7 April 2009

Interdisciplinary outing

AN AFTERNOON IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF SAN MIGUEL DE OTEIZA

Art, music and literature around Easter.
The integration of the arts

lecture:
The Holy Week processional paso: Empathy, devotion and art.
D. Ricardo Fernández Gracia

In the context of the Catholic Reformation and the rise of the confraternities, this topic was developed through the three main threads of the subtitle. First of all, those scenes of the Passion must be understood in the light of empathy - the capacity or process of penetrating deeply, through the imagination, into the feelings of the other and to which Alberti refers, in the 15th century, as follows: "A "story" will move the spirits of the spectators.A "story" will move the spirits of the spectators when the men painted there express their emotions clearly. their emotions with clarity. And, as nature makes it so that there can be nothing more desirable than things similar to itself, we weep with those who weep, we laugh with those who laugh and we mourn with those who mourn.".

Secondly, it was the devotion to images, sponsored by the Church itself, under the protection of the so-called "devotio moderna".devotio moderna"a movement that constitutes a vehicle for the renewal of the laity and religious and the opening of new forms of apostolate, welcoming the religious sentiments of piety. All those parades have constituted, until recent times, a vehicle of great importance, from the catechetical and propagandistic point of view, to visualize the great dogmas.

The art of the processional steps from different points of view, such as schools, techniques and materials, composition... etc. centered the rest of the intervention. We tried to contemplate all those sculptures from a wide perspective, reading them in core topic cultural and from a point of view multidisciplinary, dealing with their promoters, creators, iconographies and use and function.

Macarena, by La Roldana. Second half of the XVII century
 

With texts of influential writers in the seventeenth century as Fray Luis de Granada tried to combine literature and sculpture in this case. The aforementioned author in dealing with devotions states: "Among the affections of devotion, some hearts are inclined to compassion, others to love, others to fear, others to hope, others to sorrow for sins, others to admiration of divine works, others to contempt of the world, others to abhorrence of sin, and others to other similar affections...". Other less known textual sources were also used, such as the mission diaries of Fr. Tirso Gonzalez, Jesuit and future Superior General of the Society, who affirmed in 1671 when comparing the Andalusian character and Spanish: "The motion in the sermons was not inferior, but apparently greater than in other years. When the Holy Christ was brought out, there were so many cries, screams and slaps that one could not hear what the preacher was saying, especially in Andalusia, where the devotion of the people is more tender, and easier to burst into such demonstrations of pain and penitence. It was very common for women to faint, with the vehemence of affection, and perhaps the curiosity of some counted up to twenty, who lost the senses of the body, with the feeling of the soul. In Castile the naturals are less soft and the devotion more serious; and notwithstanding this, it was everywhere the extraordinary and sensitive motion, even in Salamanca, where the quality of the audience, if it was easy to be disillusioned by what was understood, was, by the serious, difficult to surrender to external demonstrations of pain and repentance".

Christ of Forgiveness of Nava del Rey, by Luis Salvador Carmona. 1756

With testimonies such as the aforementioned and numerous images of Castilian, Andalusian and Salzillo image makers, a mirror of certain historical circumstances and artistic forms, one of the most outstanding pages of the Hispanic plastic arts of the Baroque centuries was studied in depth.
 

The parish church of Oteiza during the celebration of the event.