This article is about the Mexican painter. For the Spanish painter, see
Juan Correa de Vivar.
Juan Correa (1646–1716) was a distinguished Mexican painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His years of greatest activity were from 1671 to 1716. He was the
Afro-Mexican son of a
mulatto (or dark-skinned) physician from
Cádiz, Spain, and a freed black woman, Pascuala de Santoyo. Correa "became one of the most prominent artists in
New Spain during his lifetime, along with
Cristóbal de Villalpando."[1]Manuel Toussaint considers Correa and Villalpando the main exponents of the
Baroque style of painting in Mexico.[2] James Oles writes that "Correa and Villalpando created a distinctive—if at times formulaic—style that hearkened back to the strong
Mannerist traditions of the mid-sixteenth century."[3]
Correa was a highly productive religious painter, with two major paintings in the
sacristy of the
Cathedral of Mexico City, one on the subject of the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin (each from 1689), and the Entry into Jerusalem (1691). Elsewhere in the cathedral he created the Vision of the
Apocalypse, and other versions of the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. He also painted major works for the Jesuit church in
Tepozotlan, Mexico (now the Museum of the Viceroyalty), the Chapel of the Rosary in the convent of
Azcapotzalco (in Mexico City) and—based on models by ——for the
cathedral of Durango.[4] His last known work from the early 18th century was documented at
Antigua, Guatemala, in 1739.[5]
According to Toussaint, Correa was "important in achieving a new quality, in the creative impulse he expresses, and which one cannot doubt embodies the eagerness of New Spain for an art of its own, breaking away from its Spanish lineage. Here New Spain attains its own personality, unique and unmistakable."[6]
Correa was the teacher of
José de Ibarra[7][8]and Juan Rodríguez Juarez.[4] His brother, José Correa, his nephews Miguel Correa and Diego Correa, and his grandsons (also named Miguel and Diego) worked as painters.[4]
Gallery
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Juan Correa.
^Bailey, Gauvin Alexander (2005). Art of Colonial Latin America. London: Phaidon. p. 419.
^Toussaint, Manuel (1967). Colonial Art in Mexico. Translated by Wilder Weismann, Elizabeth. Austin: University of Texas Press. p. 235.
^Oles, James (2013). Art and Architecture in Mexico. World of Art. London: Thames & Hudson. pp. 76–79.
ISBN9780500204061.
^
abcGarcía Sáiz., Maria Concepcíon (1996). "Correa, Juan". In Turner, Jane (ed.). Dictionary of Art. Vol. 7. London: Macmillan. p. 883.
ISBN1884446000.
^"Juan Correa". Biografías y Vidas, La Enciclopedia biográfica en línea. Retrieved 16 November 2008.
Further reading
Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. Art of Colonial Latin America. London: Phaidon Press 2005.
Brown, Jonathan. "From Spanish to New Spanish Painting, 1550-1700." In Painting in Latin America, 1550-1820: From Conquest to Independence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.
Donahue Wallace, Kelly. "A Virgin of Sorrows Attributed to Juan Correa." Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas vol. 23, no. 79. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 2001.
Hyman, Aaron M. "Inventing Painting: Cristóbal de Villalpando, Juan Correa, and New Spain's Transatlantic
Canon." The Art Bulletin 99 no. 2 (June 2017): 102–135.
Toussaint, Manuel. Colonial Art in Mexico. Translated and edited by Elizabeth Wilder Weisman. Austin: University of Texas Press 1967.
Vargas Lugo, Elisa/Guadalupe Victoria, José. Juan Correa: su vida y su obra, Mexico, DP: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1985–1994.