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Juan Capistrano, California |
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 San
Juan Capistrano is Orange County's oldest community. It's
the birthplace of Orange County and home to its oldest traditions.
It has its swallows, history, legends, storybook heroes, and
beautiful archeological monuments. Most of that history is
wrapped up and epitomized by our living historic landmarks,
the most beautiful and best known of the California missions,
old Mission San Juan Capistrano.
You
can visualize Mission San Juan Capistrano as a work of art
with its majestic ruins of the Great Stone Church standing
in recent solitude attesting to an era long past. You can
see it walking along ancient cloisters amid the time-softened
beauty of old adobe buildings. Sitting in the cool shade of
the padres; garden alongside an old fountain, you can look
up at the bell wall with its four crusty bells hanging as
silent sentinels, their bronze tongues no longer clanging
to the touch of an ancient band. You can feel the serenity
behind massive walls which still shut out the noisy world
and preserve the peach within, encircling the patio in the
tradition of a classical Greco-Roman peristyle.
Mission
gardens, renown for their beauty, compliment the functional,
artistic simplicity of its buildings with rich, redolent flowers.
Red bougainvillea spills over a lovely arch on the main corridor,
bright water lilies float languidly on the surface of an old
Moorish fountain in the center of the patio. Flowering trees
and shrubs brought by ships from distant gardens of the world
fill the Mission in a manner reminiscent of the famous gardens
of Spain. Those brooding ruins, those shaded walls, those
time-worn pathways and brightly colored gardens are what made
Mission San Juan Capistrano the most often portrayed structure
in America, painted by artists the world over.
But
it was not just the allure of the Mission itself which brought
them. They were encouraged by its pastor, Father St. John
O’Sullivan. When Fr. O’Sullivan arrived in 1910,
dying of tuberculosis, he felt a great empathy with the ruined,
decaying old Mission and likened it to the state of his own
frail body. In the time left to him, he was determined to
restore the Mission to its former grandeur and bring about
a glory in its gardens which would rival those of the famed
Alhambra in Spain.
A
lover of beauty and art, Fr. O’Sullivan sought to share
it and immortalize the Mission as a precious glimpse of a
glorious past by inviting artists to come to the Mission and
paint. He was much enamored of the Impressionist, or "plein-air"
style, prevalent in California at that time. It was a style
all about light and color and the natural beauty of the open
air. It had been the warm, open air living of California that
brought Fr. O’Sullivan, for reasons of health, to Capistrano.
It worked. Love of his work, healthful climate and the Grace
of God enabled him to live until 1933.
 During
his tenure, Fr. O’Sullivan’s hospitability and the
Mission’s beauty brought famous and aspiring painters
from all over the world. Joseph Kleitsch, noted Belgian portraitist,
stayed at the Mission and the nearby Laguna art colony and
painted brilliant color scenes in Mission gardens. (He also
did a portrait of O’Sullivan.)
John
Gutzon-Borglum, best known for his Mt. Rushmore sculpture,
painted the Mission in its decay, while his then better-known
wife, Elizabeth, captured the beauty of its graceful arches.
Colin Campbell Cooper painted there in 1916, sold some works,
and gave one to Fr. O’Sullivan. Fannie Duval painted
a beautiful emotional scene of little girls in while First
Communion dresses skipping through the cloisters on the way
to chapel.
Artist
Charles Percy Austin often stayed at the Mission. He gave
several paintings to the Mission, most notable was one of
silent screen star Mary Pickford’s wedding (her first)
after Fr. O’Sullivan performed the marriage rites. Austin
also did the illustrations for "Little Chapters"
(1912), the story of Mission San Juan Capistrano, written
by O’Sullivan. Other artists who enjoyed Mission hospitality
were Franz Bischoff, Alson Clark, William Wendt, and many
more.
By:
Gerald J. Miller, Mission Administrator
For
more information on the mission and its history, visit the
official site at www.missionsjc.com
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Local
Numbers
Important
San Juan Capistrano Numbers All area codes 949
unless noted
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Fire
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744-0400
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Police
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770-6011
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Adobe
Medical Group
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487-2323
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Chamber
of Commerce(SJC)
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493-4700
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Library
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493-1752
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Electric
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800-655-4555
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Gas
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800-427-2200
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Telephone
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800-310-2355
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Water
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493-1515 |
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Cable(cox)
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720-2020
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Trash
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240-0446
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