Arte Indocristiano

Indochristian art, or arte indocristiano, is a type of Latin American art that combines European colonial influences with Indigenous artistic styles and traditions.

During the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian monks extensively converted indigenous peoples to Christianity, introducing them to European arts and aesthetics. The arts of this period reflect a fusion of European and indigenous religious beliefs, aesthetics, and artistic traditions.

The term Indochristian art was coined by Constantino Reyes-Valerio, a scholar of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture and arts, in his book, Indochristian Art, Sculpture and Painting of 16th Century Mexico. Reyes-Valerio's work focused on the painting and sculpture of churches and monasteries in New Spain, but had broader implications for the analysis of art throughout Latin America.

The term indochristian art was coined by Constantino Reyes-Valerio in his 1978 work, Arte indocristiano: escultura del siglo XVI en México. This work was followed by an analysis of indochristian mural painting, and the two books were re-published in combined form in 2000. In this work, Reyes-Valerio defines indochristian art as art that is indigenous in its production but Christian in its themes, using the term as a designation for artwork that blended symbolic elements of Christian and pre-Hispanic cultures. An expert in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture, Reyes-Valerio focuses his studies on art produced in monastic settings in New Spain, primarily examining sculptures and paintings that ornament monasteries and convents, and identifying iconographic connections to earlier indigenous works.

Reyes-Valerio's coinage of the term indochristian art was based on his 45 years of experience studying pre-Columbian and colonial monuments throughout Mexico. In tracing the indigenous influence on colonial art, Reyes-Valerio relies primarily on close analysis of artistic details and motifs, a process he calls “speaking to the art”, but supports this analysis with documentary sources such as the journals of Augustinian, Franciscan, and Dominican friars.

Reyes-Valerio not only discusses indigenous artistic production, but ties this art to the educational systems created by European monks. He argues that the use of traditional native religious imagery by Indian artists is a form of rebellion intended to keep their traditions alive. 

Although the significance of Reyes-Valerio's contribution to the identification of indigenous iconography within colonial monastic art is widely recognized, a number of art historians have criticized the implications of the word "indochristian" as well as Reyes-Valerio's analysis of the cultural context in which the art was produced.

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