México Barroco | Baroque Art: Representing Divine Ecstasy, Evoking Awe

An Erstwhile Puritan Confronts the Baroque

We have to admit upfront that we find it very hard to relate to, let alone appreciate Baroque art, especially Catholic Baroque visual art. (We love Bach, Vivaldi and all their musical cohort.) The intense religious symbology and overwhelming detail of the visual expressions, especially when covered in gold gilding, is off-putting to one raised as a Protestant with New England Puritan roots.

But in Mexico it is difficult to avoid the art of the Baroque epoch. It is the art of the height of the Spanish Empire and its realization in Nueva España.

So What Is Baroque?

The Wikipedia article on Baroque Art gives us a good introdution to its style and purposes.

The Baroque is a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, theater, and music. The style began around 1600 in Rome, Italy, and spread to most of Europe.

The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Catholic Church, which had decided in the Council of Trent (1545 to 1563) [in which Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was King Charles I of Spain, played a prominent role], that in response to the Protestant Reformation, the arts should communicate religious themes in a direct manner, seeking to elicit emotional involvement.

The aristocracy also saw the dramatic style of Baroque architecture and art as a means of impressing visitors and expressing triumph, power and control. Baroque palaces are built around grand courtyards, staircases and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence. 

A good example of the Baroque is Bernini's St. Theresa in Ecstasy (1650). He aimed to portray religious experience as an intensely physical one. Theresa described her bodily reaction to spiritual enlightenment in a language of ecstasy used by many mystics.

Theresa in Ecstasy
Wikipedia

 Grandeur, Exuberance and Drama

La Grandeza

The analysis strikes us as going to the heart of Mexican architecture and art across its history, not just that of the Baroque period. We have written about grandeur, in Spanish, grandeza, as an essential characteristic of Mexican architecture and art from its Mesoamerican, indigenous beginnings through the Spanish Conquest and Colonial period to 19th century expressions of the Porfiriato to post-Revolutionary murals and later 20th century architecture, such as in University City.

Teotihuacán, City of the Gods,
"Avenue of the Dead," looking toward Pyramid of the Moon.

The Palace, first of Cortés, then the Spanish Viceroy,
today the Mexican government.

Metropolitan Cathedral
The facade is post-Baroque Neo-classic
but with Baroque touches, such as the spiral "solomonic" columns
above the two side doors.

Mural of "Progress" on ceiling of Reception Hall
of former Secretariat of Communications,
now National Museum of Art.
Built during 30-year presidency of Porfirio Díaz,
aka the Porfiriato

Central Library of National Autonomous University
University City, Coyoacán
Mural by Juan O´Gorman is a mosaic in natural stones.
Covering the Library's four sides, it is the world's largest outdoor mural.

Exuberance

The Wikipedia author uses the word exuberance for the lavishness, the profuseness of imagery and decoration characteristic of Baroque art. Again, that lavishness is present from the beginnings of Mexican art up to the present. 

Goddess of Tenochtitlán
Mural in National Museum of Anthropology and History

Bird Jaguar IV, center,
with his father, Itzamnaaj B'alam II and grandfather, Yaxun B'alam III,
Ahaus, Lords of Maya kingdom of Yaxchilán

Baroque reredos of Church of San Ángel,
Colonia San Ángel,
Delegación Álvaro Obregón

Tianguis, Street Market
Mural in Abelardo Rodríguez Market
Artist unknown, 1930s.

Giant papier maché alebrije, fantastic creature
in the Zócalo, Day of the Dead, November 1-2

Fiesta of El Señor de la Misericordia
Lord of Compassion,
Pueblo de los Tres Santos Reyes,
Pueblo of the Three Saintly Kings,
Coyoacán

Drama

Drama is probably the central theme of Mexican art from its Mesoamerican roots to its modern expressions. From its indigenous beginnings, the Mexican worldview has been a dramatic one, full of protagonists and antagonists, heroes and villains, the forces of good versus the forces of evil, entangled in a lucha, a struggle for victory one over the other.

The Christian drama brought by the Spanish fit right in: God versus Satan, Heaven versus Hell, Christ versus Sin and Death. In the great human and divine drama, the Lord is crucified, dies, is buried and rises again.

