Quito School

also: Escuela Quiteña

school 1542-1824 (Spanish colonial period) Ecuador Colombia

The Quito School (Escuela Quiteña) was the professional artistic tradition of the Royal Audience of Quito - modern Ecuador with the borderlands of Colombia and Peru - across the Spanish colonial period. It began in 1552 at the Franciscan school of Arts and Trades founded by Jodoco Ricke, where the first Indigenous artists were trained, and became a centuries-long fusion of European and Andean cultures: Renaissance and Mannerist forms gave way to Baroque exuberance, then Rococo and an incipient Neoclassicism. Its output was overwhelmingly Catholic religious art - polychromed wood sculpture, painting, gilded altarpieces - and one of the region's economic pillars. Its prestige reached Europe: of the sculptor Caspicara it was said that Charles III of Spain declared he did not envy Italy its Michelangelo.

The Tribuna of the Uffizi (Zoffany)
The Tribuna of the Uffizi (Zoffany)Public domain (credit: Johann Zoffany) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Encarnado: gessoed wood built up with transparent paint layers to imitate living flesh
  • Serpentine, twisting movement in carved bodies, especially in sculpture
  • Aguada - transparent watercolor washes over gold leaf or silver paint - for a metallic sheen
  • "Quiteñization" of figures: Andean facial features, local dress, scenes set in Andean landscapes
  • Local flora and fauna woven into religious scenes
  • European Baroque structure fused with Indigenous symbolism (mestizaje)

Key figures

  • Jodoco Ricke (fl. 1552) — Franciscan friar who founded the arts school where the first Indigenous artists of Quito were trained
  • Miguel de Santiago (c. 1620s-1706) — Leading Quiteño painter of religious canvases such as the Winged Virgin of the Apocalypse
  • Bernardo de Legarda (c. 1700-1773) — Sculptor of the Virgin of Quito, the school's most iconic image
  • Manuel Chili "Caspicara" (c. 1723-1796) — Sculptor of elegant polychrome Baroque religious figures preserved in Quito and Popayán

Example works

  • Virgin of Quito — Bernardo de Legarda (1734)
  • The Winged Virgin of the Apocalypse — Miguel de Santiago (17th century)
  • Portrait of a Quito Matron with Her Black Slave — Vicente Albán (1783)

Sources

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