The Charo Murals 1: The Passion Cycle

Following Cortés' defeat of the Aztecs in 1521, the native Matlatzinca nobles of what is now northeastern Michoacan joined the Tarascan king in declaring themselves vassals of the Spanish emperor and expressed their willingness to convert to Christianity.
   In 1528 or 1529, Fray Juan de San Miguel visited Charo to baptize its leaders, who honored the distinguished Franciscan missionary by adopting the Archangel Michael as their patron saint. 

   The Franciscans however failed to establish a permanent mission and in 1550 Bishop Vasco de Quiroga ceded Charo to the Augustinians, provided that they build a monastery there.
Soon afterwards, Fray Pedro de San Gerónimo OSA arrived to congregate the Matlatzincas of the area into a traditional mission town with several barrios and a centrally located priory.

Fray Pedro chose a commanding hilltop site for the mission, and planned the new building down to the last detail. He is even credited with directing its extensive mural program—the principal glory of Charo.

The Murals
The frescoes at Charo are the most complete and thematically diverse in Michoacán, and rank among the finest suites of 16th century murals to survive in Mexico. Entirely executed in burnished fresco secco, the murals feature the flowing outlines and sharply drawn details characteristic of monastic wall painting in Mexico, clearly revealing their source in European religious prints and book illustrations—at that time the only graphic sources readily available to the friars and native artists.
   Painted by different hands at different times, the predominantly black and white murals are accented by flesh tones, blue and rose accents, with earth colors of ocher and burnt sienna. They fall into three main groups: the Passion cycle in the entry vestibule; the narrative cloister murals; and the extraordinary frescoes of the “refectory” or sala capitular?.
   We begin our series of posts on the Charo murals with the Passion cycle in the entry vestibule:

Entry porteria

The Passion Cycle 

Beyond the elegant arcaded portería, the anteporteria or narrow inner vestibule leads to the cloister. The scenes of Christ's Passion that line the walls of the vestibule are the earliest and most conventional of the murals in their themes and composition.
   The principals in the Passion drama, awkward in their heavily outlined robes, are posed in medieval landscapes of wooded hillsides and turreted buildings. 

Four main panels—the Agony in the Garden, the Kiss of Judas, the Flagellation and the Mocking of Christ—line both sides of the passageway. 

The Agony in the Garden

The Taking of Christ (Kiss of Judas)

The Flagellation

The Mocking of Christ (detail)

The Crucifixion is set in a busy landscape of hills, trees and turreted buildings, and is dotted with sun, moon and indigenous cactus-like plants. As elsewhere, significant details—the cross, hands, faces and the moon—are tinted in ocher and reddish brown.

Text © 2019 Richard D. Perry.

images by the author and courtesy of Niccolò Brooker and Robert Jackson.

Yucatán: The Motul Murals

On the north side of the neoclassical church front at San Juan Motul, an arcaded porteria gives access to the cloister, where repair work has led to the uncovering of fragmentary but colorful colonial murals there. 

   Although incomplete and at least partially erased, the subjects of these murals are extremely unusual, and in fact unique in Yucatán:

The Star Clock
Thought to date from the late 1700s, this unusual fresco in the upper cloister at Motul features a clock-like calendar wheel outlined in red, blue and ocher, set within a square frame of grotesque floral decoration. 
   In a variation of the wind compass, or rosa de vientos—a motif popular at that time—a head with a feathered tiara caps the circle at the top, while hands and feet protrude from the sides and bottom.

Personified winds, in the conventional pictorial style of early maps, blow in from the four corners of the frame. Spokes or arrows in red and blue penetrate the circle from these points, dividing it into eight pie-like sections, each of which is further marked into three additional sections on the outer circle—a total of 24 in all. 

   Signs for the months of the year are then inscribed around this outer circle, each month occupying two divisions. At the center of the circle is a white star with a star-spangled, comet-like tail, thought to represent the pole star, and above it a plume emblazoned with stars probably signifying the constellation Ursa Minor. 

   Given the presence of the pole star and the constellation, it is probable that this device functioned both as a star clock and an astronomical calendar. Together with an exterior sundial * to measure the daylight hours, this chart would have enabled the friars to ascertain the nocturnal passage of time—essential in determining the liturgical hours. 
   It seems likely that, in coordination with its astronomical component, this fresco was also designed as a visual map of seasonal events and changes, with the head, hands and feet indicating the solstices and equinoxes, and the four winds marking the divisions between spring, summer, autumn and winter—measurements of critical importance in the agricultural round.

 

While the graphic sources for this mural remain uncertain, one point of origin may be the nautical manual, Instrucción náutica para el buen uso y regimiento de las naos, su traza y gobierno conforme a la altura de México, published there in 1587 by Diego Garcia de Palacios. 
   Although a few rare pictorial representations of this device are known from early colonial documents, this is the only known mural of the subject in Mexico.

color image courtesy of  Susan V. Webster 

Other Murals 

During alterations to the cloister, other large mural fragments came to light beneath layers of whitewash. These brightly hued polychrome frescoes apparently portray hunting and genre scenes, and may be late 17th or 18th century in origin. 
   It is to be hoped that further systematic research can be carried out to recover and conserve these irreplaceable colonial murals. 

text © Richard D. Perry

with acknowledgments to Susan V. Webster, M. en Arq. Antonio Rodríguez Alcalá  and William Taylor

San Juan Evangelista Culhuacan: The Convento Murals 2

The Upper Cloister
Around the upper cloister at Culhuacan, large Renaissance murals of the Life and Passion of Christ are interposed with medieval style portraits of Augustinian saints and martyrs, most generally in better condition than those below. As distinct from the others, this group is painted in traditional grisaille, with little added color, and framed by Renaissance style grotesque panels. 

Located at the top of the stairs is a partial Entry into Jerusalem with Jesus mounted on his donkey, the figures of the Apostles and a crowd throwing palm leaves. 

In the southwest corner is an elegant Nativity with the Adoration of the Magi, the most complete of the compositions.  
    The Holy Family is calmly posed on the left. with lowered eyes, set in a surprisingly well appointed structure of uncertain perspective. The three kings stand on the right, two standing and one kneeling, while their three horses prance on the extreme right.  
   The star of Bethlehem hangs in the center above a prominent hill, again evoking the sacred local landmark of the Cerro de la Estrella, site of the Aztec New Fire ceremony.

Rows of martyrs line the south walk. These include a partial St. Stephen, then St. Dennis holding his severed head, and St. Nicholas of Tolentino, the prominent Augustinian preacher and healer, wearing an expression of beatific calm despite the loss of his severed right foot and left hand.  
   Numerous other Augustinians, obscure and notable, are portrayed on the pillars of the cloister arcades, including such luminaries as John of Sahagún, and lesser known figures like Blessed Amadeus of Savoy.


In the middle of the same corridor, an inscribed panel of the company of Augustinian martyrs is set in an elaborate painted Plateresque frame. Clutching their books and palms, the martyrs crowd into the foreground, their rows of tonsured heads shining like peas in a pod.

There is also a partial portrayal of the Augustinian African martyrs in a cauldron; the only other version being that at Charo.

The prior's room, on the upper western corridor adjacent to the church, is identified by its paneled wooden door carved with the Augustinian pierced heart and other symbols associated with the Order and the Passion of Christ. As with the other friars’ cells, it retains many of its original friezes in the same grotesque style, with fruits, flowers, birds, putti and fantastic beasts.

text ©2019 Richard D. Perry.

images by the author, Niccolo Brooker, Diana Roberts & Robert Jackson