Pascual Pérez: The Triumph of the Church

We continue our series on the Pueblan painter Pascual Pérez with a look at one of his most ambitious and heroic works.

El Templo de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria y de Guadalupe

Built by Tlaxcalan artisans between 1618 and 1642) the Temple of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria y de Guadalupe is located in a colonial barrio of the city of Puebla. Orange painted towers flank its sober baroque facade, cut from gray stone in classic poblano style.

Several gilded altarpieces, fashioned in ornate late baroque style line the walls of the nave and side chapels, together with a number of large individual paintings of quality.

Our chief interest here is a large canvas, hung in the apse beside the main retablo, depicting the Triumph of the Church and Eucharist, currently attributed to Pascual Pérez.* 
   Based, like most Mexican versions of the theme, on the celebrated 1626 composition by Peter Paul Rubens, Pérez’ painting follows more closely the well known panel by Baltasar de Echave Rioja, completed in 1675 for the sacristy of Puebla cathedral—a work with which Pérez was surely familiar. 

Báltasar de Echave Rioja, Triumph of the Church. Puebla Cathedral

* Pascual Pérez , "El Mixtequito," was a prolific, leading light in the Pueblan school of painting, active in the later 1600s and early 1700s. His work covers a broad range of religious subjects and is found in churches and collections in the city of Puebla and its environs, including Cholula. His interment in Puebla cathedral attests to his regional prominence at his death in 1731.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

color images by Tacho Juarez Herrera and ELTB

Visit our other pages on Pascual Pérez: San Andres Cholula; San Jose de Puebla; El Carmen; The Temptations of Christ;

Pascual Pérez: The Temptations of Christ

Two of the most intriguing known works by Pascual Pérez*, comprise a pair of large, almost identical paintings on the biblical subject of The Temptations of Christ.  
   After his baptism by John the Baptist, according to gospel tradition, Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights in the desert. There, Satan appeared to him with three temptations—broadly, hedonism, egoism and materialism. Having refused each temptation, the Devil then left empty handed, and Jesus returned to Galilee to begin his ministry.

The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness, Basilica of Guadalupe

The Basilica Canvas
The first painting, recently restored, is in the prime collection of religious art in the old Basilica of Guadalupe, in Mexico City. Signed by the artist, it has been assigned the date of 1670, although it is probably later—painted about the same time as the Santa Fe version, in the early 1700s.
   Although the biblical location was traditionally in the desert, or more properly the wilderness, the landscape is filled with lush foliage and imposing buildings. 
   In both paintings, a melancholy Jesus reclines in a cave or rock shelter in the center foreground; in the Basilica version a banderole above him quotes from Psalm 42, “... my tears are my bread day and night” —an element either erased or omitted in the Santa Fe canvas.

The Temptation of Christ in the Desert,  Cathedral of Santa Fé

The Santa Fe painting
Our second canvas hangs on the wall of the Conquistadora Chapel in St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, New Mexico—part of the older adobe church, now the north transept—and is more appropriately dated 1710.

 

courtesy of Beverley Spears

In both versions the Devil tempts Christ on a crag in the extreme upper left, while on the right angels gather festively to greet and feed Christ at the end of his ordeal. 

courtesy of Beverley Spears

However, in the Santa Fe painting two additional figures loom large on the middle left: the Devil, disguised as a bearded friar, (although with horns and a tail) offers the hungry Jesus a loaf of bread (or a stone to be transformed into bread) which he refuses. 

Juan de Flandes, The Temptation of Christ (1504)

This non-canonical episode originally appeared in a panel by the Hispano-Flemish artist Juan de Flandes, and its inclusion here is the only known portrayal of this detail in Mexican art.
* Pascual Pérez , "El Mixtequito," was a prolific, leading light in the Pueblan school of painting, active in the later 1600s and early 1700s. His work covers a broad range of religious subjects and is found in churches and collections in the city of Puebla and its environs, including Cholula. His interment in Puebla cathedral attests to his regional prominence at his death in 1731.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

our appreciation and grateful acknowledgment of the use of these images go to Beverley Spears, and Tacho Juárez Herrera who has tracked down and photographed most of Pascual Perez' known works.

Pascual Perez: El Carmen de Puebla

Our series of posts on the artist Pascual Pérez* continues with a visit to the religious complex of El Carmen in the city of Puebla, notable for its multiple tiled exteriors.
   Like nearby San José, El Carmen is also a repository of outstanding colonial artworks. Numerous paintings by eminent Pueblan and Mexican artists grace the walls of the church, chapels and conventual rooms—including works by José Joaquín Magón and Cristóbal de Villalpando among others.

