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11: Art and Science in the Period of Independence
- University Press of Colorado
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62 Our historians have conducted nuanced investigations regarding the social and economic innovations that followed independence from Spain. But little attention has been paid to other innovations of artistic and scientific character that took place during the same period. In the Colonial period, the Mexican population of Spanish origin was similar to the people of Spain in most respects. In Mexico as in Spain, art had attained an evolutionary development that was far in advance of the scientific knowledge of the same period. A profusion of anonymous artists existed for every Hernandez or Alzate1 who made his sporadic contributions to scientific knowledge. Silently and patiently, they created that lofty and extensive work of beauty that is our colonial art. By the turn of the eighteenth century, activities that contributed to the production of the beautiful enjoyed complete supremacy over scientific research. Our colonial architecture had reached such an interesting development that even the extravagant descriptions of Humboldt do not exaggerate its beauty. Even miserable villages that were lost in the mountains or buried in the valleys, and that were home to fewer than a hundred souls, had beautiful buildings crowned by the brilliant polychromy of high tiled domes and the filigreed stone of statues and crosses. The Romanesque, the Plateresque, the Baroque, the Churrigueresque, the Mudejar, the Classical, all lofty styles that contrib11 Art and Science in the Period of Independence 1 Francisco Hernandez de Toledo (1514–1587), physician and botanist; José Antonio de Alzate y Ramirez (1737–1799), priest, naturalist, astronomer, and antiquarian .—Trans. 63 A r t a n d S c i e n c e i n t h e P e r i o d o f I n d e p e n d e n c e uted a typical unique aspect to our art. American sensibilities and historical antecedents imposed forms onto these styles that made them distinct from the European original. Besides the purely aesthetic concerns, this architecture adapted European forms to regional climatic conditions, such as high ceilings, ample corridors, spacious courtyards, floors of tile and brick, and so forth. Science,ontheotherhand,stagnatedduringtheColonialperiod.Theexaggerated Catholicism of the age and the fear of repression from the metropole smothered the lights of knowledge that would later inspire the desire for independence . Because of this, the scientific advances of Europe were unknown in America. To see this, one must simply glance at the bibliography of sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century Mexico. The vast majority of these works represent theology, literary writing, and history, with almost nothing written that was truly scientific in character. When independence was achieved, a curious phenomenon took place. The emancipation of the country produced a general artistic stagnation and paralyzed certain manifestations of colonial art. At the same time, scientific knowledge was greatly disseminated. What were the works of art produced in Mexico during the nineteenth century? Did artworks reflect aesthetic tendencies that represented the mentality and way of life of the population, as was the case with colonial art? Although some of our typical art forms continued to be produced after independence, others changed in character and no longer demonstrated the cultural fusion that is necessary for the creation of a truly national tradition in Mexico. Architecture, for example, gradually lost its colonial stamp. European- and North American–style buildings supplanted the beautiful and more appropriate constructions of past centuries. Exotic styles were copied in a servile manner; styles of constructions more adequate for other climates were imposed on our soil. As a result, the Mexican architecture of the nineteenth century lacks a typical character or style. Its hybridism is so pronounced that it has never earned a denomination that would distinguish it from the periods that came before or those that are yet to come. This deplorable architectural cosmopolitanism has become even worse in the first decades of the twentieth century. In the newer neighborhoods, one finds ten exotic buildings of detestably bad taste for every one that is truly beautiful and adequate for our climate. Ridiculous xenophiles say that when they travel down the paved streets of those aristocratic places, they are reminded of identical corners in European and North American cities. This is a false assertion, as the heterogeneous collection of poorly copied and interpreted buildings in modern Mexico cannot be compared, either in style or in disposition, to those cities. In [3.90.33.254] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:00 GMT) 64 A r t a n d S c...