Pascual Perez: San José de Puebla

We continue with our survey of the colonial painter Pascual Pérez* to look at his works in the city of Puebla, his principal workplace.

San José

In another earlier post we looked at the historic tiled city church of San José and its sumptuous chapel of the Nazarene.The arcaded church interior is replete with numerous late colonial works of art. 
   We previously lauded the spectacular sequence of gilded baroque altarpieces lining the aisles along the nave as one the finest in Mexico, many featuring outstanding sculptures and paintings by Puebla’s celebrated colonial artists, including the eminent painter Miguel Jerónimo Zendejas among others.

   Our special interest here, however, is in two groups of paintings by the earlier master Pascual Pérez  “El Mixtequito,” whose work we saw at San Andrés Cholula.

The Raising of the Cross

The Passion Paintings
Two large canvases by Pérez hang in the vestibule of the main church. These include a Raising of the Cross, after Rubens, and a melancholy Deposition or Lamentation, both signed by the artist and suggestive of his mid career work (circa 1700) 
   Both paintings employ groups of figures—more dynamic in the Raising canvas—and the use of rich, predominantly red hues.

The Deposition or Lamentation

The Virgin Martyrs
A second, rather more unusual series, currently placed in the camarín of the Virgin in San José, comprises six portraits of female martyrs of the early church.  Only one is signed by Pérez.
   In each case they are pictured graphically suffering their associated torments or gory deaths, posed against dark, obscure backgrounds, while an angel descends with the martyr's crown and palm. 

  

St. Agatha;                                      St. Bibiana

 

St. Leocardia (signed)                             St. Lucy

  

St. Quiteria;                        St. Susanna

* Pascual Pérez , "El Mixtequito," was a prolific, leading light in the Pueblan school of painting, active in the later 1600s and early 1700s. His work covers a broad range of religious subjects and is found in churches and collections in the city of Puebla and its environs, including Cholula. His interment in Puebla cathedral attests to his regional prominence at his death in 1731.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

our appreciation and grateful acknowledgment of the use of his images go to Tacho Juárez Herrera, who tracked down and photographed most of Pascual Perez' known works.

Pascual Pérez: San Andrés Cholula

The ancient city of Cholula is located about 15 km west of the city of Puebla and is divided into two principal parishes: San Andrés Cholula and San Pedro Cholula.

Although the gray, stone facade of San Andrés Cholula recalls the somber front of Puebla cathedral, its baroque interior and the exuberant Capilla del Sagrario are closer in feeling to the ornate Rosary Chapel of Santo Domingo in that city.  San Andrés is also renowned for its many works of fine art, including paintings by regional baroque artists like Antonio Santander.

Pascual Pérez *

In this post, the second in a series, we focus on a group of paintings by the prominent Pueblan artist Pascual Pérez (1663 - 1731) also called El Mixtequito, because of his presumed Oaxacan origins. 
   Here at San Andrés we find the largest known collection of the artist’s work and the most varied in scale and subject—giving a valuable insight into his range, style and painterly skills.

The Retablo of St. John Nepomuk
Although named for a 14th century Bohemian saint and martyr, and prominently featuring his image, this baroque altarpiece is essentially dedicated to the Virgin Mary, as its five paintings of scenes from her life demonstrate. All five are securely attributed to Pérez, and at least two are signed by the artist.

  

Framed by gilded spiral columns, the two principal canvases of the altarpiece illustrate the Visitation and the Annunciation. A Mannerist palette of reds, greens, pinks and blues enlivens the composition, notably in the elaborate robes of the Virgin Mary. Although none are dated, they are characteristic of Pérez' later work, post 1700.

On the upper level, a radiant portrait of the crowned Virgin and Child, posed as Our Lady of Refuge, is flanked by triangular panels of the Nativity and Circumcision of Christ.

  

Several other large, individual canvases by Pascual Pérez, some restored, hang in various locations in the church and chapel. 

