Read the section in Chapter 2: Indigenous Heritage from Mexico and the Arrival of the Spanish.

Many Mexican-American artists (and other Latinx artists) use either Pre-Columbian (Mesoamerican) or Spanish Colonial subjects (such as art, architecture, gods and goddesses, even famous people, such as the conquistador, Hernn Corts) in contemporary artworks, like a kind of “cultural vocabulary.”

Find an example of iconography – symbolism or subject matter – from either pre-contact or Spanish Colonial Mexico. What is the history behind this subject? Where does it come from and what might its meaning be?

Can you post contemporary or recent examples of art using your symbol or subject?

Feel free also to post and discuss any topic introduced in the reading as iconography. Some ideas:

Aztln, Hernn Corts, Coatlicue, Pre-Columbian pyramids, art of the Olmec, Maya, Aztec. OR feel free to add another related subject not mentioned in the reading.****Please remember to list the sources you use.