TRAVEL: San Xavier del Bac Mission, Tucson

personal photo

Come upon St. Xavier del Bac, the "white dove of the desert", from south to north and the  steeples burn hard with unbelievable brightness and purity against the clean dry sky.  

45 years ago I studied this architectural gem in Intro to Art history 1A, and always wished that I would see it. As the years went by I deepened my interest in Baroque and Mannerist art, and puzzled over "churrigueresque", a Spanish counter-Reformation expression of artistic ecstasy.

 The surname of José Benito Churriguera, a Spanish designer, gave the name to the Spanish Rococo style, but other architects as well are famous for the use.

Exteriors were usually stucco with flat planes, towers, columns, and domes.  The façades and interiors are encrusted with with terra-cotta and stucco bas reliefs. Spaces are delineated with broken pediments, curved cornices, balustrades, volutes, shells, and garlands.  The spaces were filled with writhing, undulating, energetic and complex narrative symbols meant to overwhelm the spectator with announcements of spiritual power.

Mexican provincial architecture combined "churriguersco" with indigenous symbols, and the Spanish Colonial cathedrals of Mexico are wondered of expressive reverence. San Xavier del Bac is the best northernmost example of the style.

  

Catholicism's practice included deeply physical and grotesque images of bodily suffering.  Spiritual expression is fused with quite literal representations of pain, which were meant to read as symbolic sacrifice. 

Our Lady of Sorrows east chapel 

The church is used today as a parish for the Tohono O'Odham native American nation, as the descendants of the Papago and Pima Indian Tribes call themselves today.  The church is named for the founder of the order, St. Xavier.

detail of the high altar

Dome built with squinches first used in middle-eastern architecture

Remains of a parish priest whose body after death manifested unusual symptoms which were viewed as miraculous.  The remains serve an intercession function. Prayer requests are pinned to a blanket covering the remains, and offerings are made, in the hope that the saintly priest in heaven will intercede with God to grant the request. This process can be done online also on the church's website.

Spanish Baroque was the main inspiration for Mediterranean Revival architecture which I love to see so much.  Florida and California have the best examples.  Balboa Park in San Diego has fine ones, including the Theosophical Building.  In Tucson itself, the Veterans Hospital was designed in the style.

It's iconic to me: how I think of the land of brilliant skies, palm trees, beaches, and ocean horizons.