Who is Juan Correa?
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."Manuel Toussaint considers Correa and Villalpando the main exponents of the Baroque style of painting in Mexico. 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." 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 cathedra...
