SALINAS "In the Midst of a Loneliness": The Architectural History of the Salinas Missions

MISSION FURNISHINGS

Preceding chapters have narrated how each of the three missions of the Salinas pueblos were built. The descriptions ended with the completion of the principal construction of each mission complex. Each church and convento was left, in effect, with the walls plastered but before the furniture was moved into the buildings. From that point, little specific information is available about any of the missions. The decoration and furnishings of the churches and conventos may only be described in general, except for a few details associated with each mission.

The Church

Retablos

Seventeenth century New Mexico was a part of the life of Mexico. The design of the churches are more powerful, more optimistic than those of the eighteenth centuries. The evidence indicates that the retablos in New Mexico were typical of seventeenth century Mexico rather than of some local tradition. In fact, the retablos were made in Mexico and shipped to New Mexico.

Archeological work has shown that the missionary would have a retablo design painted onto the plastered walls above the altars, but this was undoubtedly a temporary measure. [21] The Franciscan designers of the churches seem to have had large, ornate wooden retablos in mind when they built the places, and arranged for them in the construction.

As an example, in the apse at Quarai there were beams set into the walls whose only apparent purpose was to be the mounting points for a retablo. The beams were twenty-seven feet above the present floor level of the nave, and perhaps 24 1/2 feet above the predella, the platform on which the main altar stood. At seven feet above the present floor, or about four feet above the predella, the construction crew set two sections of wood into the north wall of the apse, probably as base supports for the retablo. If the Franciscan at Quarai ordered a retablo to be made for the church, it would appear that he would have asked for a retablo about twenty or twenty-one feet high. The altar platform probably had a sotobanco, a narrow, waist-high platform of adobe, stone, or wood behind the altar on which the retablo rested. The excavations of governor Marín in the 1750s, and later treasure-hunter work, would have destroyed the sotobancos along with the rest of the structural details of the altar. At Quarai, there were no mounting beams inset above the side altars, so any retablos here must have been somewhat lower.

Sotobancos have been found in some other seventeenth-century mission churches in New Mexico. Awatovi and Giusewa had sotobancos of adobe and stone, for example, but Hawikuh did not. [22] The smaller, temporary churches such as San Isidro at Las Humanas, San Miguel in Santa Fe, the Lost Church at Pecos, or San Diego at Tabirá, also lacked sotobancos. All of these churches, however, may have had sotobancos of wood. In the area of the main altar at Abó, treasure hunters may have destroyed any evidence of adobe sotobancos. No indication of the altar layout was found in San Gregorio I at Abó.

The plan of the head of the church may indicate the design of the retablo planned for. An apse with angled sides might have been designed for a three-part retablo covering the entire interior of the apse, while a parallel-sided apse may have been designed for a single-panel retablo only on the end wall of the apse. A church with a half-octagon head may have had only one retablo above the main altar, or three retablos, one over the main altar in the center panel of the apse and one over each side altar on the side panels of the apse. However, the designs only indicate what the missionary hoped for, not the retablo actually installed.

The peculiar little group of records in Biblioteca Nacional de Mexico, legajo 1, document 34, partially translated by France Scholes and Eleanor Adams, allows the reconstruction of a typical retablo. The descriptions demonstrate that the typical seventeenth-century retablo seen in churches in Mexico was also common in New Mexico. At Acoma, for example, there were three retablos, one behind the main altar and one behind each of the two side altars. The central retablo had three cuerpos, or levels. It was gilded and decorated with images in the form of statues and paintings "from the hand of the best artists of Mexico." The two side altars were similar. All three had statues of principal saints in the center of each. Equally common in New Mexico were retablos decorated only with paintings rather than statues. The retablo of Socorro was one of these. [23]

On the main altar itself, the major item of furnishing was the tabernacle, a veiled case that stood in the center of the altar table. This could be quite large: in 1624 one was shipped to New Mexico that measured 6 3/4 feet high by 4 3/4 feet wide. It was octagonal and made of elaborately carved and gilded wood and decorated with oil paintings. The paintings on the retablo and hanging elsewhere in the church could also be large. The shipping records, for example, list a set of five oil paintings sent to the missions in 1624, each of which was seven feet high and 5 1/2 feet wide, with a gilded and ornamented frame. Hanging over the main altar at Socorro in 1672 was a painting of Nuestra Señora del Socorro over eleven feet across. [24]

The retablos and other carved and painted items sent to New Mexico were made by artisans in New Spain, principally Mexico City. This is explicitly stated in the descriptions of some New Mexico altars in 1672, and substantiated by evidence in the shipping records. In 1612, for example, the shipment contained two tabernacles that cost 250 pesos each, made by the entallador y ensamblador, the woodcarver and joiner, Andres Pablo of Mexico City. The same shipment contained carved and gilded crosses, carved and painted figures of Christ, and twelve pairs of ciriales, or carved and gilded candle holders on long staffs, all made by the pintor Martín Borru, and eight oil paintings in gilded frames by Francisco Franco. In 1614 the missions were shipped a large oil painting in a gilded frame, painted by Manuel de Chaves on the order of the viceroy, featuring both San Antonio de Padua and San Diego. Taking all the information into account about the level of expertise that produced the woodwork and the individual items described, the retablos probably looked something like those at Cuautinchan, Puebla or Tezcoco, made in the early 1600s and still surviving. [25]

Although no seventeenth century retablos have survived in New Mexico, what appears to be fragments of on have been found by archeology. In the convento of Abó, Toulouse found several fragments of carved wood painted in white enamel with gilt and green trim, and a large number of cut pieces of mica cemented by means of plaster-of-paris to oddly-shaped pieces of gypsum. These are probably the broken and decayed remains of the retablo of Abó. [26]

Beyond the hints in the descriptions of some New Mexico churches and in the physical remains of the churches themselves, the shipping records offer more evidence about the size and construction of retablos, as well as the method used to get them to the province.