Death
"Frieze of the Dream Lords,"
Maya, Toniná, Chiapas

Sarcophagus of Pakal Kínich Janaab I (Great Sun Shield),
Maya Lord of Palenque (reigned 615 - 683 AD).
Pakal lies on top of a god of the underworld.
A cruciform world tree (cosmic axis) rises from him
carrying his spirit to a bird, the supreme sky god, Itzamnaaj.

Aztec Stone of the Five Suns
National Museum of Anthropology and History
Photo: Ann Kingman Gomes

Virgin Mary (left) pleads with Heavenly Christ (in red),
seated next to God, the Father,
for "Release of the Souls in Purgatory"
(including a Pope (lower right) and
a Cardinal (lower left)
Baroque period painting in the Metropolitan Cathedral

March of Humanity Toward the Democratic, Bourgeois Revolution
Top: Primitive Man, Pregnant Proletariat Woman, March of the Mothers, with their burdens
Bottom: The Embrace and Mixing of Races, Lynched Black Man, Crow Man of the Pimas and Yaquis (indigenous peoples)

The peoples don't protect (their) memory.
Ariosto Otero Reyes, 1997
Xola ('Shola') Metro station, Line 2

Ecstasy and Awe

Ecstasy: Communion with the Divine

The word ecstasy is Greek in origin, ek-stasis, and means to stand outside (one's self); stasis has the same Indo-European root, sta, as the Spanish verb estar, to be in some place, and the English state, stance or station. We usually think of ecstasy as an experience akin to that of St. Theresa, an emotional experience so heightened in intensity as to carry a person, at least for some moments, totally beyond themselves, beyond their normal physical, mental and emotional experience.

Ecstasy, at its most intense, carries one to communion with the Divine (from Indo-European deiw, meaning "to shine"; hence, "sky," "heaven"), that is, with Ultimate Reality.

The Assumption of Mary into Heaven,
to become "Queen of Heaven."
An ecstatic event, if ever there was one.
Heavenly cherubs raise her from the human world below.

Sculpture over main door of
The Metropolitan Cathedral whose full name is
Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven

Ecstasy as intense as that of the mystics like St. Theresa, or the shamans of earlier cultures (who had visions in which their spirits left their bodies to visit the world of the supernatural), is hard to imagine for most of us mortals. But "standing outside of one's self" in less intense ways is a common experience. We all seek ways to "stand outside" our daily routines, the everyday times and places of our lives, our existential reality. Sports, games, dance, music, literature, theater, painting, parties, holidays, vacations—all forms of play—as well as alcohol, drugs and, of course, sex take us outside ourselves. All are forms of ecstasy, in greater or lesser intensity.

Yet this ecstasy, in all its forms and levels of intensity, can never totally take us out of our historical and cultural context, our imaginario, our communally shared worldview. We play the games of our culture. Our music and all our arts are of a particular time and place, an epoch. And what is more typical of a culture than how it celebrates or relaxes? Each culture has its favorite form of alcohol, be it beer made from barley, corn or rice; wine, brandy or whiskey. Drugs and sex? Well, they are universal, but even they are culturally shaped.

So is our religion: our images of God and the practices of our worship, our efforts to commune with Ultimate Reality. In the Catholic Christian world, ecstasy, communion with the Divine, is mundanely attained in the Mass, when a wafer of grain consumed by the faithful miraculously becomes the Body of Christ. However, the ultimate ecstasy is achieved by entrance into heaven after death. Baroque religious art focuses on this final realization of eternal ecstasy.

Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven,
in her manifestation as Our Lady of Guadalupe,
on dome of Old Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Gold represents the shining, resplendent Divine Presence;
Communion with that Presence is the ultimate goal of ecstasy.

Heaven
full of cherubs, innocent infants.
On the dome of the Chapel of the Little Well
Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Awe

Awe isn't mentioned by the Wikipedia author, but it is implied in his/her analysis of Baroque art, with its grandeur and desire to impress. Awe is a powerful feeling of reverence, fear or wonder in response to an encounter with something experienced as greater or more important than our mundane concerns, something truly grand, something essentially sacred and holy (from the Indo-European roots, sak: to set aside from everyday use, and kailo: whole, healthy, wholesome). Clearly Baroque religious architecture and art was intended to evoke awe in the presence of the sacred, the holy, the divine.

