The San Gabriel Stations of the Cross from an Art-Historical Perspective

THOMAS O. PELZEL

VEN for the most casual observer, the Reformation on the visual arts as a stimulus to E cycle of the Stations of the Cross in the piety and faith. By the late Baroque period, the Museum of the Mission San Gabriel Arch­ episodes along the Road to Calvary had angel is a compelling visual encounter. For the become standardized to the Fourteen Stations. art historian, it offers as well a fascinating This familiar convention is followed in the exercise in speculation as to what extent the Stations ofthe Cross at Mission San Gabriel. painter, presumably the Indian neophyte Juan Obviously our painter had access to an Antonio, was attempting to follow, as best he illustrated cycle of the Stations. The represen­ could, a European prototype representing the tation of religious subject matter in Spanish agonies of Christ on the Road to Calvary and art, especially during the seventeenth and to what degree we may assume the ingredient eighteenth centuries, was generally prescribed of his native imagination and expressive by established convention, and it is hardly to be power. Quite obviously, both factors are imagined that the fathers of the Mission San involved. Fernando Rey de Espaiia, where this cycle was The tradition of the Stations of the Cross originally painted, would have left a neophyte as a means of encouraging contemplation on Indian painter to his own imagination in the significance of Christ's suffering on the Via interpreting so sober a theme as the Stations of Crucis has a long and complex history.' From the Cross. Very likely, as Dr. Phillips suggests earliest medieval times, pilgrims had prayer­ in his accompanying article, Juan Antonio fully traced the steps of Christ along the road would have had access to a series of woodcuts to Calvary. The convention of arranging in in a religious book of (presumably) Spanish churches pictorial or sculptural representa­ origin. tions of episodes of Christ's path to Crucifix­ The First Station (representing Jesus ion gradually arose as a means whereby Condemned Before Pilate) offers clear evi­ pilgrims could relive their pilgrimage, or as dence of such a European prototype. The objects of devotion for those unable to painting conflates two distinct scenes from the undertake the trip to the Holy Land. The Passion of Christ: the Scourging of Christ by Stations of the Cross were especially popular the soldiers, and His condemnation at the among the Franciscans and their followers, hands of Pilate. At the right, dressed in a loin and were given even wider sanction following cloth, the scourged Christ is tied to a short the Council of Trent in the late sixteenth pillar, mocked and flagellated by the soldiers. century, with the new emphasis ofthe Counter- The Scourging, as an episode extracted from 116 THE JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA ANTHROPOLOGY the Passion and underscoring Christ's physical finger to his nose. In the European tradition abasement as a stimulus to empathetic con­ (e.g., in Hieronymus Bosch's scenes of the templation on the part of the Christian Mocking of Christ) this gesture is one of beholder, is a familiar theme in Spanish art of contempt and derision, generally directed the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The toward the Savior. In the Near Eastern curious shape of the column, reminiscent of a tradition, this same gesture is one of deference chess figure, is too identical with the stubby and respect. Directed toward Pilate in this column (believed by tradition to have also scene, the latter meaning is more probable. In served as a support for the shed of the Nativity) any event, we note in this scene and indeed traditional in Spanish representations of the throughout the cycle a careful attention on the Scourging to have been an independent part of the painter to expressive gesture. invention on the part of the artist. We must Other instances of the artist's dependence assume that such a scene was represented in the upon (and simultaneous independence from) woodcut prototype. Similarly, the representa­ his presumed prototype merit brief comment. tion of Pontius Pilate closely follows European A strong diagonal line beneath the feet ofthe tradition. He is seated on a raised podium, soldiers before Pilate, dividing the surface into approached by two circular steps. As a two adjacent color fields, has no logical backdrop, two blood-red curtains have been explanation except as the ghost of a receding parted and tied in complex, billowing folds at orthogonal line establishing a spatial recession the corners of the stage-like podium. This is a in the original. The painter seems to have virtually ubiquitous device in European misunderstood or ignored this element as a Baroque painting. Again, the inclusion ofthe means of suggesting illusionistic depth of field descriptive caption (1^ Estacion: Casa de and has rendered it as a purely decorative Pilato) with its stylized Rococo floral border division of painted surface. Indeed, through­ within the painting itself suggests an ornate out the cycle, concepts of space, weight, and eighteenth century woodblock, in which the gravity are largely ignored. The figures appear border assumes a degree of decorative to float before spaceless surfaces and two- embellishment inseparable from the scene dimensional architectural props. This is itself. Whatever the source of this element in especially evident in the figure of Christ, in the First Station, it is significant that in the which the left leg disappears "behind" the