Mexico herself has developed some expert copyists but few talented artists. One of the most noted was Cabrera, a Zapotec Indian, who has been called the Rafael of Mexico. He was architect, sculptor and painter, and has done some fine work in each line. Politics has in times past absorbed too much of the time of the young men of Mexico so that the arts have been neglected.
The Escuela National de Bellas Artes, or National School of Fine Arts, in the City of Mexico is an excellent institution and is liberally supported by the government.
Charles Dudley Warner says: “It was a marvellous time of original and beautiful work that covered Mexico with churches, and set up in all the remote and almost inaccessible villages towers and domes that match the best work of Italy and recall the triumphs of Moorish art.”
No one with even the slightest love of architecture can help but be impressed with the great variety of design and grandeur of construction of the churches of Mexico. Though designed by Spanish architects and retaining the Moorish characteristics of that period, they are the work of native workmen and have received some Aztec touches. On the façades, towers and portals are designs and figures made by these workmen which are doubtless Indian legends or traditions of a prehistoric age. They resemble strongly those strange symbols of the ancient Egyptians and Persians. Some of the churches which the traveller encounters in villages consisting of low adobe huts fairly overwhelm one with their splendour. In places a great church will loom up in the horizon with scarcely a sign of human habitation near it. Only in the tropics are these great houses of worship wanting. The danger of earthquakes precluded the building of lofty structures there, and the priests of the conquering age, which was the great era of construction, rather avoided the hot lands for the cooler plateaus.
The beauty and originality in the churches is principally in the exterior. This is the reverse of the architecture in the homes, for there the outside walls are plain, and skill and ornamentation are devoted to the decoration of the patio. The interior is generally quite commonplace, and a church in one city is very much like a church in another. The ornamentation of the exterior is very elaborate and of the rococo or, as some would call it, the over-done style. However when looking upon the extreme richness of detail, one can see and appreciate the beauty and merits of the style, even if there is a certain floridness and flamboyancy present. The towers resemble the towers which are a part of the mosques in Moslem countries from which the call to prayers is made by the priests. As Mr. Warner says: “There is a touch of decay nearly everywhere, a crumbling and defacement of colours, which add somewhat of pathos to the old structures; but in nearly every one there is some unexpected fancy—a belfry oddly placed, a figure that surprises with its quaintness of its position, or a rich bit of deep stone carving; and in the humblest and plainest façade, there is a note of individual yielding to a whim of expression that is very fascinating. The architects escaped from the commonplace and the conventional; they understood proportion without regularity, and the result is not, perhaps, explainable to those who are only accustomed to our church architecture.”
CHAPTER XV
MINES AND MINING
Humboldt speaks of Mexico as the treasure house of the world. It is one of the most richly mineralized regions ever discovered, and has produced one-third of the world’s supply of the white metal. Mexico, together with Peru, furnished the wealth that enabled Spain to build up her great empire. And many a real castle in Spain was built with the gold and silver taken out of these rugged mountains of New Spain. The thirst for gold became a disease among Spanish adventurers. The mind of Columbus was distracted by the sight of natives along the coast of Honduras, who were wearing pure gold suspended around their necks by cotton cords, and he temporarily gave up his voyage of discovery to search for the source of this great wealth.
No country can compare with Mexico in the amount of silver of pure quality that has been produced. The largest lump of silver ever found, weighing two thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds, was discovered by a poor Indian in the State of Sonora. Because of a dispute as to the ownership, the crown solved the question by appropriating the entire amount. In fact the crown at first claimed two-thirds of all the precious metals mined which was afterwards reduced to one-fifth. Some authorities estimate the amount of silver that has been produced in Mexico at the enormous sum of $6,000,000,000, but two-thirds of that sum is probably in excess of the real value. The Taxco, Tzumepanco and Temezcaltepec mines date from 1539 but the greatest number of the “bonanzas” were discovered between 1550 and 1700. Many of them were located by priests, who, urged on by a fanatical zeal to convert the natives, pushed forth into unknown regions, and literally stumbled upon the rich ore-bearing quartz. The Spanish viceregal government kept an accurate account of the silver mined in their red-tape method, for the royal one-fifth was carefully and jealously looked after. Mine owners were compelled to make their reports regularly and correctly. A reference to these reports shows a record of almost untold wealth when it is remembered that this was long before the depreciation of silver.