5 April 2005

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

FIVE LINES OF RESEARCHON NAVARRESE ART

Medieval Art: The Cloister of Pamplona Cathedral

Ms. Clara Fernández-Ladreda Aguadé
Organised by the Chair de Arte Navarro and the Ateneo Navarro.

Before going to subject , a brief review was made of the latest research on Navarrese art during the Romanesque and Gothic periods.

Focusing on topic, the relevance of the set of Gothic rooms in Pamplona cathedral - cloister, chapter, refectory, kitchen and dormitory - was highlighted, due to its exceptional nature - it is the most complete set of rooms preserved -, its quality - it includes first-rate works, particularly in the case of sculpture, such as the Amparo and Preciosa doors - and its influence - a good part of Navarrese Gothic and some of Alavese Gothic depends on it.

Some interesting features of the cloister, which often go unnoticed, were also presented, such as the importance of the angles, where most of the decoration is concentrated - doorways, tombs, murals, blind tracery - and of colour, as not only did it have mural paintings but the sculpture - capitals, archivolts, keystones, doorways and tombs - was coloured, which gave it a very different appearance from what it has today.

It was also pointed out that three phases could be distinguished in the sculptural decoration of the cloister, which coincided with the architectural ones, each of which involved a change of conception and theme, and the intervention of different artists, who sometimes coexisted with earlier sculptors or works. In the formal aspect, particular emphasis was placed on the possibility of articulating almost all the cloister artwork into seven different groups -sometimes related to each other- with specific characteristics, and on the integration within each of them of different typologies -keys, capitals, doorways and tombs-, which is an important novelty. In the iconographic field, the thematic variety was highlighted, placing special emphasis on the weight of profane iconography, exceptionally rich and abundant, with very heterogeneous themes, some of which reveal a high cultural level, which, in turn, points to the existence of an exceptionally well-prepared mentor .