Tolsa and Tres Guerras have many points of likeness; both, professing another art,—the one statuary, the other painting—dedicated themselves later to construction; both cultivated the same style, that of the Renaissance, and succeeded in imparting majesty to their buildings. Tolsa is more severe, elegant, and grand; Tres Guerras better knows how to express grace and is more audacious. This one sometimes lacks good taste, the other—rather frequently becomes heavy. Withal, both are notable architects; and, if one wins constant applause, the other gains an enduring fame.
Although it might be thought that Tres Guerras felt Tolsa’s influence, nothing is further from the truth, since Tres Guerras had already constructed the Carmen and the Laja bridge, before Tolsa had reared his edifices.
With these two artists, the cycle of vice-royal architecture ended. Beginning rude and coarse it developed brilliant and overloaded, and ended simple and correct, ever showing itself strong and robust as the virile, conquering, race that produced it.
WOOD CARVING IN PUEBLA.
When these glaring offenses against art were not only condoned, but authorized by religion, it will be appreciated how great credit is due to a group of modest and industrious artists, who, in the City of Puebla, about the second half of the past, and the beginning of the present, century, without good masters nor great models for imitation, cultivated the sculpture of images, forming their own canons. The Coras, with all their defects, play the rôle of restorers to respect of an art, which could not fall to a more lamentable extremity. There were three principal—though other artists of lesser value figure in turn—José Villegas de Cora, the master of all; Zacarias Cora, and José Villegas, who also took the surname Cora, as an honorific title.