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Saturday, June 29, 2019

Barroco Poblano: Santiago Chignahuapan

We finish up our current series on the popular baroque churches of Puebla with a visit to the former Franciscan church of Santiago Apostol Chignahuapan near Zacatlan in northern Puebla. 
The present church was rebuilt in the mid-1700s and updated again later in the early 1800s. 
 
The recently restored painted facade is another striking example of popular taste, framed by estípite inspired pilasters interspersed in folkloric style with colorful stucco reliefs of fruits and foliage.
Although the sculpture niches are currently empty, a dramatic painted equestrian relief of the militant patron Santiago adorns the crowning gable, mounted on his steed with flying cloak and banner.
 
In the nave stands a handsome gilded retablo, also fashioned in ornate late baroque style with estípite pilasters. Statues of Franciscan saints accompany the figure of the Archangel Michael in the upper niche, trampling the devil beneath his feet.
text © 2019 Richard D. Perry
color photography © Niccolo Brooker and online sources.

Please review our earlier posts on the folk baroque churches of Puebla: San Jeronimo AljojucaSanta Inez XanenetlaTlancualpican;  Santa Ana JolalpanSanta Maria Jolalpan;  San Simón Quecholac; San Pablo de Las Tunas; Chiautzingo;

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Barroco poblano: San Lorenzo Chiautzingo

San Lorenzo Chiautzingo, the church through the atrium gateway.
San Lorenzo Chiautzingo is an agricultural community in southeastern Puebla, not far from Atzompa.

The church boasts two imposing towers and a retablo style facade reworked in popular fashion with paired, fluted columns and a variety of colorful reliefs of saints and angels.
 
Relief statues beside the choir window represent the patron St Lawrence the martyr, here clothed in red dalmatics signifying his position as a deacon or bishop. Neither figure holds the grill that is the signature attribute of the saint, although his image inside the church does.
St Lawrence with his grill and martyr's palm on the main altar.

An imposing ornamental lantern caps the tiled dome of the church.

Please review our earlier posts on the folk baroque churches of Puebla: San Jeronimo AljojucaSanta Inez XanenetlaTlancualpican;  Santa Ana JolalpanSanta Maria Jolalpan;  San Simón Quecholac; San Pablo de Las Tunas; Atzompa


text © 2019 Richard D. Perry
color images courtesy of Niccolo Brooker and from online sources

Sunday, June 23, 2019

Barroco Poblano: Ahuacatlan


   
The hillside church of San Juan Bautista Ahuacatlan (Place of Avocadoes) is also located in the misty Sierra Norte region of Puebla.
Its colorful folk baroque retablo facade is set with spiral columns, framing lavish foliated niches with angel reliefs & statuary, and painted in strong, changing colors:  red/blues; red, brown, cream.


  
Sts. Paul and Peter
Statuary includes figures of the patron saint John the Baptist, as well as Sts. Peter, Paul and the Four Evangelists.
The refurbished nave contains several altarpieces in popular baroque style similar to the facade, framed with gilded spiral columns.  The main retablo, also dedicated to John the Baptist, features a large folkloric painting of the Archangel Michael along with a statue of the patron.
  
John the Baptist and St Michael
Several side altars along the nave are framed in similar style, with spiral columns and carved detail.
  
text © 2019 Richard D. Perry
images © Niccolo Brooker, with acknowledgment

Please review our earlier posts on the folk baroque churches of Puebla: San Jeronimo AljojucaSanta Inez XanenetlaTlancualpican;  Santa Ana JolalpanSanta Maria Jolalpan;  San Simón Quecholac; San Pablo de Las Tunas; 

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Barroco Poblano: SAN PEDRO TECOMATLAN

After the mid-1700s, the influential Pueblan baroque was in turn influenced by newer fashions, notably the Mexican Churrigueresque or barroco estípite style, which spread from Mexico City to the silver cities of the north, and south to the colonial cultural capital of Puebla. Strongly influenced by the stucco facade of La Compañía (date) in the city of Puebla, in the late 1700s this new style reached its popular apogee in a handful of other rural churches such as Acatzingo, Aljojuca and San Pablo de las Tunas in the central part of the state.
However, the distant plain of southern Puebla, known regionally as la mixteca poblana, seems an unlikely place to find this decorative example of the late Pueblan baroque. Although the parish church of San Pedro Tecomatlán dates back to 1500s, it was substantially rebuilt in the latter years of the 18th century, and fitted with an elaborate facade in the still fashionable Mexican Churrigueresque style.
 
San Pedro Tecomatlan facade before and after recent restoration
The Facade
Although the architect and source of funding for this ornate church front is so far unknown, the facade is remarkable for its profusion of statuary and relief ornament in a popular folk idiom. The decorative center facade is framed by its two pairs of elaborate estípites, decorated with herms and grotesque masks. Prominent niche-pilasters (interestípites) in carved stone and modeled stucco feature the statues of the Four Evangelists, housed in swagged niches complete with their associated symbols, and quill pens held aloft.
A naive, frontal figure of St. Peter (San Pedro) rests in a plain niche over the doorway. Above the "bulls-eye" choir window, a group of flying angels in 16th century style surround a curtained upper niche which contains another small statue. A pair of large, naked atlantes support the crowning gable. Every element is densely ornamented with delirious swirls of vegetation & scrollwork.
St Mark
Unfortunately, some of these figures have been mutilated in recent years, notably St. Matthew's faceless angel. and St. Mark's now headless lion.
St Matthew
Text © Richard D. Perry 2005/2019
Color images ©2004 Felipe Falcón, by special permission.

