Huaro Church

San Juan Bautista de Huaro is unremarkable from outside and overwhelming inside: every wall surface is painted, floor to roof, in murals attributed largely to Tadeo Escalante in the early nineteenth century. The nave carries a Last Judgement of considerable force - hell rendered in detail, with the damned in contemporary dress and identifiable social types among them - alongside a Death of the Sinner and Death of the Just, and decorative schemes of columns, angels and garlands filling everything between. Escalante was a local painter working in the Cusco tradition well after the great period of the school, and Huaro is his best surviving work. The church is one of four on the Ruta del Barroco Andino along with Andahuaylillas, Canincunca and San Pedro de Cusco, restored and administered together on a single ticket, and it is far less visited than Andahuaylillas next door.

History

The walls and ceiling were painted by Tadeo Escalante, a mestizo muralist from Acomayo who worked around Cusco between 1802 and 1840 and also left murals in the church of Santa Catalina in Cusco, in his own house at Acomayo and at the San Cristóbal hacienda. His Huaro cycle, painted in the first years of the 19th century, shows Hell as part of a Last Judgement, with friezes of Glory and Purgatory, and includes the scene of death in the houses of the rich man and the poor man (Spanish Wikipedia, Tadeo Escalante).

The main sights

• The murals - every wall surface painted from floor to roof.
• The Last Judgement - a detailed hell with the damned in contemporary dress.
• Tadeo Escalante - the local painter's best surviving work, from around 1802.
• The route - one of four churches on the Andean Baroque circuit.

When to go

April to October. Thirty to sixty minutes. Check opening hours - village churches on the route keep limited times and close over lunch.

Things to know

Photography is not permitted inside. Lighting is dim, which is deliberate for conservation and makes detail hard to see. Opening hours are irregular. The ticket covers the whole route, which is poor value for a single church.

Nearby

Andahuaylillas is a few kilometres north-west; Urcos is south.

Key facts