Don Quixote de la Mancha – From Spain to Mexico, and the World

All great things require a dose of insanity.

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La alucinación de Alonso Quijano

by Rámon Vásquez, 1985

One cannot be in Guanajuato for any length of time without visiting the Museo Iconográfico del Quijote.  It would be akin to going to Paris and not set foot in the Louvre. 

Started in 1987 by Don Eulalio Ferrer who survived the horror of 1939 French refugee camps by finding solace in the now famous, but back then unknown, Don Quixote de la Mancha book (edition 1912) by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.  A small tome he had exchanged for a modest pack of cigarettes just before entering camp. 

Many have said that ‘only three books: Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, and The Idiot’ make sense to those who survived in prisons or concentration camps’.  I’ll take their word for it.

Running away from the Spanish Civil War and then the concentration camps, he eventually found his way to Oaxaca, Mexico, where he first made his living by reciting poems, the written word always a big part of his life.  He eventually became a publicist, a journalist, a cultural promoter, an art collector, and a bibliophile.

That experience led Eulalio to a life’s mission of spreading the work of Cervantes throughout the world, and through it, the Spanish language and culture as well.  His collection of everything Cervantes became so large he eventually opened the museum everyone can enjoy today.

Although Don Quixote never ‘set foot’ in Mexico, he is well revered in Guanajuato starting with this museum where the art is seen as:  

To live in words. To live in images.

To live in fragments. To live in strokes.

To live in the artist’s eyes or mind. 

To live.  Nothing more than to live. 

Life the universal language, full of mirrors and reflections.

Don Quichotte

by Salvador Dali, 1981

Estudio del Quijote contra un molino (Study of Quixote against a windmill)

by Cristobal Méndez Montañez

El Quijote al Galope (The galloping Quixote)

by Esteban Sentíes Madrid

Capilla Cervantina (Cervantes Chapel)

1978, painted ceiling and sides - 43m²

Perdido en La Bufa (Lost in La Bufa) 

Bufa can mean bulge/bluff but in Guanajuato it is also the name of a nearby crag

by Juan Zaragoza, 2017

Don Quijote en el Exilio (Don Quixote in Exile)

by Antonio Rodríguez Luna, 1973

Hemofiction

Quixotic essence that has flooded Guanajuato for 70 years

by Luciano Trigos

Don Quijote

by Armandino Prueda, 1994

Quijote Azúl (Blue Quixote)

by Manuel Valles Gómez, 2012

Así veo a Don Quijote (This is how I see Don Quixote)

by Antonio Quirós , 1960

Center of a sculpture at entrance of museum

Don Quixote as if in the middle of a spiral of books

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Also, unknown.  Next to a stack of books

Head of Don Quixote

Unknown - ceramic

Skinny figure of Don Quixote

Unknown - ceramic

Could a man who called windmills, giants and a tavern prostitute a chaste maiden be sane?  Could he have meant it?

Perception is everything. The way we choose to see the world is how it shall be. Don Quixote chose to see himself as a knight. Though very old, he took bumps and bruises with the best of them. He did this because he believed he could!

Being realistic never got anybody anywhere. Sometimes the most insane notions advance the world! Momentous changes or discoveries in life don't happen by settling for what is in front of us. They happen by looking at the world in unique ways or taking something old and finding a way to make it new.

Cervantes doesn't deal so much in objective values as he does in inviting the reader (or the artist) to examine their own perspective. Whether you consider Don Quixote a romantic hero or a fool is beside the point; the story's literary value is in forcing you to examine the question.

Monument to Cervantes

In center of roundabout at entrance of town

Guanajuato has been sister city to Ashland, Oregon, for 50 years

The city of Cervantes linked to the city of Shakespeare…

Mural by Ashland artist

Even in the night, the knights go on…

Not sure how that all ties in but when I was researching Don Quixote, I came across “Donkey Hotey”, a very clever and talented cartoonist.  He loves to say that “Politics is show business for ugly people.”  Somehow it all fits in with Don Quixote – don’t you think?

Or was the story of Don Quixote simply a tale of the demise of chivalry?

As an interesting note about Mr. Ferrer.  He helped promote a new word in the Spanish language:  Cantinflear which doesn’t translate in English but means:  To speak in an absurd and incongruous way while saying nothing.  To act in the same manner. 

In 2012, he was recognized for his contributions to know, understand, and enhance those aspects that define what it means to be human.  What the seed of Don Quixote de la Mancha germinated into!

Don Ferrer loved to say: 

España es mi natura.  Mexico mi ventura 

(Spain is my nature, Mexico is my fortune)

The city of Guanajuato has historically had a large cultural scene in relation to its size.  Among so many year-round cultural events, they are famous for The International Cervantino (after Cervantes) Artistic and Cultural Festival.

In a period of 26 days, over 425 attractions (music, dance, singing, acrobats, theater, street performances, etc.), take place in more than 50 locations (bars, museums, art galleries, theaters, old mines, plazas, ex-haciendas, and the streets).  More of a drunk fest according to some, it attracts loads of mostly young people who overrun this small city. 

The founder of The Cervantino International Festival, 1972

Enrique Ruelas Espinosa – by Glenda Hecksher, 1999

Life-size

Theater plays based on the writings of Miguel de Cervantes started in Plaza San Roque in 1953.

The Cervantino Festival had its roots here but started 47 years ago.

These short plays are called Entremeses (appetizers) and are played when it is dark.

I attended the 66^th year of these Entremeses

Oh, knights, damsels in distress, plots, etc.

The beautiful servant

The old characters…

San Roque Church - background for

LED light shows at night

Many theater groups are made of retirees. 

Here a fun, although not politically correct,

pantomime of some old guy still

running after skirts.

This guy lived next door to where I stayed. 

Every day I would watch him go to ‘work’.

He played some type of green guy sitting in a tub of water. 

I never could understand the character.

The city of music, art, street performances and much more

The city of music, art, street performances and much more

Not counting religious books (bible, quran, etc.), Don Quixote is in the top ten most translated and read books in the world and considered in the top ten greatest novels ever written.

Although I understand we, each, get something different from reading the same book, I found it fascinating to see the vastly different graphic representations of Don Quixote.  I am a visual person, so I appreciate seeing even more than discussing what the various interpretations are.  Seeing is seeing….