Sacred Heart of Mary -- Cusco School Painting

This painting is oil on canvas and measures 16 x 24 inches. It is not stretched, and was painted after the year 2000. It will be mailed in a hard tube.

The history of the Peruvian painting has its origins at the colonial era. The Spanish painters who arrived at the Viceroyalty of Peru taught their techniques to the local artists, and they began to shape on linen cloths their own representations, creating a new iconographic interpretation of the Peruvian reality. The Catholic divinities were adapted to indigenous sensitivity and given a singular representation that had its maxim expression in the "School of Cusco Painting" ( La Escuela Cusqueña), during centuries XVII and XVIII.

This painting has been done in the style of the works of La Escuela Cusqueña, the history of which is traced to the 17th century. Originally influenced by Spanish and Italian artists, this school was commissioned to paint sacred art in churches and monasteries throughout the Peruvian city of Cusco after the area was devastated by an earthquake in 1650. The collected efforts of numerous artists gradually evolved into a unique yet harmonious and consistent style, devoid of individualism. These paintings are usually not signed, but represent traditional depictions of the religious subjects most important to the local indigenous and Hispanic populations.