Beautiful Arts/Bellas Artes

Published July 25, 2022

by Bonnie Lee Black

It’s been called “an oasis of calm and culture” right in the heart of the city of San Miguel de Allende. Since its construction began in 1755, this architectural jewel has been many things – a Catholic convent (home to six dozen nuns), a public elementary school, an army cavalry garrison, a neglected ruin, and, finally, San Miguel’s first private art school.

Some two hundred years later, in 1967, this ex-convent became part of Mexico’s federal Fine Arts Institution and was renamed El Centro Cultural Ignacio Ramirez “El Nigromante,” after one of Mexico’s great intellectuals (sometimes called the Voltaire of Mexico), who was born just a block away. But this magnificent oasis is known to all simply as Bellas Artes (beautiful, or fine, arts). From its original purpose as a place of prayer and contemplation, Bellas Artes has become a sort of church of the arts.

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