CHAPTER VI
ART, MUSIC, AND THE DRAMA
It would have been strange if Mexico had not plunged with some ardour into the pursuit of the fine arts, considering that in the veins of her people Indian blood is commingled with Spanish. The Nahua and Maya of old were among the world's greatest masters of sculpture, possibly greater masters in that field than ever were the Spaniards themselves. Irrespective of this priceless legacy, there exist in Mexico to-day abundant elements likely to favour artistic creation, elements tending to keep alive the flame which was lit so early as the days of Cortés, who, himself showing a deep interest in Aztec art, urged his pious countrymen to send or bring fine devotional pictures and statues to New Spain, telling them repeatedly that this act was a veritable duty. They responded munificently to this appeal, with the consequence that Mexican churches, and religious edifices in general, are still singularly rich in grand old Spanish works; while the incitement which these objects awaken is assisted by the presence, throughout the land, of a wealth of good pictures by native Mexican artists, of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. No country has a more romantic and thrilling history to look back upon than Mexico; and the stirring affairs enacted there in the past, the deeds of the conquerors, are even now proving a mine of inspiration to Mexican painters.
The efforts which Porfirio Diaz made to suppress bullfighting tended rather to quicken than quench the Mexican devotion to that sport, which erstwhile evoked from Goya, in Madrid, some of his most typical works: and, apart from the superb display of glittering colour and seething action which the bull-ring presents, there are countless picturesque sights to be seen from day to day in Mexico, more so than
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