One of the most vigorous characteristics of the years after the European invasion of Mesoamerica in 1521 was that the indigenous peoples sustained with their traditions a creative resilience that must be considered an example in the history of mankind. The inhabitants of small centers and large cities dedicated themselves to rebuild their lifes and to create a new tradition of documenting history through a new style of painting and by adopting alphabetic writing. This talk will ponder two important indigenous concepts of the practice of recording history in the years after the conquest: the in Tlilli in Tlapalli pictorial system and the concept of images as Ixiptla. Both concepts serve to understand the identity of images in the indigenous colonial times and shed light into the practice of Mariana Castillo Deball. 

Diana Magaloni is Deputy Director, Program Director, and Dr. Virginia Fields Curator of the Art of the Ancient Americas at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).