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