“As an artist I have always tried to be faithful to my vision of life, and I have frequently been in conflict with those who wanted me to paint not what I saw but what they wished me to see.” ― Diego Rivera, My Art My Life
In 1740 in a small village about seven miles away from present day San Miguel de Allende was a small village called Atotonilco. A priest, with the wonderfully lyrical name of Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro (You can call me 'Al'), acquired some land and began construction of a church.
Father Alfaro hired a local indigenous artist named Miguel Antonio Martinez de
Pocasangre to paint murals inside the nave. It is doubtful that Señor Pocasangre or Father Alfaro had ever seen or heard of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. However, like that famous site, Señor Pocasangre painted a wonderland of murals that are a pleasure to behold.
It took the artist 30 years to complete the work. Visitors today are treated to displays of the lives of Catholic saints, scenes from the Bible, and the Last Judgement. Also, unlike Michelangelo's version, there are panels of Mexican folk art as well. The altar is a glorious display of gold encrusted wood and paintings on venetian mirrors.
The goal, like the art in the Roman cathedrals, was to dazzle a largely illiterate population with visions of heaven and the magnificence of God's creation. Such an effect is undiminished today with the multiple travelers snapping pictures in hushed awe.
Like many great works of art, the church needed care and with the waves of violence that plagued Mexico's history it was almost lost. However, miraculously the work survives and today is an UNESCO World Heritage site.
The church sits in a more typical poor Mexican town. There is a large Catholic school across the street and a handful of vendors on the streets to service the occasional tour buses that stop to see the church. There are natural hot springs near here that are visited by residents and tourists from San Miguel de Allende but they are about a mile out of town.
When Colleen and I came here we were thinking we would see a much more run down population with streets filled with trash and numerous panhandlers. The reason for this preconception was that is what we saw frequently in India and, due to our own ignorance, we equated the two countries.
But this notion is not what we have found. Although it was clear that this neighborhood was much poorer than some we have seen in San Miguel de Allende, the homes and roads looked well maintained. We did not see the kind of trash that we saw in India. The street vendors were pleasant and liked to chat with as we walked along. It was a completely different experience.
Just for reference how wrong we were with our ideas about Mexico - Do you know which country in the entire world has the highest percentage of homelessness?
I'll give you a moment (Jeopardy music playing).......
The answer is - The United States of America
There are occasional panhandlers. They are usually not pushy at all and tend to congregate around the entrances to churches. We ran into one that particularly struck our eye. She was a little wizened old woman with a sweet smile in a corn flower blue dress and a big brim hat. If she could stand straight she was maybe 4 feet tall.
She sat there humming and would hold out her little doll like hand as you walked by and if you dropped a few pesos in it she would murmur "Via con dios" at you like a blessing. We gave her a few coin and went on our way. On the way back, both of us thought it would be a good memory to get a picture with her under the shade of the big oak tree but we wanted to make sure we had her permission first.
So we asked, and almost immediately her almost storybook mannerism changed. She stood a little taller and said in a surprisingly strong voice an emphatic "no" unless we pay her 150 pesos first. She clearly had been asked this before and knew how to bargain.
Then, like flipping a switch, she resumed her previous sweet mannerisms. It was skilled performance art that was worthy of the price she demanded.
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