| TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY, a History
of The Mexican people (Chapter 1) |
by Prof. German Estrada
October, 2004 |
THE FOREFATHERS (part
18th) continues..
VI
For two centuries, all the same, Spain basked in the sunlight of an artistic and intellectual awakening. Castilla, where the spirit of the Reconquista, an outpouring of religious and nationalistic zeal, discovered a home, gave it birth. With the defeat of the Moslems, the Conquest in the New World, and the triumph of Spanish arms in Europe , God, Spaniards were convinced, had designated them the children of destiny. Before subsiding, the Spanish awakening embraced literature, art, theology, international law, medicine, and chemistry; at the same time, the chronicles of the Conquest added luster to Spain 's historical guild.
The Golden Age, as the two centuries are known, elevated Spanish authors to the pinnacle of European literature. Their forte was the novel, its pioneer La Celestina, a history with a woman as its chief protagonist. A human portrayal of the humanist concept of life, La Celestina had universal appeal, the forerunner of the picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) and, to the delight of colonial Mexicans, Mateo Alemán's Guzmán de Alfarache (1559), the memoirs of a picaro who becomes a converted sinner. It remained for Cervantes (1547-1616), nonetheless, to crown Spanish letters. His Don Quixote , a masterly study of the human psyche, portrayed succinctly the rise and fall of imperial Spain . Among the dramatists of the day, Lope de Vega earned fame as the father of Spanish theater, which, in the opinion of one critic, "most perfectly, perhaps, reflected the Baroque Spirit," a signpost of the Golden Age. Both he and his eloquent successor Pedro Calderón de la Barca had enthusiastic audiences in colonial México. No less towering among playwrights were Tirso de Molina, Alarcón, and Moreto and, among writers of ballads, Lope de Vega, Francisco de Quevedo, and Luis Góngora, an author notorious for his ornate and complicated syntax.
Spanish painters, among the finest in Europe , labored alongside these authors. A Spanish school thrived, portrait painters mainly, shaped by religious temper of the times, and probable the most authentic symbols of the Reconquista. The walked in step with the Flemish, Dutch, and Italian master of their day: Rubens, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Titian, and Raphael. The Spanish painters also drew inspiration from their own, the talented artist of the fifteenth century: the Catalán Luis Dalmau and Bartolome Bermejo, a Cordobés and the first painter on the península to use oils, and Pedro Berruguete, called "the most Spanish painter of his time."
In this era of masterful art, four giants emerged. El Greco, a Greek by birth but Spanish by adoption and spirit, left behind monumental works, among them the haunting Burial of Count Orgaz, which enshrined religious dogma. José de Ribera, a mystic, exalted Spanish piety and dealt with human passion, handling this figures, The Boy with the Clubfoot for one, with shocking realism. His style had a powerful impact on the art of José Clemente Orozco, the Mexican muralist. Francisco de Zurbarán, master of a barren asceticism, painted about death and the saintly who carried the Christian gospel to the infidels. Diego Velázquez, a devout Catholic by conviction and the giant among giants, painted religious themes. As an artist of the court of Philip IV, he passed on to history portraits depicting graphically the mental decay of the Hapsburgs. A fine painter was Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, whose pictures reveal a richness of color and a vivid imagination.
Source: From the book Triumphs
and Tragedy, a History of the Mexican People by his
author Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, and with his authorization.
(W.W. Norton & Company. New York-London). We'll continue with this fascinating
book.
estradanav@yahoo.com
Prof. Germán
Estrada is the author of the best selling book,
"México
Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know
About... But Nobody Told You..." available in Puerto
Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc., Books,
Books as well as directly from the author by internet.
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