Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1917 — New Mexico's “Cathedral of the Desert [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

New Mexico's “Cathedral of the Desert

The state has erected a public museum and art gallery along architectural lines developed by Franciscan missionaries who came from Spain to North America before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Santa Fe is now the center ofa first rate art and literary colony from the East

Al 1 ■" HE NEW museum, art gallery «ml St. Francis audiC torium that is being built by the state of New Mex--510 antl ,I,P 110,11 ot yw American Research at the state capital, Santa Fe, is j ] under roof, and is to be * dedicated the first week, in August—with--a -Spanish and Indian fiesta and historic pageant that nre to eclipse anyjhlng hitherto given in that line in the West. The building is architecturally one of the most remarkable public structures In the United States and in museum buildings has no counterpart. It is in —'the purest New Mexico mission style, which was evolved by the Franciscan .missionaries 300 years ago out of the Pueblo architecture, the only Indigenous type of architecture in the United States. It reproduces in its outlines the fatuous Acoma, Cochiti, San Felipe. Pecos and Laguna missions, each of which is from 100 to 150 years older than the oldest missions in California, dating back 300 years and more. Fine Art Gallery. The city of Santa Fe donated the site for the new building, being oti a corner of the main plaza of the town and across the street from the historic Palace of the Governors, built 14 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The state of New Mexico made a preliminary appropriation of $30,OOflL frank Springer of Las Vegas

and 20 of his friends gave $30,000 more. Mr. Springer also gave his noted Beauregard collection of paintings and the series of six St. Francis mural paintings. The new building has 40,000 square fe<u of floor space. Its auditorium can be made to accommodate 1,400 pie. Its art galleries will be among the best lighted in the country. The interior architecture and finishings are in conformity with the ancient Pueblo and Franciscan mission style, with huge ceiling beams, beautifully carved and colored corbels, quaint and picturesque as the Alhambra. In fact, some of the carvings can be traced back to patterns by the Moors of a thousand years ago, the original settlers of Santa Fe coining from southern Spain where they had been in contact with the Moors for centuries. Old Palace of Governors. The Palace of Governors across the way iS the most historic building in

the United States, having been home to a line of 99 governors under four different flags. It is now the beautiful museum of New Mexico, with wonderful exhibits and mural paintings that have made it world famous. It is also the headquarters of the School of American Research, one-ef-flve schools ’maintained by the Archaeological Institute of America, chartered by congress and maintaining schools at Jerusalem, Athens, Rome and Peking, in addition to the school at Santa Fe. The school has resulted also in the establishment of an artist colony of a score or so of painters of national and International renown, headed by Robert Henri, most noteworthy of the modern American School of Painting. Quite a number of authors, poets, dramatists and musicians also make the palace their rendezvous, thus giving Santa Fe a certain claim to being called the Athens of the Southwest.

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