Russell Guerrero

210-999-8406

rguerrer@trinity.edu

Trinity Art Historian to Discuss the Baroque Retablo in Mexico and the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan

Sept. 27, 2002 – Charles Talbot, the Alice P. Brown Distinguished Professor of Art History, will examine the design and function of the Mexican baroque retablo and how these qualities share certain aims and characteristics rooted in Aztec life.  His presentation, titled “The Baroque Retablo in Mexico and the Great Temple in Tenochtitlan,” will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 9,  in the Chapman Center Auditorium.  It is free and open to the public.  According to Professor Talbot, the artistic language we know as the baroque or ultra-baroque in Mexico is largely the product of the retablo, small painted religious images found inside a church.  Together with the portal of its church, the retablo transformed an otherwise architecturally conservative building into a crescendo of visual stimulation.  The Aztec temple and the rituals performed there were also designed to overwhelm the senses.  The similarities between the Aztec temple and the Catholic church might seem to end there, but in both cases the construction of these sanctuaries was dedicated to a belief in the transcendence of suffering and death.  Both relied on a language of abstract forms that we have come to admire as intellectually and emotionally profound, even beautiful.  This event is sponsored by the department of sociology and anthropology at Trinity University and the Alamo Pre-Columbian Society.

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Last updated on October 4, 2002 by the Office of Public Relations