subsequent scenes in the cycle, Juan Antonio column, while the foot incongruously appears wisely chose to avoid this decorative aside and in "front" of the base, resulting in the illusion to concentrate on the dramatic pathos inherent of a floating column. in the history of Christ's Passion. The subtle use of the language of gesture, A curious factor in this, and indeed in most so fully developed in European Baroque art, of the scenes, is the seemingly Oriental garb of again suggests a prototype behind this scene. the soldiers. The knee-breeches, the padded The gestures of the soldiers at the far right doublets, the "Phrygian" caps or helmets, the concentrate attention on the figure of Christ; almond-shaped eyes, all suggest a debt to Near the extended arm of the tall figure in center Eastern miniatures which, unless we are to field, reinforced by the white banner behind assume an influence filtered through inter­ the arm, leads the eye to the pair immediately mediate prototypes (that a Near Eastern before Pilate; their gestures in turn lead toward miniature would in fact have found its way to Pilate, finding an echo in the answering gesture California defies all probability), remains of Pilate's hand. The division of thepersonnae unexplainable. Equally curious is the gesture into such compact and coordinated sub­ of the one soldier facing Pilate, with his index groups almost certainly presupposes a proto- STATIONS OF THE CROSS 117 type which Juan Antonio has deftly adapted to expressive vocabulary ofthe artist is manifest his own use. in such details as the floating horse and rider in To underscore his debt—and his partial the upper center field. The brooding black misunderstanding of—this unidentified proto­ horse with its'almost demonic eyes, delineated type is by no means to deny an independent with amazing economy and control in simple, expressive power on the part of the painter. white outline, is indeed worthy of the Quite the contrary. The figure of Christ, for all tormented animals of Picasso's Guernica. of the naivite of his spatial definition, is a Station Three (Jesus Falls for the First strikingly powerful image. Rendered consider­ Time) is perhaps even more expressive. The ably smaller than the surrounding soldiers, the Holy Women, observing the tragic sequence diminutive stature of Christ, combined with from a bleacher-like structure at the right, is the moving expression of humility and again a common detail in Spanish representa­ submission in the face, suggests a degree of tions of the Passion, and the evasive mystery of sympathy with the lonely sufferings of the expression in their faces immediately calls to Savior at least as convincing and moving as the mind the maidens (both holy and secular) in more sophisticated representations of the the works of Goya. The striking decorative Scourging in the mainstream of European motif of the stylized floral patterns in the Baroque painting. architectural structure immediately behind the In Station Two (Christ is Made to Carry fallen Christ may well have been suggested by the Cross) we again detect the influence of a eighteenth century Spanish ceramics or their visual prototype in the carefully balanced sym­ Colonial imitations. metry of grouping in the figures to the far right The expressive power of the figure on and far left. In the upper right corner, we see an horseback at the upper left, however, seems to abbreviated suggestion of an architectural be a factor of the painter's own imagination. backdrop, a composite pilaster bearing a triple Perhaps the most haunting single feature in the entablature which breaks forward toward the entire cycle, this figure, whose eyes reflect a corner of the painting. This is a standard demented delight in the Savior's sufferings, feature of European Baroque architecture and might easily hold its own among the ghoul­ hardly a decorative innovation on the part of ish mockers of Christ in the paintings of the painter. Upon closer inspection, one is also the twentieth century Belgian Expressionist, struck by the far more careful rendering of the James Ensor. garment of Christ, with the pocket of shadow In the short space of this note, it will of captured within the protruding fold over the course be impossible to treat each of the 14 hip. The isolated figure of Christ bearing the Stations individually. But even so cursory a cross was a frequent theme in Spanish and discussion will underscore something of the Colonial sculpture. One wonders if such a diversity and the expressive range of the cycle. sculpted figure might not have been familiar to Station Six (Veronica Wipes the Face of Juan Antonio; this would account for the more Christ) is the most ambitious of these sculptural grasp of form in the drapery of paintings, at least in terms of the artist's Christ in this instance (and repeated within attempt to emulate such "academic" concepts narrow variations in Stations Four, Five, and as foreshortening and the rendering of the Eight), in contrast to the totally flat color field human body in incisive action. Here the cross which describes the form of the man— is diagonally deployed in space, as opposed to presumably Simon the Cyrenian—who assists its placement parallel to the surface plane of Christ in bearing the cross. the canvas in most of the other scenes in the But here again, the apparently independent cycle. Careful attention is paid to suggesting 118 THE JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA ANTHROPOLOGY * the full cubic dimensions of the cross, i.e., by a thin jet of Christ's blood. Both elements—the the simultaneous