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Art, Travel and Culture: Carrión de los Condes: the Museum of Sacred Art of the Church of Santiago

Art, Travel and Culture: Carrión de los Condes: the Museum of Sacred Art of the Church of Santiago

September 2018 · 7 min read · Castile and León

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'There are certain cities, the same in Spain as outside it, which are not included in the usual itinerary of travelers and which remain unknown to a large number of them, despite the treasures they contain ...'. (1)
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Such were the impressions of Gustavo Doré - famous for his monumental engravings, especially those dedicated to the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri - and Baron Davillier when, during the course of his intense journey through Spain, they arrived in this splendid city of Palencia of Carrión de los Condes.
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Impressions that, in a way, continue to remain valid today, because despite being, in a general concept, an authentic Historical Museum, the old Carrión continues to be, in addition, and in a way, the forgotten Bella.
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It is true, also, that it has lost a good part of its historical heritage; a heritage that, if not intact, which would certainly be miraculous, but better and with more affection, would have made it an authentic village endowed with that unmistakable Medievo flavor that makes other cities such as Calatañazor, Frías or Covarrubias be honey for the bearish instincts of the curious and muse for the nostalgic who have engraved in the soul the slogan that any past time was better.
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Now, of what there is no doubt, is that the seeker of the unusual will find here - in this land of Bread and Wine, as my good friend Syr Malvís would say - enough elements, at least curious, to think that, For some hidden reason, there was a time when in these lands and under the guise of a pious popular innocence, a generous traditional soup was developed with multicultural ingredients, aged and macerated in centuries of coexistence and struggle, but with an unmistakable smell of heterodoxy that, after all, did not manage to eradicate those bloodhounds of God, who, incited by Domingo de Guzmán, served Christian kings very well, Orbe et Orbi, as well as Felipe II.
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Regarding the latter and his well-known love for relics, I am afraid to go to that other Viage for Spain that Ambrosio de Morales made in his name and compare his relationship with these other elements of Sacred Art that satisfy the silent spaces of the ship. this badly wounded Santiago church that, perhaps in a remote past, if we are to share the unprovable assertion of Madoz - at least, as far as documents are concerned - could have retained the enthusiastic echoes of the Non nobis Domine of the Knights Templar.
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What it does preserve, oblivious to that unalterable chronological order of the hands of the clock that mark the inexorable advance of time, is a small but admirable collection of objects, some of which, due to their characteristics, attract a lot of attention. Next to them, and consigned in a small plaque, some names suggest an artistic top ten marked in the shadow of the genius and the school of the Master; but in its great majority, it is the anonymity, blessed, genius, frivolous and guilty of the suspense, who in the background shines for its continuity and reminds us, once again, those insurmountable historical gaps in which we live.
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Sizes, paintings and triptychs that invite reflection and at the same time introduce us to that psychic world, increasingly disconcerting with the passing of generations -considered as a generational clash or colliding worlds, as Inmanuel Velikovsky would say-, but which during times the faith and practice of our elders, cultural waste that they also inherited from a previous era. Far left, in this current society sated with the Holy Grail of supermarkets and computers, those Sacks of Souls, who piously opened the cells of Purgatory, releasing souls on certain designated dates of the year.
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Or that child Angels we are, that the altar boys took out in procession for Easter, asking the aguinaldo to the neighbors. And it is curious, because although people continue devoutly going to the churches, because theoretically Spain continues to be a Catholic and practicing country, few are the faithful able to list, one by one, the seven mysteries of the Virgin, constituted, to the time, for the seven joys and the seven pains that, nevertheless, fill a good part of the artistic representations that throughout the ages and the styles, continue to bring us subliminal messages from the immeasurable altarpieces of our historical temples, reminding us, through visual magic, those chapters of life and death that unite the destinies of Jesus and Mary, and that constitute a whole world of added symbolism, managed with greater or lesser skill and intention by each artist in particular.
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Perhaps for that reason, it is still an interesting question to ask, seeing, for example, the Gothic representation of San Antón, attributed to the school of Alejo de Vahía, why, moving away from the norm, or at least as usual, the accompanying piglet carries another animal in its mouth, resembling the loaf of bread that usually always carries, also in its mouth, the dog - or trained wolf? - that accompanies that saintly wayfarer, present little less than in all the churches and hermitages of the country, which is San Roque; or San Roca; or even going further, curling the curl, that roque symbol or tower of chess -whose saint bearer, usually is Santa Barbara, to whom we implore when the storm arrives-, who adopted as sign certain mysterious fraternities of stonemasons and that we we find it in very specific places, which stand out not so much, perhaps, because of the mystery implicit in its origins, but because of its peculiarities in itself, being one such place, Santa María de Eunate.
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But if this raises hypothetical questions, what not to think, after seeing the Rhenish Christ crucified on a cross shaped like a goosefoot of the church of Santa Maria del Camino, the meaning underlying this other Holy Christ of the Vine and the Health that, out of the imagery of the workshop of Isidro de Villoldo, disciple nothing less than the brilliant Alonso Berruguete, shows Christ crucified in an authentic tree ?.
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Why in the altarpiece of the sixteenth century that is next, attributed to Fernando Infante and from the hermitage of San Juan de Cestillos -located two kilometers from Carrión, where another enigmatic carving of the fourteenth century, called San Juan, also comes Green, because it is painted with this color not only associated with the candles that were lit in honor of the Black Virgins, but also with the Serpent of Wisdom that usually comes out of the chalice or grail that this one usually carries in his hand-, it is evident also the presence of the tree, which serves as support for a Saint John the Baptist whose symbols, the lamb or Agnus Dei and the Holy Book, also rest on a branch ?. What can we say here of the presence of two little-known twin saints, such as Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian?
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In short, enough elements and details to think that, whatever the orientations of our thinking or our impressions, there is always certainty - and this assertion, possibly well known to the pilgrim - that in this section of the Camino , he knows that he enters a land of Bread and Wine, yes, but also in a land of mysteries; in a multipolivalent section of that magical Board of the Goose; of Templar guardians of Tradition and pilgrims; of gothic infinities; of antiquity -name that already takes one of its towns-, of History and mainly, of Art and Philosophy.
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Notes and Bibliography:

(1) Gustavo Doré / Barón Ch. Davillier: 'Journey through Spain', Ediciones Grech, S.A., 1988, Book II, chapter XXXIII, page 323.

NOTICE: originally posted on my blog MEMORIES OF A PILGRIM. Both the text and the photographs are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry, where you can check the authorship of juancar347, can be found at the following address: https://jc347.blogspot.com/2014/03/carrion-de-los-condes-el-museo-de-arte. html

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