In 2009, publishing house Chair published, among its essays, a delightful book by Victor I. Stoichita graduate How to savor a painting, in which he discusses the joy produced by the contemplation of a work of art and how the pleasure increases as we get to know the context in which it was created and its promoters. Its pages are an example for the understanding of the effectiveness and strength of images, in times when the time for their contemplation was abundant, and their contemplation generated different sensations and valuations.

With time and without haste, among the more or less obvious, we find elements that lead us, as keys, to discover and savor paintings, reliefs, engravings... etc., in everything that makes up our heritage, which is the set of goods inherited from the past, in which each society recognizes a cultural value. The reading of images and heritage in core topic cultural leads us to interpret, and thus understand, taste and enjoy the more or less hidden contents of the works. The attributes of the gods of Olympus or the saints of the Church identify their protagonists, but beyond their identification, there is a reading that goes beyond, proposing values, propaganda, catechesis or real games of wit.

"To be surprised and amazed is to begin to understand."
This beautiful phrase from the pen of José Ortega y Gasset illustrates the importance of the curiosity with which we must face the contemplation of cultural heritage. A permanent curiosity for many things is characteristic of avid people and, in general, of anyone who wants to learn and investigate. Moreover, on more than a few occasions, this curiosity is the cause of finding ideas to realize something that no one did before.

The ability to be surprised is source of questions and, on many occasions, it is more important to know the right questions than to know the answers. Along with curiosity, it is necessary to sharpen the capacity of observation, in tune with the statement of A. Dumas: "he who reads learns a lot; but he who observes learns more".

A stroll through Pamplona or any other town can find examples everywhere in its streets, churches and houses. A canvas, a coat of arms, a corbel, the iconographic program of an altarpiece or the tympanum of a façade always proclaim something, sometimes clearly, sometimes through symbols, signs, allegories or emblems that force us to read their content by the hand of codes alien to our time.
If someone stops in front of the altarpiece of the Virgin of the Way, in the parish of San Saturnino, they will find a series of allegories of the cardinal virtues carved in wood that, together with the silver reliefs of the Virgin's pedestal, with the theological virtues, propose to us the Virgin as the woman who practiced all of them on high Degree . But not everything ends there, because in the central axis of the altarpiece there is a reading of Mary as daughter of God the Father (who appears in the attic), mother of God the Son (in her lap) and wife of the Holy Spirit (over the niche, currently covered by the Dove by a group of angels). The Gothic portal of the same parish depicts the Last Judgment.

Nearby, in the heart of the city, on the façade of the City Hall, the virtues of good government: Prudence and Justice, flank the door, each with its attributes, the first with the serpent and the mirror and the second with the sword and the scales. Fame and the figures of Hercules, who personify virtue and strength, finish off the façade.

And without leaving the environment, next to the place, in the mouth of the passage seminar, we find a pair of caduceus, attribute of the god Mercury, who is the god of cunning, luck, eloquence, the skill, wit and of course of trade and messengers. The caduceus is composed of a winged rod with two serpents with which Mercury invokes the souls, being able to induce them to sleep, appearing as a symbol of peace for being able to stop any discord subject , identifying with the arts of the god in relation to eloquence and trade.

Different levels of reading: to see you have to look and to know
The diversification of cultural levels in traditional society with very high levels of illiteracy can lead us to some areas of artistic and literary significance reserved for cultured minorities, in a phenomenon that we can call "semantic discrimination".

There are, therefore, different levels of reading, both to please the masses and the more elitist and refined minorities. In the theater there were also quotations and erudite references inaccessible to the understanding of the unlettered. Along with an immediate, narrative and "linear" plot, there were subplots and symbolic elements that acted as a rhetorical complement that could only be understood by the educated. Something similar occurs in certain artistic compositions, particularly when the patron or the artist possessed literary and cultured resources.

It goes without saying that there were different tastes, on the one hand the majority public that enjoyed everything that vividly impressed their senses and a cultivated minority that, behind appearances, looked for proportion, correspondence or decorum (adequacy between signifier and signified) and distrusted how much the majority approved. A whole world of symbols and signs of difficult interpretation turned book covers, commemorative medals and some paintings into authentic exercises of sharpness.

An advanced and free society must safeguard and enjoy its heritage.
An advanced, cultured society with high levels of well-being cannot allow its cultural heritage to be absent from its daily life. Progress, in a certain way, can be measured by the cultural level reached by it. This has generated that, in developed countries, there is a great social demand for the use and enjoyment of cultural goods. This fact has become a demand of the community before governments, which has translated into the right of citizens to culture, as recognized in different constitutional texts.

The means for the perception of the whole message of our heritage are varied: from a visit multidisciplinary , a lecture, the reading of some texts with the written impressions that they aroused to those who contemplated them in past centuries, or the musical audition next to them, to a reflection on the influence that they have exerted until arriving at their present conception. And always with a common attitude on the part of those who participate in the reading of heritage: to have time to contemplate, think and reason with it.

The historian, the archaeologist, the anthropologist, the bibliophile and the art historian have their social responsibility, since they must refund to society what they have come to understand and value after years of study and specialization. Naturally, to do so, they need the good work, sensitivity and partnership of those who hold responsibilities in the educational and cultural spheres.

It is desirable that institutions, foundations or companies that provide significant amounts of money for interventions and restorations in monumental complexes, see their efforts rewarded before society, enabling the knowledge and enjoyment of everything that has been intervened for its conservation.

It is clearly insufficient if a building is restored and we are not able to visit it and enjoy its history, its use and function, its message, its mentors and its aesthetics. To teach all this is a task that should not be neglected, because it would fail in something as basic as explaining the whys and wherefores of so many questions of technical, iconographic, modes of expression... etc.

The possibilities of learning together with cultural heritage are countless: the recreation of daily life in a monastery or with objects of everyday life, the sponsorship of the privileged elites in a cathedral, the arrival of formal influences through routes, roads or personal interventions... etc. As a common denominator, we must always insist on the global vision of everything that today we separate, for convenience, but that in its day was fully integrated, when literature, music, liturgy, protocol, architecture and figurative and sumptuary arts went hand in hand. Heritage possesses that condensing character of history, aesthetics, iconography and technique.

The presentation of activities around cultural heritage must be done with audacity, imagination, pedagogy, quality and attractiveness. In final, it is necessary to be a pioneer in everything related to tangible and intangible heritage, which is always a support of collective consciousness and identity and, therefore, tool essential for the historical knowledge , as well as resource socioeconomic of the first order and essential for the sustainable development of contemporary societies.