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The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Paradise

Alinka Echeverria explores the three major forces that have shaped Mexican art.

Artist Alinka Echeverria explores the three major forces - nature, power and faith - that have shaped Mexican art, and Mexico itself.

Alinka Echeverria

Graeme Hart

Steve O'Hagan

The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers: Series 1: Episode 1: Paradise

Episode 1

Episode 1: Paradise

Series 1

BBC Four - The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers, Series 1, Paradise

Artist Alinka Echeverria explores how nature and land have shaped Mexican art.

Alinka Echeverria reveals how radical Mexican artists shook off European influence by capturing Mexico's landscapes, creating a distinct and extraordinary artistic style.

Alinka Echeverria reveals the way in which Mexican artists shook off European artistic influence to find a distinctive voice, expressed through landscape painting, and reconnected with pre-Hispanic subject matter. The murals of Teotihuacan and illustrated Aztec codices show how nature was the reference point for their worldview, their power structures and their calendars. But following the conquest in the 16th century, the Spanish 're-educated' indigenous artists to aspire to European aesthetics, and for nearly 300 years after conquest, the art of what was called New Spain looked a lot like the art of old Spain.

A century after independence in 1810, artists began to depict Mexico's ancient foundation myths, including the symbolic volcanoes that dominate the Valley of Mexico. Indigenous people, their land and lives were no longer taboo. Following the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910, landscape paintings established a new style that was resolutely Mexican and confirmed the re-established connections between Mexico's indigenous population and their land. Forces of nature and Mexico's landscape continue to be integral to the Mexican sense of artistic identity.

The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers: Series 1

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Alinka Echeverria explores the forces and ideas that have shaped Mexico and its art.

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The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers

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Episode 1: Paradise

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