Two works by Pascual Pérez are found in the church precincts: the larger of the pair is protected behind a balcony in the Chapel of Santa Teresa. This panoramic, curved mural depicts the Virgin of Carmen as protectress of her Order—that of the Discalced Carmelites.
   In a classic pose, the Virgin of Carmen carries the crowned Christ Child on one arm; both hold scapulas, as do the angels on the right. Beneath a spreading cloak, upheld by archangels, St. Teresa kneels with her nuns on the right while John of the Cross gestures amid a group of bewigged notables on the left—both prominently dressed in the distinctive black habit and white mantle of the Order.

Another large painting of the subject hangs in a transept of the main church.

While the first canvas is well preserved, probably because of its sheltered location, the second Pérez painting, although signed, is in poor condition and in need of restoration. 

   In a rare depiction—the only one we are aware of in Mexican painting—this large canvas depicts the Stigmatization of Magdalena de Pazzi, a 16th century Carmelite ecstatic and mystic who was canonized in 1669. 
   The nun receives the Stigmata from Christ on the cross while being crowned by the Virgin Mary on the left.  (The story of Pazzi's stigmatization, although undocumented, may have represented an effort by the Carmelites to counter or rival the popularity of the leading stigmatic of the age, St. Francis)
* Pascual Pérez , "El Mixtequito," was a prolific, leading light in the Pueblan school of painting, active in the later 1600s and early 1700s. His work covers a broad range of religious subjects and is found in churches and collections in the city of Puebla and its environs, including Cholula. His interment in Puebla cathedral attests to his regional prominence at his death in 1731.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

our appreciation and grateful acknowledgment of the use of his images go to Tacho Juárez Herrera, who tracked down photographed most of Pascual Perez' known works.

Pascual Perez: San José de Puebla

We continue with our survey of the colonial painter Pascual Pérez* to look at his works in the city of Puebla, his principal workplace.

San José

In another earlier post we looked at the historic tiled city church of San José and its sumptuous chapel of the Nazarene.The arcaded church interior is replete with numerous late colonial works of art. 
   We previously lauded the spectacular sequence of gilded baroque altarpieces lining the aisles along the nave as one the finest in Mexico, many featuring outstanding sculptures and paintings by Puebla’s celebrated colonial artists, including the eminent painter Miguel Jerónimo Zendejas among others.

   Our special interest here, however, is in two groups of paintings by the earlier master Pascual Pérez  “El Mixtequito,” whose work we saw at San Andrés Cholula.

The Raising of the Cross

The Passion Paintings
Two large canvases by Pérez hang in the vestibule of the main church. These include a Raising of the Cross, after Rubens, and a melancholy Deposition or Lamentation, both signed by the artist and suggestive of his mid career work (circa 1700) 
   Both paintings employ groups of figures—more dynamic in the Raising canvas—and the use of rich, predominantly red hues.

The Deposition or Lamentation

The Virgin Martyrs
A second, rather more unusual series, currently placed in the camarín of the Virgin in San José, comprises six portraits of female martyrs of the early church.  Only one is signed by Pérez.
   In each case they are pictured graphically suffering their associated torments or gory deaths, posed against dark, obscure backgrounds, while an angel descends with the martyr's crown and palm. 

  

St. Agatha;                                      St. Bibiana

 

St. Leocardia (signed)                             St. Lucy

  

St. Quiteria;                        St. Susanna

* Pascual Pérez , "El Mixtequito," was a prolific, leading light in the Pueblan school of painting, active in the later 1600s and early 1700s. His work covers a broad range of religious subjects and is found in churches and collections in the city of Puebla and its environs, including Cholula. His interment in Puebla cathedral attests to his regional prominence at his death in 1731.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

our appreciation and grateful acknowledgment of the use of his images go to Tacho Juárez Herrera, who tracked down and photographed most of Pascual Perez' known works.

Pascual Pérez: San Andrés Cholula

The ancient city of Cholula is located about 15 km west of the city of Puebla and is divided into two principal parishes: San Andrés Cholula and San Pedro Cholula.

Although the gray, stone facade of San Andrés Cholula recalls the somber front of Puebla cathedral, its baroque interior and the exuberant Capilla del Sagrario are closer in feeling to the ornate Rosary Chapel of Santo Domingo in that city.  San Andrés is also renowned for its many works of fine art, including paintings by regional baroque artists like Antonio Santander.

Pascual Pérez *

In this post, the second in a series, we focus on a group of paintings by the prominent Pueblan artist Pascual Pérez (1663 - 1731) also called El Mixtequito, because of his presumed Oaxacan origins. 
   Here at San Andrés we find the largest known collection of the artist’s work and the most varied in scale and subject—giving a valuable insight into his range, style and painterly skills.

