Villalpando, Cristóbal de (c. 1650–1714)

Cristóbal de Villalpando (b. c. 1650; d. 20 August 1714), painter. Villalpando is responsible for the most agitated of Mexican colonial baroque paintings; he was also for many years an official of the painters' guild of Mexico City. There is considerable discussion about his training. Suggestions include study with José Juárez, Antonio Rodríguez, and his father-in-law, Diego Mendoza of Puebla. Much is also made of the influence on his work of Baltasar de Echave Rioja. His works are found throughout Mexico and many are of enormous size, decorating vaults and entire walls. His earliest known paintings were for a retablo at Huaquechula, Puebla, signed and dated in 1675. Between 1684 and 1686 he executed four huge canvases for the sacristy of the cathedral of Mexico City, and in 1688 he painted the dome of the Capilla de los Reyes of Pueblo Cathedral. Often inventive in their iconography, his compositions recall Peter Paul Rubens and Juan de Valdés Leal. His brilliant coloring is sometimes shrill, and he makes generous use of shadow for dramatic effects. His production is uneven.

See alsoArt: The Colonial Era.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Francisco De La Maza, El pintor Cristóbal de Villalpando (1964).

Additional Bibliography

Gutiérrez Haces, Juana. "The Mexican Painter Cristóbal de Villalpando: His Life and Legacy." In Exploring New World Imagery: Spanish Colonial Papers from the 2002 Mayer Center Symposium, edited by Donna Pierce. Denver, CO: Frederick and Jan Mayer Center for Pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial Art, Denver Art Museum, 2005.

Gutiérrez Haces, Juana. Cristobal de Villalpando: Catálogo razonado, 1549–1714. Mexico City: Fomento Cultural BANAMEX, 1997.

                                        Clara Bargellini