Cruces, Statues of saints, fresh with biblical scenes, representations of the Virgin Mary or the apostles, even devil figures twisting. Within a church one expects to find a wide range of Christian imagery, but when historians began to clean the oldest wall of the Church of Arbulo, in Álava, they found something very different. Under layers and layers of lime and paint began to appear something other: figures of the 12th century that show mysterious quadrupeds with claws, faced birds and wheels.
Now experts wonder what the hell they mean.
In a place in Álava … More specifically in Arbulo, in the municipality of Elburg, an old church stands in honor of San Martín de Tours. Most of the temple we see today rose between the end of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, but its builders started from the remains of a previous building, from the Romanesque era. Despite its historical value over time the Church ended in a dilapidated state. At the end of the XX its roof deteriorated and began to leak water through the vaults, which among other things ended up the furniture.
Rescue Restorers. The situation of the temple was so critical that it was closed between 1999 and 2008 and by 2004 a restoration was launched that included the disenchanted of the walls. The specialists had good reasons to do so. As the historian Gorka López de Munain, from the University of the Basque Country (UPV), recalls, the humidity forced to remove the altarpiece and disagree with the walls of the apse, which left in sight the layers of paint accumulated with the passage of the centuries, including what seemed “strange motifs of reddish tone.”
What kind of paintings? The experts appreciated several layers on the walls, but there was a specific one that caught so much the attention of López de Munain that he decided to dedicate a broad article in Of half avo. Which? The first, located in the Apsid wall and that in the absence of more detailed analysis the researcher date between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, so it is associated with the primitive Romanesque temple. Today we know that their author (or authors) traced them using ocher pigments mixed with binder and that they did not remain too exposed. Before the XV they were already covered with a new layer of lime.
And the big surprise arrived. The most curious thing is not, however, with what pigments were prepared, but what they were used for. In a Christian temple one would expect to meet symbols associated with that creed: crosses, representations of Christ and the Virgin, biblical scenes … not on the wall of the Church of Arbulo.
There, in the words of the UPV teacher, what appeared were representations of animals and geometric shapes “in a seemingly random disposition.” In a wide surface, of just over 24 square meters (m2), experts found remains that at origin had to decorate the head of the primitive church and have bullow the curiosity and imagination of historians.
“In this first layer, reasons for great variety and formal wealth were painted: swine -siled quadr Of half avowhich recognizes that the figures of the absidal wall of the Church of Arbulu “do not respond to the best known repertoires of their time.”
“Something unexpected”. López de Munain is not the only one to which the images of the temple have surprised. In 2018, in an interview with Eitb.eus, Isabel Mellén, of the ‘Medieval’ project, he acknowledged his enthusiasm. “What was painted, in our eyes, is something unexpected. What we hope to find in a church are religious paintings, with Christian scenes or symbology, but what is shown in Arbulo has nothing to do with all that,” collects the analysis of the Basque chain.
Instead of pantocradors or crosses, what the temple walls show with thick strokes and reddish tones are beasts: birds, animals with pigs or wild boars, discs with radios, asterisk -shaped stars Flowers of lis set with basic and coarse lines … a peculiar iconography that leaves a question as fascinating as it is difficult to answer: what exactly do you mean: what exactly do you mean?
Questioning the story. From the outset and after clarifying how difficult it is to interrogate the images in search of meanings with the eyes of the 21st century, the researcher slides an idea: at least part of the figures seem to reveal a funeral connotation. For example, among the images rescued in Arbulo there are real turkeys, a recurring theme throughout the Middle Ages, loaded with polysemy and has been used regularly in mortuary contexts.
“The faced birds painted in Arbulu inevitably evoke those that drink together of a crater or peck a cluster of grapes, common in the steles and romantic and very frequent tombst icons, like glasses, so “its nature is difficult to identify” and “elusive.”
Are there more meanings? Yes. In his analysis the researcher pays attention to other elements that have emerged on the Arbulu wall, such as eight radios albums. “Those wheels or radiated stars appear frequently in the discoid talls of both the Basque Country and nearby regions,”
Its meaning is also suggestive and invites you to look, rather than consecration crosses, to designs that can often be seen in medieval funeral steles. The tree figures have also led him to slide the hypothesis that they can be linked to the paintings of a historical character, Gastea de Arburu, of Gallic origin but buried in the region.
But … why? The big question. Why paint a Christian temple with birds, solar disks and quadrupeds with claws, some with the appearance of wild boars? In an interview with The country López de Munain slides some theories, such as their creators wanted to represent on the walls what they saw in their most immediate environment or that the promoters of the temple wish to replicate symbols with a certain burden of prestige, such as the elements associated with the Roman culture.
“They were private temples where the owners did a little what they wanted, regardless of the interference of the episcopados. The crosses are the only thing that indicates that we are in a church, from the rest or one of the images it refers us to it.”
Beyond Arbulo. Arbulo figures are fascinating for their “strangeness” and variety, but they are not the only examples of reddish paintings on white funds that decorate temples raised in Álava during the Middle Ages. “Despite the general ignorance that surrounds these sets, between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a good part of the churches in the region were decorated inside with red mural paint on a white lime background, with greater or lesser expertise and apart from the dynamics of the specialized workshops,” recalls the expert.
There are also examples in other parts of Europe, inside and out of temples. Neither the one nor the other have avoided that this legacy fell into oblivion and suffered the disinterest of historians, staying out of the canon. For López de Munain Arbulu, it is the proof that it touches its value.
“Arbulu’s images demonstrate the need to pay attention to the manifestations that have remained on the margins of the historical-artistic canon, since they have extraordinary epistemological potential that must be underlined and studied,” he reflects. “These unattended works can help open new possibilities of analysis of migrations in forms and their meanings, forcing us to contemplate a more vast and disgusting visual culture.”
Images | Gorka López de Munain (Of half avo)
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