The Retablo of St. John Nepomuk
Although named for a 14th century Bohemian saint and martyr, and prominently featuring his image, this baroque altarpiece is essentially dedicated to the Virgin Mary, as its five paintings of scenes from her life demonstrate. All five are securely attributed to Pérez, and at least two are signed by the artist.

  

Framed by gilded spiral columns, the two principal canvases of the altarpiece illustrate the Visitation and the Annunciation. A Mannerist palette of reds, greens, pinks and blues enlivens the composition, notably in the elaborate robes of the Virgin Mary. Although none are dated, they are characteristic of Pérez' later work, post 1700.

On the upper level, a radiant portrait of the crowned Virgin and Child, posed as Our Lady of Refuge, is flanked by triangular panels of the Nativity and Circumcision of Christ.

  

Several other large, individual canvases by Pascual Pérez, some restored, hang in various locations in the church and chapel. 

   These include a Holy Trinity, again with flowing garments in vivid red and blues; and a Christ at Calvary inscribed with the date 1691. While the ground is littered with skull and bones, red roofed palaces and churches fill the background of what was by tradition a desolate site. Both are relatively early works by Pérez, pre 1700.

   

Another pair of paintings, The Nativity of the Virgin and her Presentation in the Temple, are sharply detailed with some chiaroscuro effects—again suggesting early works.

And an unpretentious composition of Jacob’s Ladder, with well observed details has a more rustic flavor. 

Finally, hanging beneath the church choir is a expansive, semicircular canvas of the Last Judgment with St. Francis and St. Michael, also attributed to Pérez, with graphic depictions of the Saved and the Damned—His most ambitious work in San Andrés.

 

The damned and the mouth of Hell

* Pascual Pérez , "El Mixtequito," was a prolific, leading light in the Pueblan school of painting, active in the later 1600s and early 1700s. His work covers a broad range of religious subjects and is found in churches and collections in the city of Puebla and its environs, including Cholula. His interment in Puebla cathedral attests to his regional prominence at his death in 1731.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

our appreciation and grateful acknowledgment of the use of his images go to Tacho Juárez Herrera, who tracked down and photographed most of Pascual Perez' known works.

Pascual Pérez: Pueblan Painter

In a series of posts on our sister blog, we looked at the Pueblan painter Miguel de Mendoza, a native of the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, whose work is found both in Puebla and Oaxaca.

Another painter of reputedly humble Oaxacan/Mixtecan origins who later achieved prominence in the Puebla region and beyond was Pascual Pérez (1663—1731) popularly known as El Mixtequito (the little Mixtecan). 

   Although a mestizo, or possibly belonging to the indigenous nobility like his contemporary Mendoza, and with a former slave for a wife (whose freedom he bought for 230 gold pesos), Pérez became leading light in the Pueblan school of painting both as an artist and guild official, His interment in Puebla cathedral at his death attests to his high artistic and social standing.
   Active in the later 1600s and early 1700s, his style changed with the times over these transformative decades in Mexican art. The lingering naturalism and tenebrista effects in his early work gradually gave way, with the arrival of the new century, to the influence of the European high baroque.
   Ambitious compositions on a grand scale of artists like Rubens, also affected Pérez’ Mexican contemporaries like Juan Correa and Cristóbal de Villalpando. While the Andalusian palette and
Mannerist print sources still played a role among Pueblan painters, the sharper, more realistic focus of the early baroque gave way to a softer, more idealized manner, without losing the popular, genre aspects beloved of earlier colonial painters and muralists. 
   In many ways the Puebla school more fully embodies a truly national as well as regional style, and one that is increasingly inclusive if we consider the humbler native origins of artists like Correa, Mendoza and Perez, and Miguel Cabrera in the generation to follow.

   His prolific output covers a broad range of religious subjects and is found in churches and collections across the city of Puebla and its environs, and beyond, as far as Mexico City and Santa Fe, New Mexico:
Churches:
San José de Puebla
San Gregorio Zacapechpan,
St. Francis Cathedral, Santa Fe
Templo Conventual del Carmen, Cd. de Puebla
Templo de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria y de Guadalupe Xonaca, Puebla
San Andrés Cholula
San Pedro Cholula
Collections:
Museo de Arte Religioso Santa Mónica, Puebla
Museo Universitario de Puebla
Museo Casa del Alfeñique, Cdad de Puebla
Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico City
Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City

We will cover Pérez' works in these locations, starting next with a review of his paintings in the church of San Andrés Apostol, in Cholula, Puebla—one of the largest and most varied collections of his work.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry