Saint Paschal Baylon appears in a kitchen wearing sandals, a brown habit and a white cloth in the manner of an apron, both tied at the waist by a cord characteristic of the Franciscan order. The Saint levitates with his hands crossed on his chest in a sign of submission at the sight of the monstrance that appears out of the parting of the heavens, ed on billowing clouds surrounded by the heads of four angels. In the bottom left corner there is a stove with two cavities that house the fire for cooking the food in the pots and clay casserole dishes that lay on top, next to an iron spoon. Underneath, on a wooden bench, there is a watermelon and a soursop showing their pulp and seeds, a fish, a jug, a bunch of grapes and three red fruits. Scattered on the ground are various kitchen utensils and, between a hammered copper casserole dish and an upturned basket, there is a pumpkin, cauliflower, some carrots, garlic, peppers, radishes and onions.
The religious paintings produced by Jose Agustin Arrieta were strongly influenced by the iconography and compositional settlements of colonial painting since his artistic training was entrusted to the last generation of viceroyalty painters who resided in Puebla which included Salvador Huerto, Lorenzo Zendejas, Manuel Lopez Guerrero, Manuel Caro, Julian Ordoñez and Jose Manzo. All of whom spent time as professors in the “Escuela de Dibujo de la Real Junta de Caridad para la buena educación de la juventud (Drawing School of the Royal Board of Charity for the education of the young)” founded in 1813 at the behest of Jose Antonio Ximenez de las Cuevas. Ever since then, the Drawing School has been called the Academy.[1] In the case of San Paschal Baylon, the artist seems to have modeled his work on the painting of the same subject by Manuel Caro (1761-1820), [2] who was surely one of his first teachers.
The apparition of the monstrance, the fireplace, the tilted copper casserole dish and legumes scattered about the ground to the far left, as well as the posture and dress of the saint, and the door opening to the right, no doubt come from the canvas by Caro. But Arrieta reworked and incorporated other elements into his painting; for example, Saint Paschal appears levitating and not on the floor. He omitted the halo from around the Saint's head, added a pot and casserole dish on the stove and introduced a larger number of fruits, vegetables and housewares, such as the jug and basket. He also eliminated the stove and cooking utensils arranged on the wall that appear in the background of the work of his teacher to concentrate them around the personage in the lower part of the painting, where the artist shows off his skill at representing the texture and colors of the objects, fruits and legumes in order to achieve the recreation of an authentic still life in this religious painting.
The son of humble farmers, Paschal Baylon was a Spanish friar (Torre Hermosa 1540-Valencia 1592) who taught himself to read and write, and labored as a sheepherder during his childhood and youth. When he was twenty-five, he took his vows with the Franciscan order; thus, in the monasteries where he stayed, he distinguished himself with his humility and by performing such menial tasks as doorman, cook, sweeper and almoner. However, despite his endeavors as a rectory caretaker, the Catholic Church praised him most for his dedication to the Eucharist, which is why Spanish iconography primarily represents him bearing a monstrance. However, in Novohispanic visual production, without diminishing its inclusion, he is preferably represented in kitchens and has been considered as the patron saint of cooks.
After he was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII in 1690, the worship of Paschal Baylon started to spread in New Spain during the eighteenth century and continued during the twentieth century. Everything seems to point to the attribution of the Saint as a patron of the kitchen as being a regional phenomenon, specifically in and around Puebla which is known for its gastronomy and has coined such popular refrains as:
Saint Paschal Baylon,
bailame en este fogon, (dance with me in the fireplace)
tu me das el sazon (give me the flavor)
y yo te dedico una cancion (and I'll sing you a song).
According to some historians, Arrieta's production of religious paintings is the most scarce and tenuous. This statement is perhaps ed by the fact that much of his work is unsigned, let alone dated, and dispersed in private collections, as well as his adherence to colonial tradition. Recognized and esteemed primarily for his still life paintings and common scenes that have commanded high prices in international auction houses, his other works, comprised of portraits, allegories and religious pieces, have tended to be less coveted than other genres that have received greater popularity as symbols of national art. What is true is that Arrieta, as a disciple of the Puebla Academy, inherited the iconographic and compositive models and settlements of the viceroyalty masters of the preceding generation, as can be seen in this Saint Paschal Baylon from the Amparo Museum, and in many other his works of this genre. Although Arrieta must have remained loyal to the formal structure of the tradition of viceroyalty religious painting with little possibility for deviation from the iconography, worth noting are his skills as a colorist and his mastery at achieving the visual qualities of the objects represented.
On the other hand, in a Puebla society where religion is deeply-rooted, the artist must also have responded to the demand for worship images and, above all, domestic devotions which in the nineteenth century continued to be significant and would explain the numerous paintings he made of Marian devotions (Our Lady of Light, the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin of Guadalupe) for domestic interiors. Therefore, it is highly likely that this Saint Paschal Baylon, due to its small-format (like those by Caro), was painted at the behest of some patron in order to satisfy a family devotion.
Unlike the majority of his religious works, this one ofSaint Paschal Baylon is signed and dated 1852. In 1994, this painting formed part of a homage-exhibition on Jose Agustin Arrieta hosted by the National Museum of Art in Mexico City.
Angelica Velazquez Guadarrama
Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas (Institute of Aesthetic Research), UNAM
[1] Castro, Efrain, “Jose Agustin Arrieta, su tiempo, vida y obra”, in Jose Agustin Arrieta, 1803-1874. Homenaje nacional (National Tribute), Mexico, CONACULTA, INBA, Museo Nacional de Arte (National Art Museum), 1994, pages 48-51.
[2] The work is reproduced in Bello, Jose Luis y Gustavo Ariza, Pinturas poblanas, siglos XVII-XIX (Paintings from Puebla, XVII-XIX Centuries), Mexico, Talleres Graficos de la Nacion (Graphic Workshops of the Nation), 1943, page 55. At the bottom of the photograph the authors indicate that this is an oil painting of approximately 34 x 21 cm, and at the time the book was published, the painting belonged to the Agustin Gomez Daza collection.
