13 April 2011

Course 

THE CATHEDRAL OF PAMPLONA. A VIEW FROM THE 21ST CENTURY

The Cathedral as seen by painters and photography. Images of the 20th century

Mr. José Javier Azanza López and Ms. Asunción Domeño Martínez de Morentin.
Chair of Navarrese Heritage and Art

Within the urban landscape of Pamplona, the Cathedral has been a constant reference letter for artists, a circumstance which is not surprising if we bear in mind that cathedrals are true points of reference letter in relation to the cities in which they are located. B Firstly, because their construction dates back centuries and their presence has to a large extent characterised the development of the city and its inhabitants; also, because due to their architectural monumentality, they have an aesthetic value that is perceptible to the naked eye that makes them stand out in the urban setting; finally, because the worship of the population has largely taken place inside them, as well as enclosing a whole microcosm of devotion and mystery that is enormously attractive to the imagination. 

In the case of painting, the depiction of the Cathedral is linked to landscape painting; it does not have the documentary value appropriated by photography, nor does it relate - with a few exceptions - to human activity. Starting from this initial premise, the points of view adopted by the painters, regardless of the generation to which they belong, have in most cases been similar, from Inocencio García Asarta, Javier Ciga, Jesús Basiano or Jesús Lasterra, to Miguel Ángel Echauri, Pedro Salaberri, Juan Carlos Pikabea, Fermín Alvira or Carlos López, each of them from their own particular formal language that covers practically all the trends of the 20th-century Navarrese painting scene.

The Cathedral often appears in works that do not show a specific interest in the building, but rather represent general views of the city of Pamplona, or of the river landscape of the Arga that surrounds the capital. Numerous painters have depicted views of Pamplona on their canvases showing the city in the distance, taken from the Beloso riverbank and the current Paseo de la average Luna, which show the existing difference in level and the Arga flowing through the Caparroso mill, or from La Magdalena and Aranzadi, showing the city in the distance with its cathedral building profile . Likewise, the Cathedral can be linked to the landscape of Pamplona, in which the pleasant flow of the Arga River often takes on a special role. In both cases, these are fully landscape paintings, in which the presence of the Cathedral is almost testimonial, as if to anchor the landscape to a specific geographical space, but never with a topographical or descriptive purpose; all these works are seductive for their capacity for emotion conveyed through the lightness of the line and a vibration full of luminous clarity.

But the cathedral, and more specifically its exteriors, can become the true protagonist for a large number of authors and works that offer a variety of possibilities. In many cases the painters maintain a lateral view of the cathedral complex, either from Beloso and the average Luna, or from Aranzadi and the Rochapea, but they bring their easels closer and focus their interest on the Cathedral as the object of representation. The walled character of the Navarrese capital is also present in numerous canvases in which the back of the Cathedral and its unmistakable towers are integrated into the stone belt together with the bastion of El Redín, the Ronda del Obispo Barbazán and the volume of the Barbazana Chapel. Likewise, the exterior of the Cathedral can be seen from the city centre itself, always in fragmented views of its architecture; the crowning of the towers that emerge from above the city centre take on special prominence, forming a backdrop to the succession of Pamplona's roofs and roof terraces seen from a view from above.

Finally, the interior of the cathedral naves and their artistic decoration, as well as the cloister with its galleries, doorways and sepulchres, and the different rooms around it, have also attracted the attention of Navarrese painters, in works in which the light filtering through the Gothic tracery and sliding down the walls contributes to the creation of successful chiaroscuro effects.
 

Jesús Lasterra. View of Pamplona (1977)

Pedro Salaberri. Cathedral (2006)

Photography, together with painting, was a very appropriate medium for capturing the most emblematic monument of the city of Pamplona in images. Its location at one end of the farmhouse on an elevated terrace allowed photographers to cover it 360º and take images from any of its angles. Taking as a starting point the photographs preserved in five Navarrese archives, we can see how these images respond to different uses and functions of photography. Firstly, the cathedral is portrayed through the eyes of an artist, given that some of the photographers not only chose those places where painters also went to make their paintings, but, like them, they were also interested in turning the architectural fabric into another element of the landscape, fusing the building with the surrounding nature, and taking pictures in different seasons of the year, with different weather conditions as if they were Impressionist painters.

But in addition to its artistic aspect, photography also contains a use of transcription of reality from which the photographers of the cathedral do not abstract themselves. Thus there are many photographs taken with an intended meaning goal, whose primary intention is to inform or document, that is to say, to act as a visual report . The exterior and interior of the architectural masonry itself becomes the main motif of these images, which reproduce the façade, the cloister with its galleries, doors and sepulchres, or the naves of the church. Some of these snapshots are particularly interesting in that they provide information on the state of the building and its liturgical furnishings before it acquired its current state as a result of the remodelling and transformations carried out, or they also show us corners or spaces unknown to the general public.

Finally, another group of photographs assume the function of historical report and document ephemeral events that we would not have knowledge had it not been for the snapshots that were taken of them. Exhibitions, processions, celebrations of all kinds subject constitute documents of enormous interest for learning more about the cathedral. 

Some of these images were carried out with the intention of disseminating them or acquired this at a later stage. The most frequent means of communicating the images were their inclusion in publications, such as the case of the Navarre Monuments Commission's bulletin , or postcards, which derive from the travelling tradition of the 19th century and which, in the case of Pamplona Cathedral, were printed by the main publishers in Spain and even abroad at the time.