Please review our earlier posts on the folk baroque churches of Puebla: San Jeronimo AljojucaSanta Inez XanenetlaTlancualpican;  Santa Ana JolalpanSanta Maria Jolalpan;  San Simón Quecholac; San Pablo de Las Tunas; 

Friday, June 14, 2019

Barroco Poblano: San Pablo de Las Tunas


We continue our series on the popular baroque churches of Puebla with a visit to the former Franciscan visita of San Pablo de Las Tunas, aka Felipe Angeles, set among cactus fields in the east central part of the state near Acatzingo.
  
The Church
Aside from its rustic name, the village of San Pablo (St. Paul of the Cactus Fruits) is mainly remarkable for the picturesque colonial church, situated on its western outskirts. Founded in the 1500s, the church was entirely refaced during the 1700s in a style strikingly similar to the renovated parish church of nearby Acatzingo, possibly by the same designer or artisans.
   The ornate "folk baroque" facade is divided into three tiers of carved, molded and colorfully painted stucco. Bold spiral columns, some capped with busts of angels, divide the lower two tiers, whose four large niches, now vacant, are festooned with drapes and putti.
The complex top tier is an elaborately scrolled gable whose sinuous profile is made even more conspicuous with the addition of several ornamental urns or pinnacles. The central niche, framed by flamboyant rocaille decoration, retains its bulto of San Pablo, and is flanked by exuberant folk estípite pilasters, once again entwined with carved foliage, from which emerge numerous winged cherubs and saints' heads. 
   Filled with other decorative motifs, including rosettes, scrolls, shells and assorted objects - their details freshly picked out in bright reds, blues and earth colors - the church front is beautifully maintained and a feast for the eye. Its symmetry is offset by the mismatched towers and an added belfry, although this merely adds to its offbeat charm.
The Main Retablo
This extraordinarily ornate gilded altarpiece provides yet another surprise in this rural community. Designed in full blown Mexican Churrigueresque style, it is far more sophisticated in its intricate, layered forms and masterful execution than the folk baroque facade, and indicates the work of an accomplished urban taller, or workshop, probably in Puebla or even Mexico City. 
  
The figure of the patron St. Paul appears in the upper niche, while another image is that of a sorrowful Jesus, known as El Señor de la Paciencia.
 
The baptismal fonts are also items of interest in the church. One venerable example, rimmed with fleurs-de-lis and the Franciscan knotted cord, stands beneath the choir. And the basin of a second font is ringed with an unusual crown of thorns relief—a motif more common on stone crosses—and set on a base carved with an archangel.
 text © 2019 by Richard D. Perry
color images by the author and Niccolò Brooker
Please review our earlier posts on the folk baroque churches of Puebla: San Jeronimo AljojucaSanta Inez XanenetlaTlancualpican;  Santa Ana JolalpanSanta Maria Jolalpan;  San Simón Quecholac; San Pablo de Las Tunas; 

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Barroco Poblano: San Miguel Xoxtla

Although there was primitive chapel here, dedicated to the supposed local appearance of the Archangel Michael, as early as the mid-16th century, the present church, recently rehabilitated, dates from 1775, according to a plaque inside.
The atrium gateway, encrusted with sinuous carved stucco ornament, anticipates the treatment of the popular baroque church front, with reliefs of saints Peter and Paul in the spandrels above the archway.

 
The gateway also features a relief of the patron saint, St Michael, dressed in green, as well as a basalt cross atop the gable carved with Passion symbols. 

San Miguel reappears in the church facade gable, again clad in green, together with two other archangels—St. Raphael and the Guardian Angel—flanking the choir window below. 
Another sculpted basalt cross surmounts the facade. 
 Please review our earlier posts on the folk baroque churches of Puebla: San Jeronimo AljojucaSanta Inez XanenetlaTlancualpican;  Santa Ana JolalpanSanta Maria Jolalpan;  San Simón Quecholac; San Pablo de Las Tunas; Atzompa


text © 2019 Richard D. Perry
color images courtesy of Niccolo Brooker and from online sources

Friday, June 7, 2019

Barroco Poblano: San Agustin Atzompa revived

We return to our ongoing series on popular baroque churches in the state of Puebla, with a visit to colorful San Agustín Atzompa.
Perched on the lower slopes of the volcano Ixtaccihuatl on the Puebla side, The pueblo of San Agustín Atzompa was badly rattled by the earthquake of 9/2017. Repairs to the damaged church front have recently been completed, and its partially tiled facade newly repainted in vibrant pinks and blues.
The stuccoed center facade is framed in ornate rococo style with estípite pilasters incorporating angel heads, carved foliage and relief figures, flanked by colorful statues of archangels. The facade terminates in a scrolled mixtlinear baroque gable. A classic of the popular Pueblan baroque.
Please review our earlier posts on the folk baroque churches of Puebla: San Jeronimo Aljojuca;  Santa Inez XanenetlaTlancualpican;  Santa Ana JolalpanSanta Maria Jolalpan;  San Simón Quecholac;
text © 2019 Richard D. Perry
images courtesy of Niccolo Brooker 

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Another Drowned church: San Antonio Corrales

Situated close to the shores of Lake Vicente Aguirre in northern Hidalgo near Alfajayucan, the abandoned church, or chapel, of San Antonio is periodically inundated by the waters of this man made lake behind the Vicente Aguirre dam.
 
Much of the church remains intact. Its plain facade is capped by a triangular pediment and flanked by a still elegant triple tier bell tower.

A domed crossing rises above the nave, whose stained interior walls bear traces of former murals, although their subjects are now undecipherable.
Please visit our other posts on Mexican drowned churches:  Jalapa del MarquésSan Juan de Las PerasQuechula; Santo Tomás de los Platanos; San Antonio de Padilla; Taxhimay; Zangarro/Churumuco

text © 2019 Richard D. Perry. images by Niccolo Brooker and from online sources