Colonial Cultural Contact.

During the age of discovery, from 1492 to 1600, European explorers, traders, and religious dissenters ventured to the so-called New World. As a result the cultures of Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia experienced sustained contact with each other for the first time. The encounters of these different worlds produced not only new cultures, races, and political structures but also new art and architectural forms. These colonial works of art, which fulfilled both practical and creative functions, illuminated European colonial ideologies as well as the experiences of colonizers and indigenous people in what is now the United States. In short, colonial artworks in the Americas are unique visual documents of the age of exploration and colonization.

European Art.

European explorers and settlers brought a variety of artistic styles to the New World during the age of discovery. In Europe the period from 1492 to 1600 witnessed the Renaissance, a...