Exploring Colonial Mexico©
Exploring Colonial Mexico©
art in peril
Some years ago, this spectacular painting of the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden was stolen from the little church at San Juan Tepemazalco, a small, tightly knit community located northeast of Mexico City near Zempoala, in the state of Hidalgo.
With two others, the painting promptly disappeared into the murky depths of the international art market, but in 2004, it was located in the collection of the San Diego Museum of Art. Following an intense investigation, the provenance of the art work was confirmed and, under its new director Derrick Cartwright, the museum offered to return the painting, after conservation by the museum at its own expense.
Although the offer of conservation was not taken up, in August 2006, SDMA handed over the painting to Mexican officials in a brief ceremony. Final arrangements are under way for its return to Mexico and the people of Tepemazalco. While it is heartening that this remarkable painting will soon be back in Mexico - one of the few stolen colonial art works to be recovered - the two other art works from Tepemazalco are still missing.
The Expulsion from the Garden
While the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden is a common theme in Christian art, this depiction is one of the most original in the colonial art of Mexico. Dated 1728, the painting is a wonderful example of popular religious art at its most imaginative. Its fresh, colorful palette stands in striking contrast to the dark tones of most painting of the period.
In the upper part of the painting, a heavenly vault guarded by archangels - possibly a representation of the celestial City of Jerusalem - opens to a view of Eden at the time of the Creation. God is portrayed in several scenes creating Adam, and then Eve from Adam's side, in an idyllic landscape of orchards and peaceable birds and beasts.
The lower section shows the Expulsion, again in a lacustrine landcape of trees and volcanic peaks alive with a variety of birds, beasts and fishes - some acutely observed, but others imagined but obviously never seen by the artist.
The Archangel Michael, resplendent in windblown red, blue and green costuming, drives Adam, Eve and the snake forth with his fiery sword, and the dove of the Holy Spirit hovers above the scene, almost lost among the flocks of birds in the sky.
Although clearly stylized, the earthly landscape is surely intended to represent the Valley of Mexico and Lake Texcoco as they might have appeared in the early 1700s - a theme echoed in the recently discovered early 16th century mural at Tlatelolco, in which the lakeside environment is also nostalgically pictured as an idyllic Garden of Eden.
Conservation experts from INAH have succeeded in fully restoring the painting. This involved removing overpainting added by the thieves, and reintegrating the stolen canvas with that part left behind when the thieves cut the painting from its originalframe. Fortunately, according to conservation officals, permanent damage to the work of art now appears to be minimal. Hopefully the painting will soon be returned to its ancestral village of Tepemazalco. Read a fuller report (Spanish)
