Totolapan: The Miraculous Draft of Fishes

In our previous post we described a unique but puzzling mural in the entry vestibule of the convento at San Guillermo Totolapan. For this post we look at another unique but poorly preserved mural.

The Cloister murals
Once painted wall to wall—and ceiling too—with 16th century murals, much of this early cloister mural art has been lost and what remains is in fair to terrible condition. While some of the arcade portraits have been partially restored, the larger frescoes along the walks has been lost.
   A few now fragmentary and in some cases barely identifiable murals subsist in the lunettes above the end walls, which is unfortunate, since they reveal both skilled draftsmanship and unusual subject matter. Painted for the most part in charcoal tones  they include a Crucifixion and a portrait of St. Monica, mother of St. Augustine. Two others are of special interest:

The Miraculous Draft of Fishes  
This damaged, polychrome fresco illustrates a miracle as recorded in the Gospel of St. John, in which Jesus appears on the shore of the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection.
   Several of the disciples are fishing but catch nothing. Then Jesus, unrecognized, tells them to cast their net on the other side of the boat, after which they haul in a large quantity of fish.  At this point the apostles then recognize Jesus and, by tradition, St. Peter leaps into the water to greet his risen Lord—a detail that is either obscured or missing in this fresco.

Jesus by the water

Otherwise, the details follow most classic portrayals of the scene: Jesus stands on the shore to one side, while the apostles sit in their (red) fishing boat on the other. Buildings flank the far shore of the lake while waterfowl strut along in the foreground. No net is clearly shown here, although wear and tear of the mural and the later? cutting in of a doorway may obscure this element. 

   To our knowledge, this portrayal of a celebrated scene in the life of Christ is unique in early Mexican mural art.

Illustrated on another lunette is what appears to be a related, post Resurrection scene, that of Peter meeting Jesus on the Appian Way (aka Quo Vadis)—if so, also a portrayal of this apocryphal episode  in early Mexican mural art.

* Note: the church was badly damaged during the 9/19 Mexican earthquake. No word yet on the fate of the many valuable murals there. Stay tuned.

text ©2017 Richard D. Perry

color images by Niccolo Brooker and Robert Jackson