Following the U.
S.-Mexican War (1846-1848), lands that had for centuries belonged to New Spain, and later to Mexico, were transformed into the thirty-first state in the United States.
This collective cultural inheritance of the Spanish and Mexican periods forms a central current of California history but has been only sparingly studied by cultural and art histor.
This process was facilitated by visual artists, who forged distinct pictorial motifs and symbols to establish the state\'s new identity.
Following the U.
S.-Mexican War (1846-1848), lands that had for centuries belonged to New Spain, and later to Mexico, were transformed into the thirty-first state in the United States