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MEXICO MAGICO
TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY... A history of the Mexican people |
CHAPTER IV, The Forefathers - The Baroque Years (62th part continues...)
By Prof. German Estrada - August 2006 |
One of the colonial masters was Baltazar de Echave Orio, nicknamed El Viejo (the Old One) to distinguish him from El Mozo, his grandson, also a fine painter. Some of his work, critics believe, matches in quality the Golden Age painting in Spain. His two sons, Baltazar and Manuel, along with his disciple Luis Juárez, excelled too. An artist remembered for his Saint Theresa and the Apparition of the child Jesus before Saint Anthon, Juárez frequently repeated religious themes. Sebastián López de Arteaga, born in Sevilla but residing in Mexico City by 1643, achieved dubious fame of sorts for his portraits of judges of the Inquisition. His Incncredulity of Saint Thomas, a painting in the mold of Francisco de Zurbarán’s work, introduced Baroque art to the New World.
Toward the end of the seventeenth century, a gaudy, elaborate style of painting surfaced, identified with the swelling elegance of Baroque architecture. Highly decorative, it exalted color, for the most part blues and reds, displayed a superficial brilliance, and attached less importance to the human figure. The titles of its religious paintings dealt with themes such as The Child Jesus, The Healing of the Cripple by Saint Peter, The Cadaver of Christ, and so forth.
Artists of reputation could be found in every corner of New Spain, but primarily in Mexico City and Puebla, a cultural bastion. Juan Correa, a mulatto, and Cristobal de Villalpando, as well as the two Rodrígues Juárez, Juan and Nicolás, were among the painters of note. Correa’s paintings hung on walls of the vestry of the cathedral of Mexico City, while his Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise won him the accolades of art admirers. José Juárez may have been the top painter, the son of Luis Juárez and identified with Zurbarán, he painted the splendid San Alejo and the Death of Saint Francis, foremost of colonial works. Like the much copied Zurbarán, his paintings exude a religious mysticism. Baltazar de Echave y Rioja was the fourth of the prolific clan of painters.
III
Schooling and learning, too, weather varies of cultural vitality, won garlands. About 1550, Mexico City, welcomed a printing press, the first in the Western Hemisphere and a century before the publication of a book in the thirteen English colonies. Within a decade of the Conquest, the Jesuits established the Colegio de San Ildefonso, a seminary teaching at the level of a university, after Independence, it became the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, the country’s initial upper school. Over and above that, Viceroy Don Luis de Velazco founded in 1551, the Real y Pontificia Universidad, the first of its kind in the Americas. Not all learning matched this impressive start.
For two hundred years, scholasticism, a medieval form of learning, held sway. Essentially, ecclesiastical, it carried over to the secular the methods and attitudes of theology. To the scholastics, God sat at the apex of the truth. In his wisdom, he delegated that truth or a part of it to chosen individuals. Their writings, because they “revealed” the truth, were the source of learning and the final authority. They were the church fathers, who, rather than human reason, knew the truth. This interpretation looked upon memory as more important than rational thought. Experiments and the laboratory, the tools of modern science, were ignored. Aristotle and the Bible, as interpreted by Vatican authorities, had the final say in secular philosophy. Dogma and verbal expression, not subtlety of thought, enjoyed prestige and recognition.
What scholastics left unharmed, the influence of Luis de Góngora, a poet of note in Spain, undermined more. Poetry, the principal form of colonial literature, succumbed to his nefarious style. Once a bard of clarity and lyric charm, Góngora took it upon himself to compose metrical writing only he could understand. The cult of artificiality, upside-down metaphors and syntax gone awry, swept literature in New Spain with lighting speed. Gongorism, as the fad was baptized, marched hand in glove with the Baroque love of the ornate architecture.
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Presentation of Baby Jesus.
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In the next issue we’ll continue with Chapter V of this fascinating book, THE BAROQUE YEARS.
Prof. Germán Estrada
E-mail: estradanav@yahoo.com
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).
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 his website.
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