March 26, 2007

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

THE SCULPTURAL IMAGE IN THE HOLY WEEK

The paso and the processional image in Holy Week

D. Francisco de la place Santiago.
University of Valladolid

The lecturer, presented by Prof. Mª Concepción García Gainza, began his exhibition relating the concept of the processional step with the success of the theater genre during Modernity. The processional paso is the result of the deep desire to make a venerated image come to life, to take it to the street. He pointed out as historical antecedents the medieval liturgical theater, the representations of the Nativity and the Stations of the Cross in Franciscan Italy, and the sacromontes, which represented specific moments of a "frozen Passion". All this was fed by the "Devotio Moderna", with great influence in the Flemish territories, which insisted on the pathetic side of religion and by the post-Tridentine concept of decorum, closely linked to realism, which ultimately written request fostered the rise of the great workshops of image-makers and painters.

He then listed a series of aesthetic and symbolic contrasts between the single-figure floats and those of composition, those that were carried on platforms and those on wheels, the images of clothing and those of carving, those that were conceived in a frontal way and those that were to be observed from multiple points of view, those made of papier-mâché and those carved in wood, the articulated images and the aesthetic ones, and those that were conceived for processions at dawn and those that were to be carried at dusk.

He insisted on the fact that it was a global spectacle, which integrated sculpture, music, narrative theater, the feelings of the people, aromas... in final an art conceived to captivate the senses, both of those who actively participated in the processions, as well as those who simply observed them with a devotion that today is difficult to conceive.

Once these generalities were presented, multiple slides were projected, in which it was possible to differentiate the various peninsular styles, from the recollection Spanish, exhibiting different steps of the great Valladolid master sculptor Gregorio Fernández (Azotamiento, Ecce Homo, Cristo del Perdón, Cristo de los trabajos, etc...) and the carver Francisco Rincón, to the most joyful feeling of the Levantine area, focusing on Murcia (showing the most famous steps of Francisco Salzillo) and Cartagena (with impressive steps such as the impressive ones of Francisco Salzillo and Cartagena).) and of the carver Francisco Rincón, to the most joyful feeling of the Levantine zone, focusing on Murcia (showing the most famous steps of Francisco Salzillo) and Cartagena (with impressive steps as that of San Juan and San Pedro), also affecting the particularity of the Sevillian Holy Week, with such well-known examples as the Jesus of the Great Power and the Macarena.