Shipping from Mexico City to New Mexico

The tabernacles, crosses, paintings, statues, silver items, vestments, and retablos were packed in Mexico City, loaded on the wagons, and hauled to New Mexico. For example, in 1626 the shipping records list the charges for the packing cases for a retablo being sent from Mexico City to some unnamed mission church in New Mexico. The retablo itself is not mentioned in the listings, implying that it may have been paid for by the mission receiving it (or by donation from private persons). [27]

The packing cases listed are:

1. A box for el banco del retablo, the base of the retablo, 6 feet by 5 1/2 feet by 1 3/4 feet (using a vara of about 2.8 feet).
2. Box for la cornixa, the cornice of the retablo, also about 6 feet by 5 1/2 feet by 1 3/4 feet.
3. Box for las pilastras y guardapolvo del retablo, the pilasters and canopy, 6 3/4 feet by 1 1/3 feet (depth unstated). [28]
4. Box for el segundo cuerpo del retablo armado, the second level of the retablo, stacked, 2 1/2 feet on a side. [29]
5. Box for las dos colunas redondas, the two lathe-turned columns, 5 1/2 feet by 1 3/4 feet (depth unstated).

In addition to the retablo itself, there was the following:

6. Box for an image of the Virgin, 3 1/3 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 1 3/4 feet deep.
7. Box for the caja in which the Virgin is kept, 6 feet long, 3 1/2 feet wide, and 2 feet deep.
8. Box for the pedestal for the Virgin, 2 feet on a side. [30]

The information about the boxing of this retablo does not allow a reconstruction of the actual size of the retablo itself. However, it implies that the retablo was composed of sections of about 4 feet by 5 feet, that it had at least 2 cuerpos, or levels, that the recuadros, or painted panels, were about 2 feet square, and that it had a large caja, or niche, about 5 feet by just under 3 feet by about 1 1/2 feet deep for an image of the Virgin. The caja rested on a pedestal about 1 1/2 feet across and 1 1/2 feet high. Obviously this was a "prefabricated" retablo, probably made to fit a particular space, with the pieces pre-assembled into components, packed, and sent to New Mexico where a local artisan or the missionary himself carried out the final assembly. [31]

Once the missionary had his retablos set up behind the altars, the church was complete. From that time on, the activities within the church settled into a familiar routine of masses and celebrations that repeated from year to year.

The Cycle of the Year and Light in the Church

Because of the careful orientation and construction of the clerestory windows of Abó and Quarai, sunlight shining through these windows followed an interesting cycle through a year. At both missions, the maximum amount of sunlight entered the church through the clerestory at noon on the winter solstice, December 22.

At Abó on this day and time, the sunlight entered the clerestory window at an angle of 32 degrees, and illuminated an area about 25 1/2 feet across and 9 feet wide on the predella in front of the altar. On Christmas Day, December 25, the angle of sunlight would have been almost the same, making Mass at noon on Christmas Day the most brightly lit of all the major celebrations. As the yearly cycle continued and the angle of the noon sun rose, the sunlight entering the clerestory at noon decreased. At noon on the spring equinox on March 22, very near Easter, the angle was 55_30'. It illuminated an area of the nave floor 25 1/2 feet across and 3 feet wide at the north edge of the side chapels.

As the date approached Mid-summer's Day, June 22, the sunlit area became smaller and smaller, and the time during which the light entered the church shorter and shorter. On about June 1 a very thin line of light would appear briefly at local noon, extending from side to side of the nave about 6 1/2 feet north of the south edge of the side chapels. For the next six weeks no direct light would enter the clerestory window.

On about July 13 the first brief line of sunlight would appear at the point where it was last seen, 6 1/2 feet north of the south edge of the side chapels. Each day at noon the band of light would be a little wider, appearing further north up the nave, until in the Christmas season it again reached its maximum.

Because of the different shape of its clerestory window, the cycle at Quarai would have been different. The light through the clerestory first appeared at noon on about September 19 as a thin line 27 1/2 feet across and 2 3/4 feet south of the lowest step of the main altar stairs near the edge of the stair platform. At noon on the equinox, September 22, the sunlight made a line about 2 inches wide at the edge of the lowest step. The band of sunlight grew higher each day until the Christmas season, when at noon on Christmas Day it was about 2 feet wide, 27 1/2 feet across, and lit the area directly above the main altar table surface, approximately where the Tabernacle would be placed. During noon Mass on this day, the raising of the Host in its monstrance above the priest's head would have thrust the brightly gilded container directly into a brilliant beam of sunlight.