Romanesque: the look of eternity

There was a prolific and indefatigable researcher of the Magic Spain, Juan García Atienza, who once stated, referring to the sculptures that an anonymous medieval artist, who is known by the name of the Master of Agüero, left sculpted in the cloister of that monastery that it was not only the place where the Holy Grail that is currently kept in the Cathedral of Valencia was traditionally deposited, but also, for centuries, the pantheon of the kings of the Crown of Aragon, San Juan de la Peña, which the glances of the characters seemed to be eternally perched in infinity.

Now, far from the empty sockets of the sculpture of this period, Romanesque painting, despite that unconsumable linearity referred to by the Art historian, Erwin Panofsky, and also, on many occasions, of its naivety, possesses a very special magnetism, which can hardly be overlooked.

For this reason, on this occasion, I would like to invite you to participate in a small artistic excursion to a place in the Villa and Land of Segovia, which would have gone completely unnoticed, like so many other towns, whose main attraction is that even today, at this point of the 21st century, they maintain a good essence of their medieval past, if in 1947, the 12th century paintings of one of its unique hermitages, that of the Vera Cruz, had not been carefully removed and transferred to nothing less than the Prado Museum from Madrid, where the millions of visitors who annually visit this immeasurable art gallery are still amazed, since the place was specially chosen for the creation of the Linares reservoir, and therefore, it ran the threat of being flooded by the waters of the Riaza River.

To give you a slight idea of ​​the situation, I will tell you that the Vera Cruz hermitage is located outside the town walls, that in it, the Knights of the Order of the Temple guarded one of the innumerable fragments of the Vera Cruz -from there his name - which allegedly belonged to the cops of the Holy Cross on which Jesus Christ was executed, an element of torture that tradition insists on making Elena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, the discoverer, during the vicissitudes of a trip to Jerusalem, full of supernatural details, where the divine manifestation became providence, to make countless fragments of this original distributed throughout the West, which were the origin for the creation of numerous hermitages dedicated to this Santo Madero, which we can find both in Spain and in many other countries in Europe.

It is true that today, it is not known what happened to the fragment that apparently the Knights Templar guarded here with such zeal, to the point that there are even many historians who, faced with this enigma, prefer to think that perhaps it never existed.

But leaving aside how hypothetical this detail may be, the truth is that this small hermitage of Vera Cruz, humble and unattractive in appearance, hid inside one of the greatest artistic treasures of medieval Spain: its magnificent Romanesque paintings.

Some paintings, in whose execution, historians see the same hand that created two other models, relatively close and worthy of admiration: the paintings of the small hermitage of San Miguel de Gormaz and those of San Baudelio de Berlanga, both located in the neighboring Soria province.

A few years ago and to take advantage of the possible tourist advantages, that both the town and this hermitage and other cultural elements could awaken in the general public, it was decided to take advantage of part of the ship, to make an exact replica of the paintings, which as He has said, they are located in the Prado Museum in Madrid, and thus ensure that visitors could admire them in their original environment.

Surprising by nature, these show different episodes of Genesis -such as the story of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from Earthly Paradise- as well as others, from the New Testament, relating to the life of Jesus Christ and the Apostles, passing through the enigmatic figure of the Virgin - and I say enigmatic, because, curiously, it differs from the rest, due to the black halo with which the artist represented it, although it coincides with the halo of Christ Pantocrator, whose figure completely dominates the upper plane of the chapel - prophetic figures , including that of the mysterious King of Salem, Melchizedek and angels, whose hands and feet show numerous eyes, a perspective with which the artist possibly wanted to convey his omnipresence, that divine gaze that sees everything, well not in vain, in addition to angels, they are also guardians.

And it is precisely in this detail, in which the eyes and by default, the looks, where an irrational chill may be felt through the body, because they radiate so much character, so much strength and so much mystery, that everyone, without exception, seems capable to cross the soul and the thoughts of the spectator, from that supernatural space that they occupy in the dimensional plane in which, in an obviously intentional way, they were represented by their anonymous author.

Think, that if you still have enough strength to hurt, under certain aspects, the sensitivity of the modern viewer, try to imagine, for a moment, what would not be its effect on believing and at the same time superstitious medieval mentalities.

Because, observing them carefully, it is not difficult to suggest that there are archetypes that survive space and time, with all the force of their original purity and the eye, of course, is one of them.

NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive intellectual property and therefore are subject to my Copyright.

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