Monsters and grotesques in colonial Mexico and the Italian Renaissance

Study by Serge Gruzinski

Abstract

This article aims to recognize and interpret the presence of monsters in the mural art of Mexico during the time of the Spanish conquest. The monsters usually appear in the form of “grotesques”, an artistic fashion inspired by Italian and Spanish Renaissance painting, inherited from Greco- Roman antiquity. After presenting some introductory information, I will analyze murals from the early colonial era in Mexico, within the context of ethnic, cultural, and religious miscegenation, and in relation to grotesque painting in the Italian Renaissance. After recognizing that there was hybridization of the images in both directions, from Europe to Mexico and from Mexico to Europe, I will try to establish relationships between the analyses of the afrescos of Puebla, Ixmiquilpan and Acolman, and the theories of miscegenation and monsters. My main reference will be Serge Gruzinski’s book The Mestizo Thought (La pensée métisse).