Miguel Mateo Cabrera Research Paper

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Miguel Mateo Cabrera was a painter hailing from New Spain which is now Mexico.

While he was alive he was regarded as the best painter of New Spain. Religious

and secular art were his main forte, creating them for the Roman Catholic Church as

well as rich patrons. He is more known for his casta paintings in which interracial

marriages that particularly produced interracial children were produced. He is also

known as the leading painter of this genre. Cabrera’s paintings show marriages

between various combinations of Amerindians, Africans, Creoles and Spaniards.

Cabrera was born in present day Antequera (Oaxaca,Oaxaca,Mexico) and moved to

Mexico City when he was about 24 in 1719. Mexico City’s Archbishop and its Jesuit …show more content…

He was influenced by the contemporary French

painting of his era as well as Bartolomé Esteban Murillo who hailed from Seville, Spain.

Murillo was more known for his religious paintings, but he also made many paintings of

women and children. This is the opposite of what Carera was known for, however it

seems Cabrera gained more influence from Murillo’s family paintings than his religious

works.

Saint Gertrude (1763) by Cabrera, shadows Murillo’s Virgin and Child (around

1670-1672) in that in both the woman (in Cabrera’s a nun and in Murillo’s the Virgin

Mary) are looking down to their respective downward left side. Both are holding the

Christ child in their left arm’s. However, in Cabrera’s painting the book the nun is writing

In is the focus of the nun. In Murillo’s painting, the Christ child himself is the Virgin

Mary’s focus.

Figure 1

Figure 2

While Cabrera shows a New Spain spin on his some of his religious paintings, he

is pretty straightforward and traditional with his casta paintings. His casta paintings echo

the Renaissance. The paintings are very realistic and naturalistic. One could compare

his style to Hans Holbein the Younger for example. (Holbein,

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