Exploring Colonial Mexico©
Exploring Colonial Mexico©
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La Nativitas It is often in humble places that the most imaginative art and architecture can be found. This is especially true of Mexico, where buildings like La Nativitas often brighten and uplift the dingiest city barrio.
Dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin, this delightful folk baroque chapel is located in a workaday quarter on the east side of Salamanca, an industrial city in the Bajío region of Guanajuato.
The narrow facade is a study in vernacular baroque style, clearly derived from the 1740 front of San Bartolo, Salamanca's old parish church (right) - another ornate regional example of the popular Churrigueresque style.
Boldly carved estípite pilasters rise to support a serrated, rounded gable which shelters three statues couched in decorative niches.
These comprise the crowned figure of the Virgin in the center flanked by endearingly naive statues of her parents, saints Anne and Joachim.
Carved by native artisans from salmon colored cantera rosada, the entire facade is awash in decorative baroque elements including lambrequins, rosettes, shells, twisting foliage and a variety of ingenious scrollwork, all sharply sculpted in an exuberant but orderly design.
Salamanca: the old parish church (photograph © Niccoló Brooker)>
An unusual serrated stone cross* surmounts the chapel front, carved with reliefs of the face, hands and crossed feet of Christ, as well as several Instruments of the Passion.
*Recently moved to the church tower.
Cross photograph © Niccoló Brooker
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