"California Mexicana: Missions to Murals, 1820-1930 asks how Mexico became California. The project moves backward in time, establishing the foundations upon which modern artists built. Mapping practices, pictures of manners and customs, landscape paintings, and illustrated civic documents all played significant roles in encouraging inhabitants to apprehend the distinctive qualities of their surroundings and themselves. This book charts the ways in which Mexico and California engaged in this performing of place through the visual arts"--