The Virgin Saints and Angels

Austin finally got a museum! Actually, it happened about 8 months ago, but I finally went to the opening of this particular exhibit yesterday. I would not have guessed that I would be so taken by religious art dating from 1600 - 1825, but the fact that the paintings were all South American, primarily painted in Peru, got me there.

It was astonishingly beautiful! Unlike European religious art, these paintings have a sense of exuberant joy. Vaguely primitive, but extremely skillful, colors festive, rich, and gloriously vibrant. A lot of gold pigment was used....giving the works a 3 dimensional quality. These scans taken out of the book I bought, cannot begin to do justice to the paintings......and, unfortunately, even flashless photography is strictly forbidden. We were so smitten (I had goose-bumps) that we plan on returning.