   These include a Holy Trinity, again with flowing garments in vivid red and blues; and a Christ at Calvary inscribed with the date 1691. While the ground is littered with skull and bones, red roofed palaces and churches fill the background of what was by tradition a desolate site. Both are relatively early works by Pérez, pre 1700.

   

Another pair of paintings, The Nativity of the Virgin and her Presentation in the Temple, are sharply detailed with some chiaroscuro effects—again suggesting early works.

And an unpretentious composition of Jacob’s Ladder, with well observed details has a more rustic flavor. 

Finally, hanging beneath the church choir is a expansive, semicircular canvas of the Last Judgment with St. Francis and St. Michael, also attributed to Pérez, with graphic depictions of the Saved and the Damned—His most ambitious work in San Andrés.

 

The damned and the mouth of Hell

* Pascual Pérez , "El Mixtequito," was a prolific, leading light in the Pueblan school of painting, active in the later 1600s and early 1700s. His work covers a broad range of religious subjects and is found in churches and collections in the city of Puebla and its environs, including Cholula. His interment in Puebla cathedral attests to his regional prominence at his death in 1731.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

our appreciation and grateful acknowledgment of the use of his images go to Tacho Juárez Herrera, who tracked down and photographed most of Pascual Perez' known works.

Pascual Pérez: Pueblan Painter

In a series of posts on our sister blog, we looked at the Pueblan painter Miguel de Mendoza, a native of the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, whose work is found both in Puebla and Oaxaca.

Another painter of reputedly humble Oaxacan/Mixtecan origins who later achieved prominence in the Puebla region and beyond was Pascual Pérez (1663—1731) popularly known as El Mixtequito (the little Mixtecan). 

   Although a mestizo, or possibly belonging to the indigenous nobility like his contemporary Mendoza, and with a former slave for a wife (whose freedom he bought for 230 gold pesos), Pérez became leading light in the Pueblan school of painting both as an artist and guild official, His interment in Puebla cathedral at his death attests to his high artistic and social standing.
   Active in the later 1600s and early 1700s, his style changed with the times over these transformative decades in Mexican art. The lingering naturalism and tenebrista effects in his early work gradually gave way, with the arrival of the new century, to the influence of the European high baroque.
   Ambitious compositions on a grand scale of artists like Rubens, also affected Pérez’ Mexican contemporaries like Juan Correa and Cristóbal de Villalpando. While the Andalusian palette and
Mannerist print sources still played a role among Pueblan painters, the sharper, more realistic focus of the early baroque gave way to a softer, more idealized manner, without losing the popular, genre aspects beloved of earlier colonial painters and muralists. 
   In many ways the Puebla school more fully embodies a truly national as well as regional style, and one that is increasingly inclusive if we consider the humbler native origins of artists like Correa, Mendoza and Perez, and Miguel Cabrera in the generation to follow.

   His prolific output covers a broad range of religious subjects and is found in churches and collections across the city of Puebla and its environs, and beyond, as far as Mexico City and Santa Fe, New Mexico:
Churches:
San José de Puebla
San Gregorio Zacapechpan,
St. Francis Cathedral, Santa Fe
Templo Conventual del Carmen, Cd. de Puebla
Templo de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria y de Guadalupe Xonaca, Puebla
San Andrés Cholula
San Pedro Cholula
Collections:
Museo de Arte Religioso Santa Mónica, Puebla
Museo Universitario de Puebla
Museo Casa del Alfeñique, Cdad de Puebla
Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico City
Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City

We will cover Pérez' works in these locations, starting next with a review of his paintings in the church of San Andrés Apostol, in Cholula, Puebla—one of the largest and most varied collections of his work.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

Yucatán. the lost murals of San Bernardino

San Bernardino de Sisal is one of the handful of great 16th century Franciscan monasteries in Yucatán. Founded in 1552 and sited atop a vast underground cenote, it was dedicated to Bernardine of Siena the noted 15th-century Italian preacher and reformer, known as the "second founder" of the Franciscan Order.
   Among its other treasures, the church is noted for its remarkable group of wooden altarpieces, fabricated in a variety of styles that span the colonial period. We described these in a previous post.

