Cuitzeo, The Last Judgment

Raised on a bluff overlooking the shimmering shallow waters of Lake Cuitzeo, Santa Maria Magdalena Cuitzeo is the most sumptuous Augustinian priory in Michoacán. In 1550, the foundations for the monastery were laid on the site, using stone from the demolished temple of Curicaueri, the Tarascan sun god.

Set at the top of a series of rising enclosed forecourts, the church front is distinguished by its elegantly sculpted facade and a spacious convento on the south side.  

   The convento is fronted by a grand, arcaded portería atop a stepped terrace. Believed to have been added when the convento was remodeled in the early 1600s, the arcade is designed in a sumptuous Roman Renaissance manner quite distinct from the earlier, Plateresque church facade.

portería view with Last Judgment mural

The Murals

The convento at Cuitzeo is adorned throughout with murals, the majority of which are early in date and of great artistic interest and variety.

The principal narrative fresco in the porteria is a graphic Last Judgment covering the wall at the north end. Although the central figure of Christ is drawn in Renaissance style, the conventions of scale and iconography in the composition—the massed ranks of the Elect and the Religious above contrasted with the Purgatory and Damned descending into the yawning mouth of Hell below—hark back to medieval Christianity and bear comparison with portrayals of the Last Judgment at Acolman, Actopan and Xoxoteco.

Christ in Judgment with God the Father, the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist

Angel blowing horn

The assembly of the Elect

The Ranks of the Saved transported by angels to Heaven

The Condemned in flames with a horned beast and the Mouth of Hell

Like most of the murals at Cuitzeo it is painted in warm black and white, with red accents—notably the flames of Hell.
*Please review other posts on the Last Judgment: El Llanito; Totimehuacan; Suchixtlahuaca; Huaquechula; Yanhuitlan; Actopan; 

text © 2017 Richard D. Perry.  images by the author and Niccolò Brooker