HEAVENS ABOVE
The Painted Chapels of Michoacán, Mexico

By Richard Perry

http://www.colonial-mexico.com/Main/folkbaroque.html

Travelers to Michoacán usually head for the historic colonial towns of Morelia and Pátzcuaro.  The craft villages around Lake Pátzcuaro are a major attraction for their varied offerings of ceramics, furniture, musical instruments, copper artifacts, etc, fashioned by native Tarascan craftsmen since the 1500s. 
   In addition to these traditional crafts, most indigenous villages enjoy a long social and cultural history, as exemplified by their vernacular buildings and especially the early colonial missions. 
   A unique feature of the colonial mission in Michoacán that set it apart from those elsewhere in Mexico was its community hospital compound or yurishio. In the 16th century, under the impetus of the beloved Bishop Vasco de Quiroga, still revered as tata vasco, these hospitals were designed by Franciscan and Augustinian missionaries to serve the native Tarascans, or purépecha people of the region as self sustaining "missions within missions" — attached to but separate from the friars' churches and conventos.
   The main focus of each walled hospital was its chapel, commonly called a guatapera—after the traditional women's house that formed part of the ancient Tarascan community before the arrival of the Spaniards. The chapels were thus invariably dedicated to the Virgin Mary —usually portrayed as La Inmaculada, The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, or La Purísima, the Queen of Heaven.
   Many of these early chapels still stand, in varying states of preservation. Although generally humble in appearance, modest in their construction and with plain exteriors, by contrast the chapel interiors were often lavishly furnished with gilded altars and often decorated with impressive painted wooden ceilings and choirs — a feature largely unique to Michoacán. 
   Paneled wooden ceilings are suspended from tiled beamed roofs and usually take the form of a multifaceted or hipped ceiling with curved or sloping sections, braced by tie beams.  The panels are individually painted, framed by carved or painted ribs.
   Although the themes vary, many of these painted ceilings illustrate biblical stories and personages, most often in relation to the life of the Virgin Mary and in some instances verses from popular litanies to the Virgin, commonly the Litany of Loreto.
   While some of these ceilings remain in poor condition, victims of neglect and the ravages of time, others have been splendidly restored in recent years. In 2002 the World Monuments Fund added these chapels to its list of endangered monuments, and a number of Mexican conservation agencies, public and private, have banded together with local residents to undertake the conservation of these murals.  Work has been completed at some chapels, and is in progress at others. More remain to be restored.

"Photographer Carolyn Brown, filmmaker Quin Mathews and art writer/illustrator Richard Perry, all long time observers of Mexico, its arts and customs, have now combined their talents to bring these exceptional chapel ceilings to a larger public in a forthcoming multimedia exhibit entitled Heavens Above: The Painted Chapels of Michoacán.
Visit this web site as well as http://www.colonial-mexico.com/ for more details as the project unfolds."