The creation of an artistic work requires much more than the inspiration or need to create or ire a piece. During the Viceroyalty of New Spain, artisans were specialized individuals who acquired their knowledge in the workshops of their own trade. By means of a skill based on experience and current ideas around beauty, power, god, liturgy, or daily life, artists manipulated and transformed raw materials in order to turn them into a recipient of their aspirations, beliefs, or desires. Technological traditions were very stable, and visual traditions allowed for changes in taste over time. In Independent Mexico, some were preserved, but there were also substantial changes in the use of materials and themes.
The artists developed their skills little by little, imitating, creating, and innovating the processes of their superiors and peers. Although some of the knowledge was shared among different workshops, each one also had its own formulas, methods, and tools that, like the hand of the master, left traces and imprints.
Since these ways of working were practiced daily, written descriptions of them are very scarce. To identify the materials with which the pieces were created, but also the technologies or techniques with which they were made, we have resorted to historical and scientific studies. The latter allow us to explain what the artists knew from practice, as well as to better understand the particular ways of working, in addition to identifying the best ways to conserve the works when restoration processes are required. In this room we exhibit some of these studies from the Museo Amparo Collection.
