El entablado jesuita de Santa María de Cuevas: sobrevivencia y desarrollo de una tradición

Abstract

The church of Santa María de Cuevas, once part of a Jesuit mission in the Baja Tarahumara region, was completed in 1700. An important element of its interior decoration is a painted entablado, or boarded ceiling, the only one of its kind conserved in Mexico. A review of the history of the church situates it within that of the architecture of the region — in a period of growth and architectural ambitions shared by both Jesuits and settlers. Although the loss of material evidence and the absence of previous studies make it difficult to reach convincing results regarding the precise identification of the ceiling's structural typology, certain iconographic features relate it to traditions of architectural decoration that reached New Spain in the sixteenth century and then spread to the marginal regions of the Viceroyalty where their remains are still to be found. At the same time an examination of the decoration of the church of Santa María as a whole reveals the possible existence of an iconographic program taking in the entire building, both interior and façade.