Art of the contact period reveals how two very different and previously unknown cultures from the Old (Spain) and the New (Mexico) Worlds reacted to one another. Spanish friars, in particular those from the Franciscan, Dominican and Augustinian orders, built large monastic complexes where they baptized and indoctrinated huge numbers of Mexicans, including Aztecs. Mexican artisans were used to construct, decorate and furnish these buildings, fusing their skills with such European pictorial demands as perspective. Murals were produced to decorate the interiors of 16th century churches, often retaining strong pre-Hispanic iconographic traits. Feathers, a highly prized material, were adapted to produce delicate ‘paintings’ and to beautify Christian ritual objects such as chalices and portable oratories. Cut stones from pyramids were re-used - to build Mexico City’s cathedral for instance. In other cases stone statues were reshaped to produce baptismal fonts or columns.

Much of what we know about Aztec religion and society is derived from the codices or ‘painted books’ that still survive. In these manuscripts the Aztecs did not use an alphabetic script, but utilised pictograms instead. In the colonial period these books continued to be written for Spanish friars who sought to document the history and culture of the Mexicans, for example the Florentine Codex by the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún. These books provide an alternative version to the history and subsequent conquest of Mexico as recorded by Spaniards such as Hernán Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo. In addition, books were written by the indigenous population to be used in the colonial courts as legal documents to safeguard property rights. Often these later documents were written on European paper in book form. Few pre-Columbian books survive as many were destroyed in the early colonial period since the Spanish feared that their content might be subversive.

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