The Sanctuary Murals
With the removal for restoration of two altarpieces that faced each other across the raised sanctuary, previously unknown murals were discovered in the niches behind the retablos. 
    Originally containing statuary, these decorated niches are thought to date from the 16th or early 17th centuries and are dramatically painted in bright tones of crimson, orange and a vibrant “Maya” blue.

Christ in Triumph
On the north side, the area above the sculpture niche is covered with a lively tableau illustrating Christ in Majesty.

Raising his cross, Christ wearing a red sash of triumph presides over a host of saints and martyrs. Larger portraits of individual saints extend down both sides.

Above and below the niche, a celestial orchestra of angels sing and play flutes and a variety of string instruments.

 

Female saints flank the niche on either side, of whom St. Catherine of Alexandria on the left, a Franciscan favorite, is best preserved.

The Baptism of Christ 
In the opposite niche, angels hold up a dark blue curtain in the center of which the Baptism is portrayed against a tapestry like fringed red ground. 

The naively drawn, near naked figures of Jesus and John the Baptist find an echo in the nude angels holding a lamb and a banner of triumph on either side below, while God the Father looks down from the arch above the niche amid celestial clouds and angels.

As in the previous mural, an orchestra of angels plays overhead.

Text © 2018 Richard D. Perry.  
mural images by the author, Niccolo Brooker and Charlotte Ekland

Yucatán. the Camarín murals at Tabí

Tabi, the sacred cenote and shrine chapel

One day in the early 1600s, the astounded villagers of Tabí, in eastern Yucatan, witnessed an apparition of the Virgin Mary rising from the town cenote, formerly sacred to an ancient Mayan water goddess. Soon afterwards, the Virgin miraculously reappeared, this time carrying to safety a horseman whose mount had lost its footing at the brink threatening to plunge him into the watery depths. 

The Virgin of Tabí

A painted image of the miracle-working Virgin of the Assumption soon became the focus of a popular cult, attracting followers here from across the region. This led to a large scale reconstruction of the church and, behind its beautiful, new main altarpiece, an elevated camarín to house the image of the Virgin.

Tabí, the restored camarín retablo (detail)

The Camarín Murals
Although the image of the Virgin has gone, a cycle of elaborate, later 17th century murals covers the walls of the empty camarín raised behind the main altar. Until recently in dire condition, together with the camarín retablo, they have been fully restored by the conservation agency Adopte una Obra de Arte.

Niccolò Brooker

Set in a dramatic matrix of swirling foliage with giant rocaille flourishes and floral strapwork, three large narrative panels adorn the upper walls of the rectangular chamber. 

    Vigorously drawn with sharply observed perspective and much anecdotal detail, and rendered in a narrow color range of red, brown and yellow ocher, with some blue areas, they illustrate events in the life of the Virgin in a rustic baroque style adapted from print sources.

The Presentation in the Temple (Niccolò Brooker)

Scenes include the Presentation in the Temple, on the south wall of the camarín, and a partial Flight from Jerusalem? on the north wall.

Flight from Jerusalem? detail (Niccolò Brooker)

The most arresting of the three panels depicts the Nativity of the Virgin. St. Anne, with the infant Mary in the child bed in the background, is attended by angels. These include, unusually, St. Michael at center, who spears a writhing, winged demon with his trident—a prophetic sign that the birth of the Virgin Mary will lead to the vanquishing of the Devil.

The Devil

Below the narrative panels, on the lower walls, life size folkloric angels in swirling robes sing songs of praise and play period wind instruments, including horns and a bassoon. 

 

Niccolò Brooker

The restored vault of the camarín is elaborately painted with passages of bold, writhing foliage in monochrome, crisscrossed by broad rib like bands. The sun and moon at the apex—symbols of the Virgin—provide the only touch of color.

text and graphic © 2018  Richard D. Perry
color images by the author, Niccolò Brooker and Adopte una Obra de Arte

other colonial murals in Yucatan: Dzidzantun;