Photo gallery: A Gift of Angels: The Art of Mission San Xavier del Bac

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Pretty much everyone knows Mission San Xavier del Bac’s nickname — The White Dove of the Desert. What haven’t been as well-known are the stories behind the art inside it. Until now. A new book, “A Gift of Angels: The Art of Mission San Xavier del Bac” (University of Arizona Press, $75), explores, in words and color photos, the beauty of the Spanish colonial mission southwest of Tucson inside and out. Photos of San Xavier c. Edward McCain.

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — Mission San Xavier del Bac, northeast elevation with Black Mountain in the background. Photo © Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — The most important item of early religious art in the sotocoro is the portable crucifix leaning against the southeast wall, where it has apparently stood at least since 1940 . It is a wood-carved image of the still-alive and suffering Christ attached to a Latin cross with three metal spikes with threaded ends (screws), one through his crossed feet and one through the palm of each hand. The figure is covered with gesso, and its exposed skin is treated to make it appear as lifelike as possible. Photo © Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — The Divine Shepherdess (la Divina Pastora) -- For perhaps all of the twentieth century, until conservators effected its stabilization and cleaning in 1994, the painting enclosed within a floral frame on the north wall of the drum was uniformly identified as that of Christ as the Good Shepherd, el Buen Pastor. Photo © Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — San Xavier's facade is what is known as a retablo facade, which is to say, one that mimics an altarpiece or, as it is also called in English, retable or reredos. It provides the visitor to the church with a preparation for what to expect when passing through the large wooden doors of the portal. Photo © Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — There is a wooden pulpit with a wooden staircase and handrail, one with a wooden sounding board overhead, against the west-facing side of the column at the southeast corner of the crossing. The pulpit and its sounding board have been in this location at least since the time of the earliest interior photographs of the church, dating from the 1870s, and there is every reason to believe they have been here since the last decade of the eighteenth century, when the church was completed. The wood is apparently mesquite (Prosopis sp.), a local material, and the probability is that all the panels comprising the pulpit and sounding board, like the wooden balusters in the handrail and elsewhere in the church, were locally made. Photo © Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — South-southwest elevation of the church. A view from the South of the entrance to the mission at San Xavier del Bac at Sunset. Photo © Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — The Immaculate Conception, East Transept, Mission San Xavier del Bac. Photo © Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — The sanctuary and main alterpiece at Mission San Xavier del Bac. Photo © Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — St. Benedict of San Philadelphio. Photo ©Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — The nave, choir loft, sotocoro and south walls of the east (left) and west (right) transepts as viewed from the sanctuary. Photo © Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — The Virgin of the Girdle (la Virgen de la Faja) -- The fresco in the upper register of the south wall in The West Transept is unambiguously a depiction of the Madonna and Child (la Virgen con Niño), but which of the nearly countless versions of the Virgin with Christ Child has been the subject of speculation until now. Photo © Edward McCain

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — Photographer Edward McCain. Photo courtesy John Donoghue II

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — Bernard Fontana, author of the book. Photo by Steff Koeneman

A Gift of Angels

A Gift of Angels — Book cover photo by Edward McCain. Photo © Edward McCain

Art of San Xavier 'Gift of Angels'

Art of San Xavier 'Gift of Angels'

At nearly nine pounds and 376 pages, "A Gift of Angels: The Art of Mission San Xavier del Bac" (University of Arizona Press, $75) is a hefty book.

Big Jim: San Xavier del Bac

Big Jim: San Xavier del Bac

There’s a time machine a few miles south of town. It’s called Mission San Xavier del Bac, and it has been standing there since 1797 or thereabouts.

Big Jim: More about San Xavier

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It’s a surprise that San Xavier Mission is here at all. After all, why build a church this elaborate in a small village at the north end of no…

Big Jim: San Xavier - Nothing but the FAQs

Big Jim: San Xavier - Nothing but the FAQs

These are some of the questions I hear most often when I take visitors through San Xavier:

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