All the narrative panels are framed by painted Plateresque pilasters with lively grotesque friezes that incorporate sacred monograms and Augustinian emblems, linked by cornucopias, dancing cherubs and fantastical monsters—part dragon and part acanthus foliage.
Both murals use the classic medieval motif of the Tree of Jesse, in which a twisted tree rises from the chest of the now partly erased, reclining saint. Along the spreading branches, birdlike Augustinian friars, nuns and prelates emerge from huge blossoms, each figure identified by an inscribed banderole, now generally illegible.
The Genealogy of St. Monica is lighter and less crowded than that of St. Augustine, permitting more anecdotal detail. The black-robed sisters share their branches with a large crow? and numerous over-sized buds and pomegranates.
Along the south and west walls of the cloister, a sequence of dynamic scenes unfolds depicting the grisly fate of historic Augustinian martyrs.
Adjacent murals along the north walk illustrate the Spiritual Lineages of St. Augustine and his mother, St. Monica. Although such pictorial genealogies are not uncommon in mendicant monasteries, it is rare to find them paired in this way.
In graphic tableaux, deftly sketched in contrasting black and white tones, tonsured friars in black habits are variously speared or transfixed by arrows at the hands of brutal persecutors in white military togas.
Youths stone one stoic brother, while pious female onlookers sink to their knees in grief or prayer. Other meek friars are dragged one by one to their beheading, by a trio of muscular executioners under the merciless eye of a pagan potentate. (Calvary scene inset)
In another tableau, several friars stand in a giant cauldron atop a flaming fire, beside them a crowd of black robed Augustinians being set upon by their tormentors. The only other large cauldron appears in the Last Judgment mural at Acolman.
Unfortunately, the murals that occupied the corner niches of the cloister have been erased, except for the single fragment of an Ecce Homo in the southeast corner, which may indicate that the Passion cycle continued from the vestibule into the cloister at one time.
The “Thebaida” mural
The remaining large mural along the east walk, although only partial, seems to represent the Eremitic Life—a reference to Augustinian beginnings in the desert hermitages and monastic communities of “Thebaida,” a remote province of Egypt.
Unfortunately, the murals that occupied the corner niches of the cloister have been erased, except for the single fragment of an Ecce Homo in the southeast corner, which may indicate that the Passion cycle continued from the vestibule into the cloister at one time.
The remaining large mural along the east walk, although only partial, seems to represent the Eremitic Life—a reference to Augustinian beginnings in the desert hermitages and monastic communities of “Thebaida,” a remote province of Egypt.
Here, black robed friars engage in various activities against a wooded landscape.
This favorite Augustinian subject was frequently illustrated in the monasteries of the New World, where their missionary enterprise was viewed as a religious undertaking of equal significance to the early history and expansion of the Order—a theme embroidered by Fray Matías de Escobar in his baroque treatise Americana Thebaida, where he compares the seven Augustinian monasteries of Michoacán to the seven legendary pyramids of Egypt, and praises the architectural and spiritual harmony of Charo, where he once served as a well loved prior.
This favorite Augustinian subject was frequently illustrated in the monasteries of the New World, where their missionary enterprise was viewed as a religious undertaking of equal significance to the early history and expansion of the Order—a theme embroidered by Fray Matías de Escobar in his baroque treatise Americana Thebaida, where he compares the seven Augustinian monasteries of Michoacán to the seven legendary pyramids of Egypt, and praises the architectural and spiritual harmony of Charo, where he once served as a well loved prior.
Text © 2019 Richard D. Perry.
images by the author and courtesy of Niccolò Brooker and Robert Jackson.
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