In 2004, the Denver Art Museum presented one of the most authoritative examinations of Mexican colonial art ever-a vibrant, idiomatic and wonderfully exotic array of paintings unlike any others in art history.
The works were created between the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1521 and the country’s independence in 1821 – three centuries in which immigrant and indigenous artists created imaginative variations on the Old Master painting of Europe.
An exhibition opening today at the Museo de las Américas is a superb follow-up to that presentation. Though it breaks no new scholarly ground and does not equal the previous offering in size or ambition, it nonetheless constitutes a major offering in its own right.
It is another coup for Patty Ortiz, who took over leadership of the museum in December 2004 and has reinvigorated the once-struggling institution, transforming it into one of the most exciting and vital components of the Denver art scene.
This exhibition draws entirely from the holdings of Jan and Frederick Mayer, a Denver couple who, since the 1970s, have assembled one of the finest private collections of Mexican colonial art in the world.
The Mayers are significant benefactors of the Denver Art Museum. Their foundation pledged $11 million to endow the institution’s New World department in 2003, and all 40 of the works in this exhibition are promised gifts to the institution.
Unlike some people who pursue collecting for celebrity and self-aggrandizement, the Mayers are devoted connoisseurs who love art and see their acquisitions as a way to ultimately enhance the art museum and their community.
The Museo’s exhibition gives area residents a welcome glimpse at the couple’s holdings, including many works never shown publicly since their acquisition and a few that have probably never been on public view anywhere.
This show, which is evocatively titled “Heaven and Earth,” is divided between a small group of paintings and silver objects offering a taste of life in colonial Mexico and a larger selection portraying sacred subjects and religious figures.
Unlike the Protestant-oriented American colonies, New Spain, as Mexico and parts of the surrounding region were known, was settled by Catholics, and they encouraged the acquisition and display of devotional art as a way to promote their religion.
With the constant arrival of immigrants and the conversion of much of the native population, a large demand for art developed, and an array of artists from Spain and as well as others trained in New Spain rushed to fill it.
What emerged is a style that draws on European painting but has a look all its own, as can be seen in the odd yet powerful 18th-century oil on canvas, “Portrait of Dona Maria Dolores,” with its curiously flattened, off-balance quality.
Another example is “Double Portrait of a Carmelita Monk and a Gentleman with the Virgen del Carmen,” an 18th-century oil canvas by Juan Manuel de Avila depicting an ambiguous scene that has not yet been deciphered by art historians.
The monk is pointing to heaven, but because of the compressed composition and unconventional perspective, his finger appears to almost touch the cloud in which the Virgin Mary is floating. Awkward, yes, but the artist pulls it off in a fascinating way.
Such distinctive approaches emerged because the art of New Spain developed in relative isolation, with its practitioners possessing varying degrees of formal training. It was also influenced by local Indian artists and indigenous art forms, such as Aztec feather mosaics.
Two fine examples of how colonial artists adapted the intricate feather technique to Catholic subject matter can be seen – “St. John the Evangelist” by an unknown 17th-century artist and “La Immaculada” by another unknown 17th-century artist.
Setting the scene and anchoring the “Earth” portion of the show is the first work that greets visitors – Pietro Gualdi’s “The Cathedral of Mexico City” (1850), a striking, panoramic view of the church and the surrounding plaza.
Also contained in this section are two first-rate bird paintings done in a kind of scientific style complete with the names of the fowl pictured.
The pair of canvases, still in their original frames, were painted by Ventura José Guiol in 1750.
A highlight of the “Heaven” portion of the exhibition, with its ideally complementary blue walls, are seven nuns’ badges – large, devotional brooches worn at the neck on special occasions. Among them is an oil on copper 7 inches in diameter with a tortoise-shell frame – “Immaculate Conception Surrounded by Saints.”
A clever, angular exhibition design by Agency for Architecture enhances the offering. It subtly suggests the theme of “Heaven” with an elevated central platform and polished-gold cardboard floor adornments.
With the Denver Art Museum virtually closed for the summer, this beautiful exhibition gives viewers, especially those interested primarily in art of previous centuries, a welcome alternative.
It might not be artistic heaven on Earth, but it’s close.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-820-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
“Heaven and Earth”
THROUGH OCT. 8 | Exhibition of 40
Mexican colonial paintings and decorative
objects from the Jan and Frederick
Mayer collection | Museo de las
Américas, 861 Santa Fe Drive | $4
nonmembers | Free for museum
members | Opening reception, 6 to
9 p.m. today | 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Tuesdays through Fridays and noon
to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays
(303-571-4401 or museo.org)
