Jose Joaquin Magon, pintor poblano: The Holy Trinity

As we noted in our initial post on the artist, Works by Magón are found throughout Puebla.  One interesting example is found in the parish church of Magdalena Quecholac, a former Franciscan mission church.

This representation of the Holy Trinity is closely based on a well known version by the eminent Mexican painter Cristóbal de Villalpando, located in the Puebla city church of El Carmen.

The Holy Trinity by Villalpando

Text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

color images from online sources

José Joaquín Magón, pintor poblano: La Santa Pulqueria

Another devotional painting by Magón with unusual subject matter is called La Santa Pulqueria (Pulcheria)*—a work commissioned for the Jesuit college of the Holy Spirit, now in the collection of the University Museum in Puebla.
   The back story to this complex painting lay in the aftermath of the earthquake that destroyed Lisbon in 1756, when Magón’s patron, Bishop Pantaleón Álvarez Abreu, ordered prayers and processions to avert similar catastrophes in Puebla, of which this work was to be a part.
   The pious Byzantine empress Pulcheria was the cofounder of Hagia Sophia basilica in Constantinople. Here she is represented holding the Church, with her family— husband of convenience Marciano, her three virgin sisters, her brother Emperor Theodosius II and her rival and sister-in-law Eudocia—and crushes heretics beneath her feet. The saint’s association with earthquakes, however, is not clear.
   It is also a puzzle that Magón, a painter who worked with such dedication to the Carmelites, agreed to paint one of his most important works for the Society of Jesus, a staunch enemy of the Order at the time.
*Although the saint is generally known as Pulcheria—a reference to her beauty—the Spanish spelling of the saint’s name, Pulqueria, more popularly refers in Mexico to a drinking house where pulque, the alcoholic maguey beverage is consumed.

Text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

color image © Tacho Juárez Herrera 

José Joaquín Magón, pintor poblano: San José de La Luz.

In the second half of the sixteenth century the Mexican Provincial Council declared Saint Joseph the patron of New Spain. The reevaluation of his figure in Europe coincided with the conquest of the new continent, so he began to be represented as a man of 30 years, a young saint who sponsored the nascent territory of the viceroyalty.
   The popular devotion to San José in New Spain grew during the second half of the18th century and generated some new images such as the invocation of San José de la Luz using the iconography of the Virgin Mary, a representation that was forbidden by the Holy Office in the territory of New Spain; This association of Joseph with Marian iconography was censored throughout New Spain by the Holy Inquisition, because of an ecclesiastical law that prevented the saints from sharing invocations.

painting of the Virgin of Light by José Joaquín Magón (Museo Soumaya, Mexico City) 

However, popular fervor prevailed over ecclesiastical dispositions. There was such a strong devotion to San José in the eighteenth century that the iconographic attributes given to the Virgin of Light were granted to the saint in some portrayals.

Thus, this oil on canvas of Saint Joseph of the Light by José Joaquín Magón shows the saint in an almost identical posture, holding his floral rod and carrying the baby Jesus. 

On one side an angel proffers a baskets of flaming hearts and like the Virgin in the earlier portrait, Joseph saves a soul from the jaws of Hell - a rare example of this representation.  Another local example is this tiled version from the church of La Luz in the city of Puebla:

Text © 2018 Richard D. Perry
color images by the author and from online sources

José Joaquín Magón, pintor poblano: Ocotlán

the sacristy of the Basilica of Ocotlán

Recently, six large canvases by José Joaquín Magón were identified in the sacristy of the ornate Basilica of Ocotlán in Tlaxcala. Painted in 1754 under commission from his great patron Pueblan Bishop Domingo Pantaleón Álvarez Abreu, they portray six scenes related to Christ’s Passion. Here are three of them:

The Last Supper (detail)

The Way of the Cross (Via Dolorosa)

Calvary (signed by the artist)

Signature and dedication 

Together with the other canvases, A Taking of Jesus (Kiss of Judas) a Flagelation and Crown of Thorns (Rey de Burlas), these paintings are under restoration.

