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Heritage and identity (49). By the cross in the light Passion and Resurrection associated with the infancy of Christ

14/04/2021

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Diario de Navarra

Ricardo Fernández Gracia

Director of the Chair of Navarrese Heritage and Art

The cult of the Divine Infant, experienced in the Modern Age a great development, being able to speak of a historical and sociological fact: the universalization and entrance of the Infant Jesus in the culture and popular piety. Their images, in different spheres, transcended the strictly religious to be framed in a wider dimension: the cultural.

Once present in houses and palaces, the number of sculptures preserved in cloistered monasteries is still surprising, although their issue pales in comparison to the references to their images that documentation provides us with. As is well known, devotion to this iconography of Christ developed in the context of meditations on the life of the Lord, at the same time that popular piety found in those simulacra of the Child one of its main incentives for spirituality. All the great saints and reformers had it among their favorite themes, especially Saint Teresa. But it will be in the Baroque period, when the topic acquired great significance, as can be seen in the creation of iconographic types in the different schools.

Among the religious orders, the Teresian Carmel stood out. In their houses there are countless images, in their different variants. Also, there are documented religious of the order that were significant in the diffusion of their cult and devotion, such as Father Francisco del Niño Jesús, Brother Juan de Jesús San Joaquín or Mother Ana de San Agustín, whose biographies, accompanied by their portraits, were published in plenary session of the Executive Council XVII century. Of these religious mentioned, we have to highlight for his transcendence in Navarra, the figure of Brother Juan de Jesús San Joaquín (1590-1669), native of Añorbe, where a feast in honor of an image of the Child Jesus is still celebrated today. His famous Infant Jesus is preserved in the Discalced Carmelites of Pamplona and carries the cross on his shoulders.

Another reason why the female cloisters were populated with paintings and especially sculptures of topic, lies in the parallelism established by some authors, especially Jean Blanlo (1617-1657) in his book L'infance chrètienne, between the virtues of the infancy of Christ and the charisms and forms of the contemplative life.

Throughout the post-Tridentine period, other causes for the success of that iconography can be pointed out: the Catholic fervor attracted by the most familiar and close themes, as well as the case of many saints canonized at that time, who stood out for their particular devotion to the Divine Infant.

Many of these images have their trousseau of vestments and mantles of liturgical colors and, sometimes, of the religious orders themselves, not lacking crowns, crowns of thorns and silver and gilded silver potencies, as well as other jewelry for their adornment. In many occasions, the sculptures do not call the attention for their quality and artistic value, but for their use and function. Some are of courtly and even Spanish-American and Philippine provenance. Their chronology, together with their donors and the curious and particular circumstances of their arrival in the convents, has been documented with considerable precision. The cult of which they were the object until a few decades ago, speaks of customs that once were also celebrated in homes, when everything related to the Divine Infant passed, as we have pointed out, from a religious phenomenon to a cultural and social one. In the Carmelitas de Araceli de Corella, for example, there are polychrome wood, wax and ivory sculptures. All these sculptures have their appellative, which obeys to their location (Novitiate, Locutorio, Cook, Refitolero ...) to their origin (Francesito), to their appearance (Rubito) or to the donor (Duque).

The Passionary Children: an engraving, sculptures and paintings

In the seventeenth century, numerous mystical and spiritual writings placed special emphasis on revealing the different relationships and points of contact between childhood and the passion of Christ, considering the visions of the Augustinian nun Jeanne Perrand as one of the main sources of inspiration. With the contrast between the candor and sweetness of the child and the horror of the instrument of torture of the passion, one of the main objectives of baroque iconography is more than achieved: to move hearts and lead through feelings to the understanding of the mystery, through the heart to the intelligence.

To the presence of Mother Leonor de la Misericordia (Ayanz y Beaumont, 1551-1620), in the Carmelites of Pamplona, was due the arrival of outstanding books and a rich collection of engravings from the late sixteenth century and the beginning of the next century. Father Gracián, confessor of Saint Teresa, described Leonor as follows: "Inwardly she was a seraph of condition and soul, and outwardly an angel of face and good grace. She had skill rare in writing, painting, knowing Latin and in the other labors and exercises of women, accompanying with manly prudence".

The set of engraved prints in his collection was possible thanks to the correspondence he maintained, among others, with Domingo de Jesús María, (Calatayud, 1559-Vienna, 1630) who went to Italy in 1604, occupying the generalate of the Italian Congregation in 1617; Mother Inés de Jesús (Tapia), cousin of St. Teresa and prioress of Medina del Campo and Palencia; don Guillén de San Clemente, ambassador of Spain in Prague from 1581 until his death in 1606; bishop of Tarazona and confessor of Medina del Campo and Palencia; Don Guillén de San Clemente, ambassador of Spain in Prague from 1581 until his death in 1606; the bishop of Tarazona and confessor of Saint Teresa, Fray Diego de Yepes; Mother Ana de San Bartolomé, prioress of Brussels and Antwerp and Father Gracián de la Madre de Dios, confessor of Saint Teresa.

The print of the mentioned collection, corresponding to the Passionary Child, was edited by Nicolas Mathonière and is accompanied by another famous text that reminds us that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven, earth and hell. In this case it is a niche which shelters what seems to be a sculpture of the Child on the shining sun, blessing and with the orb. The uniqueness comes, in this case, by being crowned with three powers (report, understanding and will) and, above all, by the apron or bibador, which is bordered with all the arma Christi. Majesty and passion are given quotation in the picture. The Latin registration says: At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven, earth and hell. We know that this engraving served as model for paintings -in Santa Catalina de Valladolid and Nuestra Señora de la Laura in the same city- and sculptures, among them those of the old convent of Descalzos de Tudela and the convent of Corpus Christi in Valladolid, from the second quarter of the XVII century.