Interior of Metropolitan Cathedral

Worship
Side chapel
Metropolitan Cathedral

Baroque Art as Expressions of Ecstasy Evoking Awe

It is with this perspective on Baroque art as focused on grandeur, exhuberance, and drama, and its religious expresssions as portraying ecstasy and seeking to induce awe, that we can approach the architecture and art of the Baroque churches and palaces of Mexico City as shaped by the imaginario of their time and culture: Spanish Catholic Colonial Mexico of the 17th and 18th centuries.

"Ecstasy"
A contemporary exhibit of portraits of female Catholic saints and nuns
as Brides of Christ,
following very much the path of St. Theresa.
(Unfortunately, it was closed when we arrived in late June to explore
the Ex-Convento Culhuacán
in Delegación Iztapalapa)

Spanish Baroque: Churrigueresque

Near the end of the 17th century, Spanish Baroque architecture developed a particularly elaborate sculpted ornamentation that remained in vogue into the 1750s, when it began to be replaced by the Neoclassic style as part of Enlightenment efforts promoted by the French Bourbon monarchs who had won the Spanish throne in the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1715).

Spanish Baroque is marked by extremely expressive, florid decorative detailing, normally found above the entrance on a building's main facade.  It is also called Churrigueresque, from the name of architect and sculptor José Benito de Churriguera (1665–1725), who championed it. Born in Madrid, De Churriguera worked primarily in Madrid and Salamanca (Wikipedia).

It is this Churrigueresque Baroque that was brought to Nueva España and its capital, la Ciudad de México. There are multiple examples of it in Centro Histórico.

El Sagrario Metropolitano, The Metropolitan Tabernacle,
Designed by Spanish architect Lorenzo Rodríguez
Built between 1749-60

El Sagrario Metropolitano, the Metropolitan Tabernacle is a building attached to the east side of the Cathedral. It housed the archives and vestments of the archbishop. It now functions as a place to receive baptism and the Eucharist and to register parishioners.

Temple of San Francisco,

Baroque facade of Balvanera Chapel

 built in 1766,

 also by Spanish architect Lorenzo Rodríguez

Entrance on Madero Street

Iglesia de la Santésima Trinidad, Holy Trinity Church
Centro Histórico, East.
Probably also by Spanish architect Lorenzo Rodríguez

Santésima Trinidad, Holy Trinity Church sits a few blocks east of the Cathedral. The current church was completed in the 1750s, replacing an earlier church built at the beginning of the 1600s. It was likely also designed by Lorenzo Rodríguez.

Inside Baroque Temples: Roman Empire with Elaborate Decoration

Crossing the thesholds of a Baroque church is to enter a world that has its roots in the Roman Empire, and the grandeur of its basilicas. The Roman basilica was originally a public building where rulers held court, but the basilica also served other official and public functions. To a large extent, these were the town halls of ancient Roman life. The basilica was centrally located in every Roman town, usually adjacent to the main forum (much as the Spanish, and then Mexican, ayuntamiento, municipal hall is). 

These buildings were rectangular and often had a central nave and two side aisles, usually with a slightly raised platform and an apse at each of the two ends, adorned with a statue perhaps of the emperor, while the entrances were from the long sides.

Churches of the Christian faith, once it became the official religion under Emperor Constantine (306-337 CE), adopted the same basic plan—thereby also appropriating a representation of the grandeur of the Roman Empire. Later, the term came to refer specifically to a large and important Roman Catholic church that has been given special ceremonial rights by the Pope. The most famous of these is, of course, St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican in Rome. Wikipedia 

In an earlier post on our pursuit to discover the origins of the spiral "Solomonic" columns that appear on Mexico City houses built in the 1920s and 30s (California Colonial: From Emperor Constantine to Mexico Via Spanish Baroque), we saw how the Baroque style of architecture, with its ornate interior, as well as exterior, decoration began with the building of the "new" St. Peter´s Basilica in the 17th century.

Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City

In Mexico City, the preeminent basilica and prime example of Baroque religious architecture and art is the Metropolitan Cathedral. So it is that threshold we cross to encounter the Baroque up close. (Wikipedia has an excellent extensive article on the history and components of the Cathedral.)

Baroque "Solomonic" columns above one of the side entrances to
the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Side aisle of Metropolitan Cathedral
Classic Roman basilica design

The Cathedral is designed according to the Roman framework of a rectangle divided into a central aisle and two side aisles. It is within this classic framework that a grand, exuberant and dramatic Baroque elaboration has been carried out.

Entering the Cathedral, we are greeted by the Altar of Forgiveness.

Altar of Forgiveness
Designed by Spanish architect Jerónimo Balbás
early 18th century,
Damaged by a fire in 1967 and restored.

Golden Sun, 
symbol of the Glory or Resplendence
of the Divine (Shining) Presence

atop the Altar of Forgiveness

Along each side aisle of the Cathedral are seven ornate Baroque chapels. Most are cordoned off by floor to ceiling wooden grills and open only for specific occasions. This also makes them difficult to photograph (which is also formally prohibited).

At the far north end, the apse of the sancturary, is the Altar of the Kings, so-named because statues of saintly royalty are placed on its walls. Because of its size and depth, it is known as the "Golden Cave".

Altar of the Kings
work of Jerónimo Balbás, begun in 1718,
carved in cedar;
guilding by Francico Martínez, finished in 1737.

                        

                        

Hermenegild, a Visigoth king and martyr, Holy Roman Emperor Henry II,  

Edward the Confessor and Casimir of Poland

As we said in the introduction, we tend to feel overwhelmed by Baroque ornateness, put off rather than experiencing anything close to ecstasy or awe. But in coming upon the four Saintly Kings, we have a different experience. Up close, they are very human figures. Their faces are kind, even sad. We feel we would like to get to know them better.

The Appeal Rests in the Details

So we seek out more details:

Figure holding up the choir screen

Saint and cherub
atop Altar of Forgiveness

Angel
atop Altar of Forgiveness

A worried St. Peter
on door of El Sagrario

The Lord Jehovah,
(in the style of Zeus or Jupiter,
both meaning "of the sky")
on door of El Sagrario

Puritan, Humanist Ecstasy and Awe

We remain a "Puritan Protestant", and even more so, a humanist of the Enlightenment, so the grandeur, lavishness and drama of Baroque art continue to be not to our taste. For us, the Divine splendor resides in each creature of the Creation. And so we do feel something of ecstasy and awe when we encounter these saintly figures. They are dramatic, yet simple, direct, human. Vulnerable. And the cherubs have the delightfulness and, of course, the vulnerability of early childhood.

Old saints, bearded gods and charming infants—the two ends of the human life cycle—to represent closeness to the Holy, an ecstatic encounter with the Divine. It may seem to be a curious combination, but we'll revere our meeting.

See also:

• Grandeza Mexicana: Grandeur of Mexico City
• The Zócalo, Symbolic Heart of Mexico City and Mexico
• Centro: Making a Living Amidst Faded Grandeur
• The Spiritual Conquest: The Franciscans - Where It All Began
• The Grandeza of Porfirio Díaz
• Monument to the Revolution: Heroes and Enemies Together in Death
• Mexican Muralists - Part I: Bellas Artes
• Mexican Muralist at the National Autonomous University
• Mexican Muralists: David Siqueiros Cultural Polyforum
• California Colonial: From Emperor Constantine to Mexico via Spanish Baroque                      

Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Sebastian Atzacoalco—Martyrs, Death, Community and Hope

We come to the last of the four original indigenous quarters of the Indian Republic of San Juan Tenochtitlan established by the Spanish, San Sebastián Atazacoalco, in the northeast corner of Centro.

In the 16th century, San Juan Moyotla was the most densely populated and so was made the ayuntamiento, government headquarters. San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan was the largest in territory and strategically important as the southern gateway. Santa Maria Cuepopan was the site of significant battles between the Mexica and their neighbors and with the Spanish.

San Sebastián Atzacoalco was the smallest. It is also, perhaps, the least remembered, as it apparently retains the fewest significant landmarks from the period of the transformation of Tenochtitlan into Mexico City. The former Spanish parcialidad is now part of Centro North and Centro East.

Four Ancient Barrios of Tenochtitlan
Located on Map of Present-day Mexico City

Small Black Square: Templo Mayor

San Sebastián is upper right.

Boundaries are:
North: North Axis 1 (Granaditas/Jardineros)
West: Argentina/Jesús Carranza Street
East: Axis 1 East or Congreso de la Unión
South: Corregidora 

San Sebastián: Venerating Martyrs 

Using the original churches, plazas and markets as reference points for orienting our search, we head first for the Church of San Sebastián Martir Atzacoalco, about five blocks northeast of the Zócalo.

 

Church of San Sebastián Martir Atzacoalco

A simple building of tezontle, red volcanic stone, much like Santa María la Redonda in Cuepopan, the orginal church was built by the Franciscans under the direction of Fray Pedro de Gante, Friar Peter of Ghent in the early 16th century. In 1568, when pressures from other religious orders led the Pope to reassign some of the original four parcialdades, San Sebastián was given to the Carmelites. About forty years later, it was transferred to the Augustinians. Like other churches managed by the orders, in the 1770s, it was taken under the control of the Archbishop of Mexico City who assigned "secular", i.e., diocesan clergy.

Plaza in front of San Sebastián Martir 

The church faces a plaza surrounded by colorfully painted Colonial era buildings and full of trees, neatly trimmed boxwood hedges (adopted from the Moorish gardens of Spain), benches and a bit too much refuse.

Inside, the church retains the simplicity of other early Franciscan churches.

Simple interior

Why Martyrs?

We wonder about the Franciscan choice of San Sebastián as the patron saint for this church and this parcialidad. The choices for the other three sectors seem obvious: St. John the Baptist, St. Paul, the Virgin Mary. But why St. Sebastian, one of hundreds of other possible saints? We recall that three old churches in or near Coyoacán, where we live, are dedicated to this saint. 

San Sebastián Martir

Saint Sebastián (died c. 288) was an early Christian saint and martyr. According to Christian belief, he was killed during the Roman Emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians. He is commonly depicted in art and literature tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows. Despite this being the most common artistic depiction of Sebastian, he was, according to legend, rescued and healed by Irene of Rome. Shortly afterward, he publicly confronted Diocletian to warn him about his sins and, as a result, was clubbed to death. Wikipedia

Crucified Christ

Above the altar hangs a cross with the crucified Christ, the martyr on whom the Christian faith is founded. Other images of suffering or dead martrys populate the sanctuary, as they do in virtually every Catholic Church in Mexico.

Christ enterrado, interred, buried

We have to admit upfront that, having been raised as a Protestant with Puritan roots, we find it very hard to relate to these images of suffering and dead martyrs. Our childhhood church had a cross behind the Communion Table. It was empty, a rather abstract symbol of the death of Jesus. But the focus was always on the living Christ and how we should imitate him in our lives.

In Catholicism and in Mexico, it is different. The Mexican worldview is a dramatic one, full of protagonists and antagonists, heroes and villains, the forces of good versus the forces of evil, entangled in a lucha, a struggle for victory one over the other. An archetypical expression of this drama is its Catholic faith, with its martyrs.

Symbols of Death in Mexico

Chilean-born, Mexican-educated anthropologist and naturalized Mexican citizen, Claudio Lomnitz, maintains that a particular view and representation of death is a central “totem,” or symbol, that holds Mexican identity together. In his book, Death and the Idea of Mexico, he reviews the long history of Mexican representations and beliefs about death as central to how life is to be understood and lived.

While in life, the world may be divided between los de arriba and los de abajo, those above versus those below, the wealthy versus the working class and poor, when Death arrives, she makes all humans equals. Death, or at least the images of death—the calaveras (skulls) and Catrinas (skeletal figures dressed as elegant ladies or other characters)—is played with sardonically. Life is a Dance with Death, which she leads and brings to an end.

Catrina, Lady Death, and calaveras, skulls
Day of the Dead celebration,
Coyoacán

As Lomnitz points out, this focus on death goes back to prehispanic indigenous cultures. Aztec culture was centered on waging wars of conquests and taking captives for sacrifice to its gods in order to maintain their favor.

In the Mesoamerican creation myths, the world we humans inhabit had been brought into existence by means of the sacrificial death of a god. Hence, sacrificial deaths of humans were necessary to keep the world going on. Blood fed the sun so that it had the energy to rise each new day from the world of darkness and travel across the sky, lighting and warming the human world. Dying as a warrior in battle or by sacrifice to the gods was life's highest attainment.

The Aztecs' answer to the human dilemma of mortality was to embrace death. Thus, representations of death, and of the gods who required it, were central to its symbolic creations. The museum of the Templo Mayor, just a few short blocks south of San Sebastián Martir, is full of such symbols, unearthed from around and within the many-layered pyramid.

Tonatiuh, Sun God
His tongue is a sacrificial knife, 
as he required daily blood sacrifice to rise and cross the sky.

Mictlantecuhtli, God of the Underworld, Realm of the Dead

So, when the Franciscans came to Nueva España to convert the Mexica and the many other indigenous peoples of what we now refer to as Mesoamerica, their faith, centered on sacrifice, martydom, death and resurrection, was sown in a fertile field. Actual blood sacrifice was no longer allowed, but it also was unnecessary in the new belief system of the Gospel, the Good News.

Christ, the very Son of God himself, had sacrificed himself once, for all humankind. Participation in that sacrifice became symbolic, in the Mass and the consuming of the Host, the Body of Christ. And it became symbolically represented in the many images of the persecuted and crucified Christ and martyrs such as San Sebastián.

Our Lady of Solitude

So we leave San Sebastián Martir, wondering where all this suffering and death might lead. The faith says it leads to Resurrection, a new, eternal life in a Heaven beyond this world. But, we ask, how does that manifest itself in the everyday life of Catholic Mexicans here on Earth, even more specifically, here in the barrios of Mexico City?

Our next stop is a church on the east side of the Anillo, the Ringroad that marks the eastern boundary of Centro and the Delegación, Borough, of Cuauhtémoc, but which apparently wasn't quite the eastern boundary of Atzacoalco.

Church of Santa Cruz y La Virgen de Soledad
Seen from across the Anillo, the Ringroad,
a one-way avenue built in the 1950s.

La Iglesia de Santa Cruz y la Virgen de Soledad, the Church of the Holy Cross and the Virgin of Solitude, better known simply as La Soledad, is, like virtually all the other churches visited in our search, the second one built on the site. The original church was dedicated to Santa Cruz, the Holy Cross. It was under the tenure of the Augustinians from 1633 to 1750, serving indigenous residents of the southern part of Atzacoalco.

As with all the other churches of the religious orders, the Agustinians were removed in the mid-1700s and replaced by diocesan clergy. The church was then rebuilt in Neo-classical style and finished in 1787. It was dedicated to la Virgen de la Soledad, the Virgin of Solitude. Wikipedia

Church of Santa Cruz y La Soledad
A Neo-classic version of a Roman basilica.
The Virgin of Solitude stands above the center door.
Note the traditional indigenous-inspired floral arc over the doorway.

There is a plaza in front of the church, but it is mostly a paved, barren space, with some benches occupied on the day of our visit by men who seemed to have nothing else to do, a rare thing in Mexico, where every able-bodied adult engages in some form of work, even if it means selling something on the streets or washing car windshields at intersections. The buildings around the plaza seem equally devoid of usefulness.

However, in the center of the plaza there is a free-standing arch of black steel, evidently a fairly recent addition.

Door to Life

The Door to Life is a striking artistic statement. When you stand in front of it, it frames La Soledad. as if to say, "This is the Way," but the symbols on its underside imply something different. Two large rabbits seem to be leaping towards the moon, set in the night sky. In Mesoamerican mythology, the face of the full moon was seen as a rabbit. The Milky Way was the path to Heaven. So is this a case of "religious syncretism", the blending of indigenous and Christian beliefs? Or is it a message of an alternative path? There is no signage to answer our question or tell us who placed the arch in the Plaza of Solitude.

We are also struck by how crossing the Anillo from the west side to the east has brought us from one world to another, from a bustling neighborhood of working class shops and street puestos virtually identical to La Merced neighborhood just a few blocks to the south, to an apparently poorer barrio, with few open shops and few people on the streets, except for the unoccupied men on the plaza's benches.

Looking West from the Ringroad, 
along Calle Soledad toward the National Palace;
Torre Latinoamerica rises beyond the Zócalo

As we know from having lived in New York City, crossing a street can take you from one world to another, from one full of life to one barely hanging on. 

San Antonio de Padua Tomatlán: Provincial Village in the City

Our next stop is also east of the Ringroad, three short blocks north. Because of lack of time and energy, we postpone our visit to another day. When we go, it is a Sunday. Calle San Antonio Tomatlán is also virtually empty, the shops shuttered behind their solid steel gates. We wonder if they are abandoned or simply closed for the day. One shop is open, a panadería, a bread shop. We wait while the woman owner takes care of a customer before asking about the closed shops. "Oh," she replies, "they're always closed on Sunday." 

Initially, this makes sense to us. It is el domingo, the Lord's Day. but we know that just a few blocks south, most every shop is open and the streets are full of vendors hawking their wares in full voice. We wonder why the difference from one barrio to the next. Is this a more traditional one?

San Antonio de Padua Tomatlán,
faces a small plaza

San Antonio de Padua Tomatlán, St. Anthony of Padua, Tomatlán, is notably different in architectural style from both San Sebastián Atzacoalco´s almost severe stone and white plaster simplicity and La Soledad's Neo-classic grandeza, grandeur. Its facade is a simple rectangle, with a Neo-classic arch and columns framing the door. Its plastered walls are painted a soft orange, typical of Mexican colonial buildings in las provincias, the provinces, i.e., cities and towns outside Mexcio City. Two large folk-style "flowers", surrounding small windows high above, add to the povincial flavor. 

Carrying this folk aesthetic even further is the "portada", the display above the portal, the entrance. 

San Antonio de Padua,
holding el Niño Jesús, the Child Jesus

The portada portrays St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) in his most common pose, holding the Child Jesus. Anthony was originally a Portugese Augustinian monk who became a Franciscan shortly after that order was founded in 1209 by Francis of Assisi. He became known for his powerful preaching and for his compassion for the poor. He is also a saint for lost people and things. We learned later that June 13, the week following our visit, was his saint's day. Hence, the retablo.

Traditionally, such portadas created for saint's days are made of real flowers. In recent times, these are often replaced by ones made of plastic flowers, like the one we saw at nearby La Soledad. Like artificial Christmas trees, they have longevity and are far cheaper. This one is made, instead, of natural plant materials, including bark, woven palm fronds, cane and other fibers, so it is both "real" and long-lasting. We have seen similar constructions in provincial pueblos. It is artesenal, handcrafted. Much labor and much care were invested to construct it. So, all in all, the ambience is one of a village church somewhere in the hinterlands of Mexico, not the capital city with its millions.  

Inside, the sancturary is full. It is Sunday one o'clock Mass. The congregation appears to be composed of "ordinary" working class Mexicans of all ages. The structure, itself, is a mixture of simple stone Romanesque arches, the unadorned white plaster of Franciscan chapels and 18th century guilded Baroque side-altars. The retablo behind the altar is a simpler version of the natural one outside, just polished wooden strips. The overall sense is of a cross-section of the three centuries of Colonial Spanish rule, mixed with the Mexican countryside, all in a contemporary inner-city barrio.

The Church of San Antonio Tomatlán is of indefinite age. The indigenous "apellido", last name, indicates its origins serving an indigenous barrio. One source we found lists it among the original churches built by the Franciscans in the 16th century. Another source said there is no record of it until two hudred years later, in the 18th century. The Baroque side altars and the Neoclassic entrance speak of 18th century modifications to its otherwise simple aesthetic. We also learn that the plaster surface of the exterior is a recent restoration. Previously, the facade was bare tezontle stone, like San Sebastián Martir.

