style was introduced to them from another place does not mean the art work they created was only because of that place but also because they are talented artists. They keep bringing this up later in the chapter, and how even though these artists may have seen Italian paintings, or even heard about the style by the word of mouth, that artists still have different painting styles and can still be told part.

Throughout the rest of the reading I found it to be heavily detailed when it came to talking about the paintings and about the surfaces. An example of this is the Scenes of Augustinian Heroes, where it talks about the paintings and how it ran up two stories tall. In my opinion I think that the details in this piece are well done. Sometimes too much detail could make a reading become boring, but I enjoyed reading about why they were painted, how they were influenced, and about the mix of cultures and religions. This is said throughout the reading but I like how the author says “In other words, there can be no doubt that all human beings of whatever race, creed, gender, economic condition, geographical location, or historical time were and still are genetically predisposed to perceived perspective convergence in the phenomenal visual world in the same physiological and optical way.”

These cultures and painting really fascinate me and I can’t wait to learn more in this class.