Sanctuaries of Earth, Stone, and Light: The Churches of Northern New Spain, 1530–1821 (review)

A photograph on page 284 of Gloria Fraser Giffords’s most recent work on art and architecture in colonial Mexico shows the author holding up the skirts of a sculpture of La Mater Dolorosa in order to demonstrate how it was constructed. The photo shares a purpose with the book as a whole: to illustrate exactly what it is we are seeing when we look at the churches of northern New Spain.

Churches, in this case, include the buildings themselves as well as their contents, from holy images to the garments priests wore. Sanctuaries of Earth, Stone, and Light examines scores of these places over its 461 image-filled glossy pages; a “select list” (pp 399–403) includes approximately 150 that are discussed in the book. These churches were all built prior to Independence across a wide and varied “frontier” territory that included all of the viceroyalty of New Spain north of a line running through the modern Mexican states of Nayarit, Durango, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas.

This book is not, however, about individual churches nor their particular situations. Instead, Giffords focuses on specific features of these churches—such as their layouts, furnishings, and decorations—and individual churches provide examples of these features. For instance, she breaks down the layouts of church buildings into several types, including rectangular, cross-shaped, and disguised aisles. She then explains the characteristics of each type and references multiple churches in order to demonstrate the range of forms that existed within it.

She has organized the book accordingly, by subject rather than geography or chronology. Following an introductory chapter, twelve chapters cover the topics of: style; building plans; builders, materials, and techniques; church buildings; details and motifs; furnishings; liturgical linens and objects; religious hierarchy and order, ecclesiastical vestments; religious images and retablos; symbols and attributes; and sacred iconography.

Giffords’s approach relies heavily upon categories borrowed from European artistic traditions and Catholic doctrine but, the author hopes, still allows a place for local conditions and actors. As she puts it, she wants to show how these churches fit into “a larger network and were built to the explicit requirements of the Catholic Church and the architectural and decorative precepts of a specific time and place (p ix).” Giffords certainly acknowledges a wide range of influences, calling northern New Spain “a microcosm of architectural styles and material culture affected by five continents (p5).” Ultimately, the book has more to say about influences that might be labeled Catholic or European. For example, she notes that some facets of churches were more likely to display Native influences than others. “‘Native’ styles,” she writes in the introduction, “are most often to be seen in the auxiliary painting or carving in missionary churches, especially in decorative motifs portraying native plants and animals (p 12).” Yet, in the chapter where she discusses these areas, she finds a “surprising dearth of indigenous human and animal motifs in church painting and sculpture of northern New Spain (p 194).”

The author succeeds in her stated goal to offer “a thoughtful, wide-ranging introduction to the churches of northern New Spain (p ix).” Sanctuaries provides an excellent starting point for a broad spectrum of information on churches, such as what was included on an altar, the advantages of particular building techniques, and which objects were used in churches themselves and which ones were taken out on processions. It thus functions nicely as a guide to churches and their components, explaining in easy to understand terms what things are (or were). I could easily imagine readers, at least those not daunted by the book’s hefty size, bringing it with them into any colonial Mexican church—not just those in the north—and understanding much more of what they were seeing.

The purpose of Sanctuaries is not to make a systematic argument to a scholarly audience. Readers should not, therefore, expect to find churches analyzed within wider contexts of the colonial frontier...