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.