Mexican Art (Colour Library of Art)

Mexico inherits a marvelous and richly varied artistic tradition, covering a period of twenty centuries. For 1,500 years before the Spanish conquest, many brilliant cultures flourished. The well-known Aztecs were but the inheritors of the gifted Olmecs, the Toltecs and the highly sophisticated Mayas. The colonial period produced a distinctive Mexican style, known as "Ultra-Baroque," best described as the exuberant use of European Baroque and Rococo, combined with native traditional art.