Catch up TV

Series 1: 3. Prayer

In this final episode, Alinka explores how faith has always driven life in Mexico, and how the need for a visual image created a unique blend of Mesoamerican and Catholic faith.\n\nArtists were kept close to the elites in Mexico's ancient civilisations to depict the deities that were the foundations of the society's structures and beliefs. Gods and goddesses were created in the mind's eye of millions, who in turn worshipped the imagery that the artists provided.\n\nWhen the Spanish imposed Catholicism, the notion of venerating the divine using iconography already existed. And in some of Mexico's most spectacular art, iconography incorporating both Mesoamerican and Catholic belief can be found. This unique hybridity could only exist in Mexico, where art has long been crucial to the personal relationship between believer and the divine. Ex-votos paintings are offerings of thanks to saints and expressions of devotion. They have long been the preserve of poor and rural Mexicans, and depict very personal situations.\n\nToday, one artist is pushing the boundaries of belief, incorporating symbols of secular culture and consumerism with religious iconography. Even as the power of the church wains in Mexico, religious imagery can still be found everywhere.

Source: BBC 4