Cholula
Watercolour and oil pastel
Charlene Brown
Although Plan A, a UVic travel study program, ‘Journey to Israel’ in November, is looking a little doubtful, a decision about Plan B, ‘Mexico City to Oaxaca’ in April, had to be made at the end of January. I decided not to go on the Mexican trip and the location of this painting is one of the places I won’t be seeing – so I’m painting it now instead.
Cholula, one of the stops on the Mexican trip, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Americas. In the painting is the Virgen de Los Remedios church, which is located at the top of the Great Pyramid of Cholula, also known as Tlachihualtepetl (Nahuart for made-by-hand mountain), originally an Aztec temple. The church was built by the invading Spaniards who mistook the vegetation-covered pyramid for a large hill. In the distance is the Popocatépetl (smoking mountain) volcano, about 50 km away.
