Mission San Miguel Arcangel

Posted in The Mission Excursions by missionbird on December 31, 2010

My favorite Mission exterior and chapel combination so far. Mission San Miguel Arcangel is the only mission with orginal church interior. This is remarkable for many many reasons. First, this mission had no resident preist for 38 years, so it was cared for by the congregation from 1841-1879, and the didn’t paint over the interior as many other well-meaning Mission caretakers did.

I loved that the front of the chapel burst with so many colors, light blues, golds, pinks and greens. I loved the triangle, eye, cloud and golden rays above the altar. When I researched a bit about this particular Mission I found that the art left on these walls is in fact legendary, not only because it still remains in it’s original form after all these years, but because a painter Esteban Munras, from Barcelona, settled in Monterey and designed this impressive artwork.

Here are (mostly) my pics from San Miguel Arcangel. The chapel pic I took was pretty awful so I copied one from the Mission’s website: http://www.missionsanmiguel.org/