Created by art historians at Smith College in 2005, the goal of the Vistas project is to promote wider understanding of the visual culture of the Spanish Americas. The project covers a vast region and time period, running geographically from California to Chile, and temporally from the 16th century to the early 19th century. The centerpiece of the site is the gallery, with over 100 images arranged by time period. The 1500s, 1600s, and 1700s are the most populated sections. Images range from a modern photo of Saqsawamán, which is a series of masonry zigzagging walls used as a fortress, palace, and temple from the mid-15th to early 16th century in Cuzco, Peru, to the Chicano Park murals in San Diego, California, begun in 1973. In between there are examples such as a portrait of Simón Bolívar in Lima, 1825, by José Gil de Castro, and a Mexican Chippendale Chair, built in the mid- to late-18th century, in the style of the English furniture maker Thomas Chippendale, using mahogany from the forests of Central or South America.