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The Mexico City Cathedral is a striking example of the Baroque Era’s global influence, combining dramatic European architecture with a new setting and culture. Not only does its revolutionary, imposing design demonstrate the dominance of the Catholic Church during the 16th-19th centuries, but was also a key mechanism for social and political conversion. Through the cathedral, we can examine the relationship between Spain and Mexico and better understand how Europeans transformed the landscape. The Spanish converted the Americas through the Institute of religion, using physical spaces to standardize and cement the process. Thus, the Mexico City Cathedral is a key example of such monumental efforts. Through its imposing nature, intricate Baroque imagery, and crucial social role, the building was used to spread Spanish imperial influence and solidify Catholicism as the new central religion and way of life.
Fueled by wealth from new trade routes and strong association with the Catholic Church, Spanish imperialists sailed to Mexico in 1519 and arrived in Veracruz. Using both military power and religious conversion, they quickly migrated inland. In 1521, after months of fighting, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan fell to Spanish forces, and the landscape was permanently transformed. In its ruins, Spain established Mexico City as the center of its viceroyalty in Mexico. To institutionalize their practices and culture, friars from Europe established Christian missions across the country. With these projects, a host of local churches and communities were constructed, as they allowed missionaries a physical place to convert indigenous peoples. Throughout the next few centuries, almost 70,000 religious structures were built, using architecture as a means of social change (Kelemen 3). Such efforts permanently altered the Mexican territory and allowed the Spanish immense control. Art historian Gauvin Bailey emphasizes this, arguing that “The intense wave of mission building that transformed Latin America in the decades after the conquest may have been the greatest architectural endeavor in history” (208). Thus, the built environment played a key role in advancing Spain’s efforts in the Americas.
During the mission construction process, Spanish builders utilized indigenous labor to physically spread Christianity. European architects were in constant dialogue with locals and founded schools to teach them art techniques that mimicked Spanish trends. However, these early missionary churches did not resemble their European Baroque counterparts which flaunted eloquence and dramaticism. Most structures were barn-like and unassuming, even “solid, sober, and dogmatic” (Sitwell 67). They were constructed to be easily accessible for indigenous populations to interact with and combined the new religion with previous customs. This way, architecture was not immediately imposing and blended Christianity and Aztec traditions. These buildings were established as community centers, bringing the Church into everyday Mexican life. Hence, parish churches became a mechanism through which Spanish imperialists forced indigenous conversion.
As Spanish inhabitants in Mexico grew wealthy from new silver and gold mines, they began demonstrating their riches through the built environment. On behalf of the Church, they constructed intricate Cathedrals, bridging Baroque designs with local materials and practices to stretch the expectations of the form. Through these impressive structures, there was a constant interplay between the Spanish autocracy and its colonized peoples. Architects combined European Christian imagery within a new landscape to standardize the religion and demonstrate the wealth and power of the Catholic Church. Thus, the Mexico City Cathedral was born in the capital of New Spain. Throughout its 200-year construction, it became a center of dialogue between natives and colonizers, representing both this intricate relationship as well as the forceful grip of the Catholic Church.
At its very base, the structure demonstrates the imposition of Christianity over the Aztec religion. The cathedral is sited on the ruins of the Templo Mayor: the city’s most important indigenous ritual monument. After the capture of Tenochtitlan in 1521, Hernán Cortés demolished the Templo Mayor and removed all items of wealth. The Mexico City Cathedral was then built on the remaining platform. Interestingly, the layout of the platform and the surrounding grid plan of the city prevented the construction of an eastward-facing cathedral, like traditional European churches. So, instead of the original temple’s orientation that aligned with an astronomical calendar, the new structure had a formidable south-facing facade. By placing the cathedral at the center of Aztec life and religion, Spanish religious orders forcefully reshaped indigenous society and terminated indigenous customs. Moreover, this social remodeling continued throughout the building’s design.
While it was constructed between the 16th and 19th centuries and boasts multiple styles, the cathedral’s physical presence is primarily a cacophony of Baroque imagery mixed with indigenous materials and practices. These elements allowed it to function as an anchoring point, reminding Mexicans of the institution of new Spanish power. By blending local customs with European themes, the building adapts itself to a new landscape and cements itself as a demonstration of Catholic power in the Americas. This transformation was accomplished in multiple ways. First, the majority of the cathedral was built low to the ground with a wide, expansive profile that would help it survive earthquakes. While Baroque monuments in Europe emphasized verticality and visual splendor, the Mexico City Cathedral’s stout plan allowed it to survive much longer as it was built with a much more practical lens. Not only were Spanish imperialists attempting to demonstrate the Baroque’s artistic trends, but they also ensured that their new buildings would stand the test of time. Therefore, they adapted structures to their new environment.
