At the Spanish Conquest, the plastic expression of the art was marked in the goldsmith, architecture, textile industry, sculpture, basketwork and pottery; and the painting was known through painted textiles and walls.

The Painting sponsored by the Catholic Church, was trying to use this cultural expression to implement the evangelization of the native population, through the diffusion of religious model brought from Europe.The Cusco School develops as a new mestiza (mixed race) expression, product of the implanted religious icons, but maintaining the native roots based on the native religiosity. That is why in the most representative pieces it is observed birds, plants, food and decorations, which are features of the most ancient Peruvian ideology.

The worship to the Mother Land or Pacha Mama , is clearly reflected on the representation of images corresponding to the Virgin Maria or feminine personages, which images seem to represent mountains or Apus . Likewise, the faces of images have flush on cheeks, very typical of natives.At the end of century XVI, the Colonial Painting was very influenced by the Flemish school and the Mannerism , and in the century XVII when the artistic development of native painters marks the emergence of the Cusco School as one of the best expressions of the cultural symbiosis of both worlds: the Hispanic and the American.

While it is true, almost all the paintings has no signature; Diego Quispe Tito, Basilio de Santa Cruz Pumacallao, Juan Zapata Inca, Mateo de Sinchi Roca, Juan Espinoza de los Monteros, Martin de Loayza and Marcos Rivera, among others, are important representatives of the Peruvian colonial painting well-known as Cusco School.