Interior of the cathedral of Mexico: lithograph of the dogmatic declaration of the Immaculate Conception of María Santísima

Abstract

This writing is the result of the visual, aesthetic and historical analysis of a magnificent lithographic print of the Mexico Album and its Surroundings (1855-1856), specifically of the “Interior of the Cathedral of Mexico. On April 26, 1855, when the Dogmatic Declaration of the Immaculate Conception of María Santísima was celebrated”. Based on this analysis, a part of how nineteenth-century Mexican society “appropriated” its city is exposed through the use of public and religious spaces; deeply rooted cultural phenomenon that was largely due to civic and religious commemorations and festivities. Very peculiar historical context since even in the second half of the XIX century the idiosyncrasy of independent Mexico continued to be configured and defined. The large number of details that the lithographic stamp contains, as well as the other stamps that complement the album, help us to decode and evoke the social environment that existed just three years before the War of the Reform began, whose laws promoted mainly by Benito Juárez they would substantially affect the ecclesiastical institution. The method used to address the image of the city is an analysis inscribed in a symbolic-descriptive aspect. This aspect implies an approach to the different analytical levels of the image, of which the technical, the compositional and the narrative stand out. Through this, a kind of picturesque-manners discourse was deciphered which was frequently resorted to at that time for the construction of national identity. In the end, it will be possible to have a special approach to the image that in those years it was tried to project of Mexico and the Mexicans.