Mi Pueblo: Family and Community, Life and Hope

In any case, the parish of San Antonio Tomatlán appears to be alive and well. Many Catholic church Masses are not heavily attended. A 2013 survey found that 85% of Mexicans identify as Catholics but half said they attend Mass less than once a month. Forty percent have not gone to Confession in five years. Only 28% are of the opinion that the teachings of the Church should be believed word for word. Just 15% say their family life involves a high level of religious commitment. A majority say family is most important. All of this, except perhaps the commitment to family, sounds like global post-modern culture.

Whatever may be the percentage of residents of the barrio of Tomatlán attending Mass at San Antonio, at least a fair number still participate in the rituals of the Church, whether out of religious belief or, as implied in the statistics, primarily to maintain a family and community cultural tradition.

Mexicans are a culture traditionally based in extended family and commuity relationships. Mi pueblo, means both "my village" and "my people". In cities, barrios, small neighborhoods such as Tomatlán, are the equivalent of mi pueblo. As we have learned in our research of the four parcialidades of the Indian Republic of San Juan Tenochtitlan, they were continuations of the Mexica campan, quadrants or quarters, with their subdivisions into calpultin, barrios, composed of clans, i.e., extended family groups.

We recall how a Purépecha artisan we came to know in the pueblo of Tócuaro on Lake Pátzcuaro, when graciously hosting us in her home for the village patron saint fiesta, told us that the pueblo was divided into four quarters and how those living in her quarter were familiares, relatives. Our Spanish teacher in Pátzucaro, a small city of about 50,000, walking through the plaza where her family ran a puesto in the mercado, would point out all her "tias y primos", aunts and cousins (including what we would call second and third cousins, if we were ever to keep track of them the way our grandparents did). She also commented that she never felt alone; she always had her family and the patron saint of her birthday with her. She and her family are Catholic, but don't go to Mass.

So Mexicans "belong" to their family and community before all else. While that family culture may be less and less overtly Catholic, it is still implicitly so. Community life, at least in small pueblos and towns, is pervaded with Catholic religious imagery and rituals. San Antonio Tomatlán gives us a glimpse that this is also true in the original barrios of Mexico City.

It is in these barrios populares that "el pueblo", the ordinary, working class people, live. And it is through continuation of the Catholic rituals established in each one of them by the friars some five hundred years ago that they maintain a continuity in their sense of ethnic identity. While the Spanish Conquest attacked them physically and overthrew them politically, the "Spiritual Conquest" provided a way to survive as a people psychologically and culturally.

Begun by the Franciscans here, in the barrios of San Juan Tenochtitlan, that second conquest removed temples, priests, images of gods and the rituals attached to them, but it also provided replacements for each of those components of religion and culture. Thus, while transforming communal and, within that, individual identity, it also made possible the continuation of both, and of the intimate bonds between them.

Fiesta in Pueblo Candelaria, Coyoacán
Virgen de Candelaria, with additional saints
We will get there in the near future.

The identity of each barrio and its pobladores, residents, like all human identities, consists of two complementary dimensions. On one side, there is an individual distinctiveness marked in each barrio, now a parish, by its patron saint and his or her annual fiesta. On the other side, there are bonds with the larger culture through a common system of meaning embodied in shared symbols and rituals.

With that identity, the members of el barrio, el pueblo, can go on living their "ordinary" lives, with all the struggles entailed. They can go on living, nurtured by their communal experience and, therefore, by the hope that, while their individual fate is always the same—Death will come and take them away—their family and communal life will go on.

It is these barrios, these pueblos originarios, and their individual and shared identities, that we will continue to explore.

Series on Mexico City's Original Indigenous Villages:

• Landmarks of the Spiritual Conquest
• Tepeyac and the Virgin of Guadalupe
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters - Introduction
• The Franciscans - Where It All Began
• Centro's Four Original Indigenous Quarters: San Juan Moyotla
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan, Part I - Crossroads 
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan Part II - Southern Gateway
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: San Pablo Teopan-Zoquipan - Part III, La Merced
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters: Santa María Cuepopan - Battleground and Sacred Ground