| TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY, a History
of The Mexican people (Chapter 1) |
by Prof. German Estrada
October, 2004 |
THE FOREFATHERS (part
19th) continues..
Spain transferred to Mexico a monumental architectural legacy, as old as Roman times, but principally from the Gothic and Moslem era. The Alcazar at Toledo , the Alhambra of Granada, and the Mezquita de Córdoba testify to the prowess of Moorish architects. During the Reconquista, architecture, now essentially Spanish, prospered; the great cathedrals of Salamanca , Burgos , and Valencia , which incorporated both Gothic and Romanesque elements, stand witness to that. The architecture, basically a combination of Arabic and Gothic styles, was known for its magnificen cupolas, horsehoe arches, and glazed azulejos . Made possible by the abundant silver from Mexico and Peru , the architecture, rich in ornamentation, won fame under the name Plateresque. The Colegio de San Gregorio, a sample of this architecture, dates from the reign of the Catholic Kings. Ultimately labeled Baroque art, this architecture symbolized the Catholic Counter-Reformation in Spain . With it came an admirable sculpture, more often than not religious statuary but also sculpture in relief for ornate doors for churches and their elaborate façades. Burgos , Toledo , Sevilla, and León boasted some of its finest examples.
Fittingly, the agony of death befell the Golden Age during the rule of the imbecile Charles II. Velázquez, the greatest of the painters, died in 1660; Zurbarán four years later. In 1681, his mourners buried Calderón de la Barca, the last of the luminaries. Wit his demise, a pall descended upon Spanish letters and the arts. The Spanish encyclopedists of the eighteen century, who exemplified the brief flurry of intellectual vitality under the Bourbon kings, rarely matched the talents of the Golden Age.
VII
The Spain , with Castilla at its helm, was the patriarch of colonial Mexico . What it stood for, it conferred on its offspring; the Golden Age, with all its grandeur and the spirit of the Reconquista, a crusade for God and country enhanced by a religious intoxication and nationalistic fervor. Along with the artistic and grandiloquent architecture, absolute monarchy arrived, as well as corruption and malfeasance in public office. The church, too, its spirits enhanced initially by dedicated apostles, betrayed eventually its mission, victim of its sins and those of its countrymen. Capitalism, the promise of a powerful commercial bourgeoisie, languished. From the start, Castilla, home of a retrograde landed nobility, closed the door to harbingers of middle-class ideals. Worse still, it conferred on its offspring in the New World a skewed society. Colonial Mexico , an offshoot of a pre-Columbian civilization under the sway of a military and priestly caste, and hardly democratic, and of Spanish medieval society, inherited the sins and virtues of both.
Whatever their blessings, Spain and the New World are the forefathers, to repeat, of Mexicans, but not in identical ways. Although Mexican culture is "derivative," to quote the philosopher Samuel Ramos, is essentially Spanish; "through our veins flows the blood of Europeans who brought their own culture with them to America ." A part of the European blended with the American, but one must not forget than in the mestizo, the progeny of Spaniard and Indian, little of the native cultures endured. "The Indian Rock," wrote Aldous Huxley, "was a very large one, but the (Spanish) hammer, though small, was wielded with terrific force. Under its quick reiterated blows, the strangely sculptured monolith of American civilization broke into fragments." "The bits are still there," he concluded, "indestructible," but no longer a "shapely whole." Ever since the colonial era, therefore, Mexican life has tended to conform to cultural molds imported from Europe . Nonetheless, something of the native endures, obviously in the genes or, to put it in the vernacular, the "blood", as well as in a bit of its psychology and way of life. Equally important, the memory of an Indian past, eventually almost an ideal, never died. 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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