Text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

color images from online sources

José Joaquín Magón, pintor poblano: Casta paintings

José Joaquín Magón was also known for his casta paintings, a wildly popular genre in the mid-1700s, intended to illustrate the bewildering hierarchy of racial mixtures in the New Spain of the time, a genre that as a man of mixed race he would have been drawn to.
   Ironically, the largest collection of his casta portraits is currently found outside Mexico: in the Museo de América, in Madrid, Spain, brought there from Mexico in 1772 by Francisco Antonio Lorenzana y Butrón, the then newly appointed archbishop of Toledo.

 

  

 

  

Recently restored these 16 canvases are all inscribed with the names of each racial group - some of them now viewed as demeaning or derogatory, especially concerning the lower echelons of the racial hierarchy.

 

 

 

 

Text © 2018 Richard D. Perry
color images from online sources

José Joaquín Magón, pintor poblano: El Carmen 2

As noted in our previous post, several cycles of paintings by Magón are found in the city Carmelite church of El Carmen and its chapels, including Passion scenes and a sequence on the life of St. John of the Cross, another Carmelite co-founder.

The Divine Prisoner or the Flagellation of Christ

The Last Supper (detail)

The Agony in the Garden with portrait of Magón patron Bishop Abreu

The Crucifixion

These Passion scenes are located in the former chapel of Santa Teresa, now El Santo Niño de Praga, at El Carmen. The next cycle depicting key scenes from the life of St. John of the Cross hangs in the eponymous chapel dedicated to the saint.

John of the Cross taking the Carmelite habit

 

The miracle of the Hat;                     St John celebrating Mass;

  

St John and the Demons;                       The Stigmatization of St John

Text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

color images from online sources

José Joaquin Magón, pintor poblano: El Carmen 1.

In recent posts on this blog we have looked at colonial artists in the Puebla region, members of a distinctive school of painting, several of whom were of humble origins—either mixed race or from an indigenous background.

   These included Miguel de Mendoza, Gregorio José de Lara and Pascual Pérez, and demonstrate that racial or social prejudices often came second to talent in the artistic milieu. 

In this new series we consider the life and selected works of another notable pintor poblano of lowly origins and great accomplishment, José Joaquín Magón, also known as a poet. Sometimes referred to as a mulato, or Afro-Mestizo, he was a member of the mixed race “casta militia” known as El Regimiento de Pardos—whose membership was often a path to greater social acceptance for artisans and others of mixed race.

While other details of his life are sparse, we know that he was born in Puebla and was active as a painter between 1740 and 1763. His busy workshop was a training ground for other promising poblano painters. Although the majority of his paintings are found in the Puebla area, others are located further afield in Mexico and even Spain.
   Magón worked in a number of genres including the popular casta paintings of the period, but much of his oeuvre was under commission from the religious orders, most notably the Carmelites.

We start our series on Magón with his commissions for the Carmelite Order.

A majority of his paintings for the Carmelites rest in the Order's complex in the city of Puebla: El Protomonasterio de las Carmelitas Descalzas de San José y Santa Teresa, commonly known as El Carmen.  These include large works in praise of the Order and its co-founder St Teresa of Avila.

Puebla Cathedral sacristy

Entitled Allegory of the patronage of the Virgin and St. Joseph of the Carmelite monastery in Puebla it includes a portrait of the Bishop Pantaleón Álvarez Abreu (circled) a prominent patron of the artist.

Magón's large canvas portraying the Carmelite Doctors, martyrs and confessors hangs in the city parish church of El Sagrario.

Another vast panel glorifying the Order rests in the Carmelite church museum of San Angel in Mexico City. This painting includes portraits of the Old Testament prophets Elijah and Elisha, who by tradition appeared with St Teresa as spiritual founders of the Order—a tradition viewed as heretical by the Jesuits, the great rivals of the Carmelites, and others.*

   Several other cycles of paintings by Magón are found in the city Carmelite churches, including Passion scenes and a sequence on the life of St. John of the Cross, another Carmelite co-founder, which we look at in our next post.
   It should be noted that Magón's paintings relating to Carmelite history and personages were seen as a form of propaganda and may be viewed as creating an essential narrative for the Order in their struggle for legitimacy against the Jesuits and others.

text © 2018 Richard D. Perry
color images from internet sources

* This controversy and its role in the painter's work has been explored in the recent book, “El pincel de Elías, José Joaquín Magón y la orden de Nuestra Señora del Carmen” by the Mexican art historian Alejandro Andrade Campos.

Text © 2018 Richard D. Perry

color images from online sources