San Francisco Tepeaca, the facade murals

This is the first of two posts on the murals of Tepeaca, an early Franciscan monastery in the state of Puebla.

Tepeaca in 1989 before restoration

Tepeaca

The fortress style of the monastery at San Francisco Tepeaca reflects the town’s historic role as a frontier stronghold; its high walls are topped with battlemented parapets and cannonball fringed turrets like a medieval citadel. 

Previously known for its austere, rather forbidding church front streaked with faded traces of faux brickwork, recent restoration of the facade, under the auspices of Conaculta and Los Amigos del Convento, has been an eye opener.  

Large expanses of extravagant foliated patterns in colorful red, orange and earth tones, spangled with blue stars, have been uncovered, stretching across the entire facade and the canted tower bases.  
   Believed to date at the latest from the remodeling of the church front in 1778, they may be even earlier, perhaps in part from the late 16th century.  

The West Doorway

One of the more arresting features of this classic Franciscan fortress monastery is its unique west doorway, now even more dramatic since the recent discovery and restoration of its original, colorful painted ornament.

   As with the church itself, the doorway has a medieval look. The squared, outer frame is bordered by rows of Isabelline “pearls,” evincing its Plateresque lineage. Within this frame, a sequence of shaped, painted moldings, including a tasseled, Franciscan knotted cord, lead inward to the Moorish inspired archway.  
   A channeled, double lobed opening, sharply cleft in the center, forms the outer archway, enclosing a rounded impost bordered by a more ogival inner edge. 

Foliar motifs in striking red and blue hues brighten the doorway. While the other facade murals are all composed of stylized, foliated decoration in some form, the doorway ornament is distinct and more figurative.
   Bordered by the knotted cord, red tendrils wind up the outer frame into the surmounting alfiz, enfolding a pair of seraphic angels’ heads at the corners. These in turn face inward to a portrait of St. Francis with outstretched, stigmatized hands in the center above the notch—an understated reference to this seminal event in Franciscan history.  
   A robust, pruned vine with spiraling leaves boldly climbs the inner jambs and along the flattened archway.
   In both its innovative form and painted ornament, the Tepeaca doorway is unique in early colonial art and architecture, although it is tempting to speculate that similar patterning may yet be uncovered on other Franciscan church fronts in Puebla.  

text © 2017 Richard D. Perry. 
images by the author, and courtesy of Beverley Spears and Diana Roberts

Tecamachalco: the Apocalypse murals

For our inaugural post on this new blog, featuring early Mexican murals, we look at some of the most famous of the 16th century murals, those at the great Pueblan monastery church of Asunción Tecamachalco * by the native artist Juan Gerson.

Embellishing the vaulted entry vestibule beneath the church choir, is a remarkable cycle of panels illustrating scenes from the Old Testament and the Apocalypse of St. John. 
   Once believed to be the work of a Spanish or Flemish painter, the artist is now known to be an indigenous artist, one Juan Gerson, a talented tlacuilo or artist/scribe from the native nobility, who took the baptismal name of John Gerson, a medieval French preacher and theologian whose apocalyptic writings greatly influenced the Franciscans. 
   Gerson's paintings magnified intimate black-and-white images, prints from a medieval bible or breviary, adapted from northern European prints by Hans Holbein and others, into a visionary and colorful pageant, symbolically transforming the church entry into a portal of the celestial realm. 
   People and supernaturals are set in surreal landscapes painted in radiant rust reds, turquoise and earth colors that seem to have faded remarkably little since they were painted in 1562. Painted on ovals of amate bark paper and pasted between the ribs of the vault, the compositions fall into three main groups. 

The eagle of St John the Evangelist

1. At the center of the leaf-shaped vault is the Franciscan emblem of the Five Wounds. The tips of the leaves enclose medallions of the Tetramorph—the symbols of the Four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 

   

2. Old Testament scenes, including Noah's Ark, Jacob's Ladder and the Tower of Babel, fill the spaces between the inner ribs. 

   
The Four Horsemen;   The Destruction of Babylon

3. But the most striking sequence is the cycle of sixteen visionary episodes taken from the Apocalypse of St. John, which are squeezed into the sharper angles between the outer ribs. 

   Although the graphic sources for many of the scenes are taken from early 16th century woodcuts, indigenous or folk art inflections may be seen in the clarity and brightness of the colors, the simplification of some figures and animals, and the emphasis given to the landscapes.  
   The artist clearly relished the dramatic subject matter, which includes apocalyptic scenes as the Four Horsemen, the Taking of the Dragon and the Opening of the Sixth Seal. 
   Several of the panels are illustrated below, adapted from a remarkable series of images taken by the celebrated Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo circa 1970:

  

Woman of the Apocalypse/Great Dragon;             Vision of the Lamb

  

The Twenty Four Elders;     Chaining the Dragon

  

The Sixth Seal;                                  The Plague of Locusts

  

New Jerusalem;                              Measuring the Temple  

* For details on the architecture and other colonial arts at Tecamachalco, see our sister blog.

Text © 2017 Richard D. Perry

Images by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, adapted from Juan Gerson. Pintor Indigena del Siglo XVI   

Fondo Editorial de la Plastica Mexicana.  Mexico, 1972.