View of the the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City
| Support Type: | Canvas |
| Paint Type: | Oil Paint |
| Current Location: | Corsham Court Collection, Wiltshire, England. |
| Location History: | The painting was commissioned by Gaspar de Sandoval Silva y Mendoza, Count of Galve (Viceroy of New Spain, 1688–1696). Modern scholarship suggests that the painting was intended to celebrate the prosperity and order of the viceregal capital despite the political unrest following the 1692 food riots. When the Count of Galve completed his term and returned to Spain, he apparently took the painting with him. This explains why the work left New Spain soon after its completion. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the work remained in aristocratic collections in England. Currently, it is housed in the Corsham Court Collection in Wiltshire, England. |
The timespan of 150 years from the mid 16th century to the late 17th century saw the flourishment of some world renowned master painters in Mexico, namely, Miguel Cabrera, Juan Correa, Juan Rodriguez Juarez and a few others. The painter Cristobal de Villalpando belongs to the same category as he is a massively celebrated prolific master painter known for his versatile approach towards art practice and an intuitive dexterity over the baroque aesthetics of the era. Scholars and critics have analysed his visual language and interpreted it as a vocabulary that has been influenced by early New Spanish (colonial Mexico) baroque masters such as Baltasar de Echave Rioja and Jose Juarez, while also drawing inspiration from Spanish Baroque painters including Murillo, Rubens (through engravings) and Juan Carreno de Miranda. Villalpando's artworks reveal his mastery over all the fundamental aspects or principles of painting, such as anatomy, perspective, spatial depth, colour scheme, etc. The painting "View of the the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City" is somewhat distinguishable from the archetypal paintings he produced that were of the religious genre, it nonetheless captures the visual style and approach he fostered towards his practice. The composition is an aerial perspective of the bustling heart or center of Mexico City where all elements and facets of a nation converge or intersect; political, religious, commercial, social, etc. The metropolitan cathedral and the Viceroy's Palace are two dominating elements in the image, transforming into symbolic representatives of political power and authority. Villalpando employs a luminous gold for the tents in the centre which enhances or sheds light upon the baroque aesthetic of the painting that has been created through careful division of colours in the compositional space. Instead of focusing on one particular element, Villalpando creates a visual synthesis of everyday colonial life. Beyond the artistic and appreciative value, the artwork serves as a visual record of the colonial Bourbon society encompassing a vast array of aspects.