Mexican Art [antikvár]

Mexico, of all the modern nations in the American continent, has behind her the richest continuous artistic heritage, reaching far back over a period of twenty centuries. Diverse and contrasting though the sources and phases of Mexican art may be, it has at all times a recognisable personality, and it shows this today in an especially marked degree. In Mexico we can see the truly spectacular fusion of an old and highly developed native civilisation with Renaissance and modern European culture, bearing fruit in a major contribution to world art.A survey of the long progress of Mexican art shows how many different art forms have flourished in the country, and how each period in Mexico's history has left its legacy of works of art of high originality and expressive power. This history falls into three quite distinct phases.First, the ancient Indian or pre-Columbian period which goes back to the first appearance of man in America, apparently in the Pleistocene age, and reached its apogee in the early years of the sixteenth century a. d. During the final 1500 years of this period a variety of cultures flourished, each with a distinctive character, sometimes alongside each other, and each of them must therefore be considered on its own.The Spanish conquest between 1518 and 1521 destroyed the ancient and indigenous civilisation. In its place, the conquerors established the contemporary civilisation of western Europe, in the particular form it had taken in Spain. This Spanish colonial period endured in Mexico for three centuries and created a new nation New Spain. Known also as the 'viceregal' or 'Hispano-Mexican' period, it came to an end early in the nineteenth century. With the War of Independence, ascendancy in the country passed from the class of the Spanish-born to that of the 'Creole' or Mexican-born landed aristocracy.Several decades of turbulence followed the achievement of independence, the struggle for which lasted from 181 o to 1821, ending with a short-lived First Empire under the military leader Agustín de Iturbide. In the course of the ensuing civil wars between Centralists and Federalists for the establishment of a republic, General Antonio López de Santa Ana rose to power and dominated the country with dire results for a time, during which Mexico lost a great deal of its territory. Texas revolted in 1835, and by the end of thewar with the United States in 1847 the territory of modern Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California was ceded by Mexico. Ten years later, Benito Juárez, a Zapotee Indian by blood, inspired the promulgation of the Reform laws. Juárez was president when the conservatives, falling in with the ambitions of Napoleon III of France, set up a second empire with Maximilian of Habsburg on the throne. The emperor's reign was short (1864-1867) and came to a tragic end with the victory of Juárez after France had been obliged to withdraw her troops. The republic had survived and the struggle to make a modern nation of Mexico was continued. The long dictatorship of General Porfirio Díaz from 1877 to 1911 (during all but the four years of which he held the presidency) was superficially prosperous but reactionary in its nature. It ended soon after the outbreak of the Mexican revolution in 191 o, a new Constitution in the spirit of Juárez being proclaimed in 1917. The revolution, although protracted at the political level, marked the beginning of a profound renewal in the economic, social and cultural life of Mexico. As the Mexican nation began to discover its real identity, a new and excitingly modern civilisation came into being.The cultural legacy of ancient or pre-Columbian Mexico is now recognised as one of the great treasures of the whole of mankind. The works of the ancient native world that have come down to us are remarkable for their decorative and plastic originality and for their emotive power, and now constitute one of the major fields of study for the historians of art and civilisation. Archaeologists have already brought innumerable works of art to light and their zeal holds the promise of still more discoveries. Scholars are working on the interpretation of the inscribed and written texts, and when these can be fully translated they will throw a great light on the knowledge and beliefs of the peoples of this vanished world.Although the origins of the pre-Columbian civilisations lie several millennia b.c., the works that we know, and which interest us as art, belong in fact to the Christian era. But as these cultures developed separately, in isolation from others in America and cut oíT from contacts with both Europe and the Far East, each followed a characteristic and distinct