depiction of two surfaces of sun and moon, and the stress upon the saving the beams, meeting at illusionistically convinc­ blood of Christ—date all the way back to ing right angles. In contrast to the rest of the Byzantine iconography (although in Byzantine cycle, it is indeed almost a tour-de-force of art the eucharistic significance of the Blood is perspectival draftsmanship. Equally striking is underscored by a hovering angel capturing the the semi-nude figure at the left, viewed from drops in a chalice), and remained standard the rear, as he strains to help lift the cross. features in European depictions of the While hardly anatomically convincing, the Crucifixion. The tradition of representing the very attempt to tackle so challenging a figure two thieves as tied (not nailed) to the cross is belies the presumed limits of a "primitive" again European, specifically Flemish, dating imagination and suggests the instincts (how­ back at least to the time of the Master of ever halting the expression) of a quite remark­ Flemalle in the early fifteenth century. Flemish able narratival power. tradition was of course strongly entrenched in The outcropping of stylized landscape in Spain, and the appearance of this specific Station Ten (Christ is Stripped of His Robes) detail in the Mission San Gabriel cycle is not again poses questions as to the ultimate surprising. The convention of contrasting the prototype for the cycle. These papier-mache reactions ofthe Good Thief (on Christ's right, mountains crowned with ideographic trees, the traditional side of the "elect") and that of with the closely clustered human forms the Bad Thief on His left (the side of the looming from behind in an immensely "rejected") is again a European tradition, and disproportionate scale, are immediately sug­ one which has obviously been well understood gestive of Early Christian or Byzantine and appreciated by Juan Antonio. He depicts manuscript illumination. But no sooner is the the Good Thief as standing quietly and intriguing possibility of a direct link with confidently on the cross, his hand extended in a Byzantine tradition raised, than it must be gesture of salute toward his Savior. This is in dismissed. It is virtually unthinkable that so striking contrast to the twisted arms and the rare a manuscript would have found its way to expression of tormented agony of the Bad the New World. There are furthermore the Thief, who even in death, turns from Christ many stylistic indications, noted above, which and from salvation. suggest a source much later in date, from the Station Thirteen (The Body of Christ is seventeenth or eighteenth century. A feasible Removed from the Cross) simultaneously possibility is again a familiarity on the artist's represents the Deposition and the Pieta, with part with Spanish ceramics, where similarly the dead Christ mourned upon the lap ofthe stylized landscapes survived well into the early Virgin. The fact that the body of Christ is so nineteenth century. diminutive in scale here, in contrast to the bulk A clear dependency upon a European of the Virgin, is not an instance of naivite on model is again found in Station Twelve the part of an Indian painter. This is a con­ (Christ Dies upon the Cross). Many elements sistent feature in the iconography ofthe Pieta, of the traditional representation of the suggesting the Virgin's precognizance and Crucifixion, dating back to the Middle Ages, acceptance of her son's fate, even while He are in evidence here. The sun and the moon are lay on her lap as a babe. Another detail from simultaneously depicted, suggestive of a the standard depictions ofthe Deposition is the cosmic participation in the death of the man on a ladder, removing the nails (as holy Creator's Son. The figure on horseback spears relics) from the cross. The expressive agony of the side of Christ, and from the wound springs Christ's death is here heightened by the Crown STATIONS OF THE CROSS 119 of Thorns, one of the traditional Instruments is in its way far more arresting than those of the Cross, which Juan Antonio has painted sprawling classical bodies clustered before the as hovering, like a torturous halo, just over the tomb in Italian Renaissance art. Indeed, it is head of the Savior. difficult to call to mind in the whole spectrum The most originally conceived, and the of Western art a more effective capturing of the most hauntingly moving, of the paintings in gloom of Good Friday, the most dolorous day this cycle is the last. Station Fourteen (Christ in the Christian calendar. is Laid in the Sepulchre). The imperfect It is fortunate indeed that these paintings, perspectival foreshortening of the tomb only so long relegated to disintegrate in an outside seems to add to the stark expressive power of corridor, have now been recognized in the true the scene. The tomb is totally unadorned, dimension of their value. For they are nothing except for a ghostly image of Christ's body less than minor masterpieces of New World atop the slab, an almost certain reference to the religious art. tradition of the Holy Shroud in Turin. It University of California looms, with inescapable visual authority, Riverside simultaneously suggesdve of both tomb and altar, in the midst of almost palpable NOTE blackness. The soldiers seem to suggest the I. For the most comprehensive account, see H. eternal sleep of death of those who reject Thurston, S. J., The Stations of the Cross, an Ac­ Christ. The semi-nude to the right, with an arm count of their History and Devotional Purpose. extended as though stiffened by rigor mortis. London: Burns & Oates, 1906.