While architects were forced to simplify the Mexico City Cathedral’s plan, they accounted for this through the building’s deeply intricate facade and attached tabernacle. Using Baroque themes and extensive religious imagery to convey their message, the cathedral’s Southern face “recounts the entire history of Latin American colonial architecture in a single building” (Bailey 267). This statement is demonstrated through the combination of effective detailing and strategic use of local materials. Its focal point, the facade, is divided into three main sections flanked by intricate bell towers on both sides. In the center lies the main portal which contains a host of religious iconography including statues of Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Saint Andrew, as well a relief of the Virgin Mary above the doorway. Applying indigenous techniques to a new form, most of the facade is made of local dark-red Tezontle rock and light Chiluca stone. Not only did these lightweight materials allow sculptures to create complex designs, but when used together, they also created a stark contrast of light and dark: a hallmark trend of the Baroque.
European artistic trends are further illuminated on the Cathedral’s side portals. Most notable is the addition of two corkscrew columns on each side, reminiscent of Bernini’s famous homage to the Temple of Solomon in St. Peter’s Basilica. Lorenzo Rodriguez’s 18th-century edition of the Sagrario Metropolitano on the left side of the facade also reflects Baroque dramaticism and outside-the-box design. The space, which houses the baptistry, contains rows and columns of interlocking niches adorned with carvings of cherubs, fruits, and flowers. Its “contorting moldings and cornices reach toward the heavens” in true Baroque fashion and starkly remind patrons of the power and influence of the Church (Oles 101). Through the cathedral’s strong emphasis on splendor and emotion, the Spanish viceroyalty applied the Baroque on a global landscape. Since the artistic movement is so strongly associated with the growing wealth and influence of Catholicism, the religion further establishes itself in the Americas through architecture
The cathedral’s interior also echoes these efforts, especially in its two main altars. These areas allowed Baroque practices to be applied on a grand scale and further associate the movement with wealth and influence. Located in the cathedral’s center, the Altar of Forgiveness was designed by Jerónimo de Balbás in 1735. Adorned with gold leaf and decorated with inverted columns, the altar demonstrates a shift from tradition. It reapplies classical elements in new ways, highlighting an era of artistic reimagination and expressionism. Complete with a host of religious sculptures and a painting of the Virgin Mary, the Altar of Forgiveness combines Christianity with visual innovation, making it a highly impressive marker of Spain’s imperial power. Such sentiment is pushed even further in the Altar of the Kings at the Cathedral’s far end: a true demonstration of colonial wealth through indigenous exploitation. Another example of Balbás’ gilded dramaticism, the high altar stands at eighty feet tall and contains a plethora of religious iconography, Baroque era experimentation, and high levels of material contrast. It distorts traditional forms, turns columns upside down, and becomes a living monument through its emphasis on sculptural movement. The altar forcefully homogenizes Christianity with extravaganza and splendor and is impossible to ignore when inside the cathedral.
These altars, along with the cathedral’s highly intricate exterior details and physical setting, allowed Spanish royalty to exert power and influence across the ocean and demonstrate its imposition on the landscape. Through the Baroque, artists and architects experimented in the Americas using new techniques and materials. They blended Christian imagery and customs with indigenous practices to forcefully convert the native population and impose the Church as the new center of power. Here, architecture acts as a political and social mechanism through which sweeping change occurred. Without the ability to transform the built environment, the Spanish would probably not have been so successful in overpowering such a large population.
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Works Cited
Bailey, Gauvin. Art of Colonial Latin America. Phaidon Press, 2005.
Bebee, Sam. Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral. 8 January 2009. Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mexico_City_Metropolitan_Cathedral_-_panoramio.jpg.
Belso, Diego. Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City, México. 16 October 2013. Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Catedral_Metropolitana,_México_D.F.,_México,_2013-10-16,_DD_93.JPG.
Kelemen, Pál. Baroque and Rococo in Latin America. Dover Publications, Inc., 1967.
Leibsohn, Dana, and Barbara E. Mundy, Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820.
http://fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.
Maya, Octavio Alonso. El Sagrario Metropolitano. 15 September 2012. Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Sagrario_Metropolitano_-_panoramio.jpg.
Norberg, Christain-Norbe. Baroque Architecture. Harry N. Abrams, 2003.
Oles, James. Art and Architecture in Mexico. WW Norton, 2013.
Sitwell, Sacheverell. Spanish Baroque Art. Duckworth, 1931.
Šprajc, I. (2000). Astronomical Alignments at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan, Mexico. Journal for the History of Astronomy, 31(25), S10–S40. https://doi.org/10.1177/002182860003102502
Zamora, Lois Parkinson. “New World Baroque, Neobaroque, Brut Barroco: Latin American Postcolonialisms.” PMLA, vol. 124, no. 1, 2009, pp. 127–42. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25614252.