A special chapter is made up of the so-called "pasionarios" in small sculptures of polychrome wood or lead, with faces with tears and crowned with thorns and accompanied by other emblems of the Passion in their hands or in baskets. Sometimes, they accompanied images of the Soledad.

The Royal Congregation of San Fermín de los Navarros, that special colony of Navarrese in the capital of the monarchy, preserves in its Madrid headquarters one of the most important sculptures of a Child of Sorrow. It is a very delicate work of the Hispanic plastic art of the 17th century, traditionally attributed to Alonso Cano, but lately to Luisa Roldán, "La Roldana" (c.1689). It has a replica in the Capuchinas de Alcobendas -today in Granada-. The piece came to San Fermín de los Navarros by bequest testamentary of Isabel de Farnesio, although it had previously belonged to Mariana de Neoburgo. It stands out for its delicacy and intimate expression, which tries to move the devotion of the spectator through the feelings, by means of the dramatic artifice that fuses the childhood and the passion of Christ. Chronologically, it is located at the beginning of the Madrid period of La Roldana, who would become sculptor of Carlos II's Chamber, a time of professional triumphs but of displeasure, illnesses and privations staff. Luisa had to bear all the weight of the family through her works, which were created with a very delicate and precious charm and language staff .

The Carmelites of San José of Pamplona, the Augustinian Recollect Sisters and the Capuchin Sisters of Tudela have several copies, both from the XVII and XVIII centuries. About the Passionists, the text of the Mercedarian Interián de Ayala, in his work written in the second quarter of the XVIII century and published in Madrid, in language vernacular, in 1782, is of obligatory quotation , where he advocates for the Children of Passion, as opposed to those who play and have fun, thus: "We see Christ painted very often, as a Child, and even as a boy, now grown up, amusing himself in childish games: for example, when he is painted playing with a little paxarillo, having him tied with a thread, and carrying him in his hands; or when he is painted riding on horseback on a lamb, or in other similar ways. All this, and other things of this kind, are mere follies and trifles, as a grave Author, and of eminent dignity, has already warned us. Christo, our Lord, did not occupy himself in this, even in his childish age..., if he had not subdued his passions with his sovereign rule, he could have been grieved and saddened... Therefore, it is not reasonable that we imagine him occupying himself in childish and childish games, but in very serious thoughts and meditations".

Sometimes, the Passionary Child sleeps on the cross and leans on a skull, recalling the aphorism nascendo morimur. This is a common Baroque internship , which associates beginning and end and becomes a premonition of the Passion, through the brutal contrast between the skull and the gesture of placidity of the sleeping Child. This iconography, totally alien to the Gospel story, has its roots in the classical representations of Eros and Thanatos, taken up again at the beginning of the Renaissance and reworked from a Christian point of view. The representation is consistent with a passage from the life of St. John of the Cross in the convent of St. Joseph of the Discalced Carmelites of Granada: "around Christmas 1585, when Friar John entered the cloister, the nuns showed him a very beautiful Baby Jesus: he was lying down and asleep on a skull. Fray Juan moved before the sweet expression of the divine Child, exclaims: Lord, if loves have to kill me, now they have place". These images of the Infant Jesus of passion with the skull and the cross, as the aforementioned Interián recalls, "do not so much belong to history as they are the object of pious meditations".

A fine sculpture from Madrid from topic is kept in Recoletas. The Carmelitas de Araceli de Corella and the Carmelitas de San José de Pamplona have two landscape canvases with the Child Jesus lying down and half-naked, accompanied by a cross and a crown of thorns, works by Vicente Berdusán. The topic had been developed through numerous engravings and compositions, among the latter one by the famous Guido Reni.

Triumphant as the Risen One: over the world, sin and death

In one of the streets of the main altarpiece of the sanctuary of the Purísima de Cintruénigo (1674), we find a canvas of the time, a work attributable to Francisco Crespo, a follower of Vicente Berdusán. An infant Jesus of ample anatomy and semi-naked with a red mantle, steps on the world and hoists the cross with the red banner of the Resurrection.

In painting, we will also highlight the version of the aforementioned Vicente Berdusán in a small canvas in the sacristy of the parish of San Jorge de Tudela. It is a composition that presents the naked Child with a cloak, which falls down his back, crowned with the three powers (intelligence, understanding and will) and holding a cross. A border with angels' heads and a contrasting study of light make the painting very interesting.

Another version of the topic of the Child Jesus is the one that presents him triumphant over death and sin. The most outstanding example is a magnificent and delicate eighteenth-century sculpture, which can be attributed to Luis Salvador Carmona, around 1760 and which comes from the Capuchinas de Tudela, although it had been attributed to Risueño. He is presented as the Resurrected One, carrying the cross of victory and wearing a white tunic and red mantle. He appears kneeling on the orb and steps on a serpent, an animal that since God's curse to man, after the original sin, (Genesis, 3, 14) has had a negative connotation of sin.

In the collateral altarpiece of the parish of Lecároz, dedicated to the Virgin of the Rosary and which was paid for, together with its symmetrical collateral, by Francisco Martín and Pedro Fermín de Jáuregui, between 1762 and 1767, we find a very beautiful sculpture of the Child Jesus triumphant over the skull of death and holding up the cross, in an attitude similar to that of a similar carving in the chapter sacristy of the cathedral of Pamplona, whose decoration was paid for by its archdeacon of the Chamber, the aforementioned Pedro Fermín de Jáuregui, around the same time. The cathedral sculpture is complemented by the red mantle of the Resurrection. Both are in the courtly orbit of the famous sculptor Luis Salvador Carmona.