San Gabriel Mission 

Rose O’Neill made this oil painting of the San Gabriel Mission at an unknown date. O’Neill’s romantic impressionistic style belies the more fraught history of the California missions. The Franciscans founded the San Gabriel Mission in 1771, and it became an important site for the conversion of indigenous peoples. Many were forced into labor, as the Spanish sought to create a self-sufficient colony. Later, the missions fell into disrepair after Mexican independence, but the romantic image of the missions resurged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the rise of California tourism and the preservation movement. O’Neill does not directly engage with the missions' complex social history. Her decision to depict it in this light suggests a certain nostalgia for the past that was popular among many white Americans at the time. Examining historical records, mission archives, and accounts from indigenous communities can help us understand the different layers of meaning behind these landscapes.