2023-11-13 23:51:19
Walking through room C of the Jerónimos building these days, Prado Museum Categorical conclusions cannot be drawn without fear of being wrong (and very wrong). The reality that our ancestors lived in Spain from the 13th to the 15th centuries was as complex then as it is difficult to understand it from the present without first stopping to reflect. “To think that there were no exchanges or transfers between Christians and Jews at that time because there were difficulties is a very strong simplification, a banality.” The words of Joan Molina, curator of the exhibition The lost mirror. Jews and converts in medieval Spain (which can be visited until next January 14) is a serious warning for any visitor predisposed to easy deductions. One example is enough: even when the end of the 15th century approached – with the imminent expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the birth of the idyllic Sepharad in exile – understanding between both cultures was maintained. Also then, in the worst moments.
The Visigoth sarcophagus used as a flower pot that no institution wanted to protect
But how can we understand that this growing, fatal, anti-Judaism flirted with understanding at the same time? “We have to understand it as it is: coexistence and violence are two sides of the same coin, of the same reality.” Molina, who has immersed himself in this difficult challenge for the last two years, refers to the fact that “the systemic violence exercised in the social sphere since the 13th century by Christian supremacism is not an obstacle to there also being relationships, coexistence, within a complex, very multifaceted reality, which cannot be assessed from a homogeneous perspective.” One more proof that on this journey nothing is what it seems. It is known that, at the time, monarchs were criticized for their protection and favor towards Jewish communities. However, the parchment pages of the celebrated Cantigas de Santa María—one of the great contributions of the Castilian king Alfonso The desecrated image of the Virgin. “At the same time, in those royal manuscripts a certain anti-Judaism was breathed through the images: one more example of the complexity of the relations between both communities,” argues the curator.
In medieval Spain, Christians worked for Jews and vice versa. This is how it is “reflected”—the exhibition plays with the recurring metaphor of the “mirror”—in a good part of the 69 works that give life to the exhibition. “The transfers between the two cultures are observed, for example, in the deep knowledge that Christians had of Hebrew rituals, of the interiors of the synagogues, of their clothing…”, Molina asserts, as is evident in the succession of tables and oil paintings from the artistic itinerary. To such an extent that some authors even incorporated rituals with deep Jewish roots into Christian scenes, as in the case of the table Circumcision, of the Master of the Sisla, who can see Jesus subjected to this ritual practice under a “Christianized” prism.
The lost mirror. Jews and converts in medieval Spain It’s a back and forth game. Because there are also works made by Hebrew artists who have respected the Christian footprint. This is the case of the three haggadahs – a book that contains the story of the Exodus, which must be read during the Jewish Passover meal – that have traveled from the University of Manchester and The British Library (London) to Madrid to occupy as many showcases. . Here, the imprint of those “porous borders” of which the exhibition speaks is evident both in the way of illuminating its pages, taken from Christian techniques, and in the illustrations of Hebrew rituals, which flirt with the visual culture of the neighboring culture.
Anti-Judaism and Christian reaffirmation
As the exhibition matured, the organizers watched as the project’s initial thesis was consolidated: anti-Judaic sentiment was a method of reaffirming the beliefs and dogmas of Christianity. “Anti-Judaism and Christian reaffirmation are also two sides of the same coin,” reveals curator Joan Molina, giving the visitor a new perspective with which to observe the exhibition. “Hence the title (The lost mirror) “refers to a metaphor: it is a reflection of oneself that at the same time is no longer oneself, because one is defining the other person,” he clarifies. That other person is the different one, the opposite, who helps, after all, to build one’s own identity. An idea sustained on the graphic testimonies of sequences that are repeated throughout the route, such as the Eucharistic profanations or the repeated “bleeding hosts” that reveal, point to, the Jews.
And in that difference, in that duality, a singular, purely Spanish character has slipped into the exhibition. “The convert is the most original aspect of the exhibition: it is a typically Hispanic case that only occurs in the Iberian Peninsula, in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, while anti-Judaism is something much more generalized,” says Joan Molina. Although, finally, one derives from the other: the convert and the doubts that are cast on his honesty are the result of the emerging anti-Judaism that originates in 13th century Spain and that has its boiling point in the decree of expulsion signed by the Kings Catholics in 1492. “He is the new Christian, descendant of Jews, about whom the suspicion of Judaizing by the old Christians still exists,” explains Molina. Thus begins a conflict, a persecution—that of the crypto-Jew, the hidden Jew—that will survive the aforementioned expulsion.
As the exhibition also explores the enormous power of the image—perhaps that value has not endured to this day—conversos also appear trying to shelter under its mantle. There is, in this sense, a key example in room C of the Jerónimos building in El Prado. This is the case of the Christian icon that Antoniazzo Romano commissioned from Canon Juan López; a kind of safe conduct, of identity certificate that Romano used to affirm his Christianity and clear up doubts about his supposed crypto-Judaism. But don’t trust it: every reality, every example, has its reverse. Here, as the commissioner indicates, it is found in a picture of the Pieta included in an inquisitorial process that “reflects how the images served to target the converts for desecrating the images, accusing them of clearly negative attitudes from the Christian perspective. ”quotes Joan Molina. The game, back and forth, in this case, of the power of images.
The commitment of Pedro Berruguete
Contrasts, folds, surprises. Even for the creators of the proposal themselves. Curator Joan Molina recognizes that the exhibition has changed his perspective of the Castilian painter Pedro Berruguete, who carried out the decoration of the church of Santo Tomás in the city of Ávila on behalf of the inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada, and from whose hand came several of the oil paintings that can now be seen in El Prado. “One might think that Berruguete was simply a painter commissioned for a mission, but the surprise comes when you discover that in his will he makes a donation in equal parts between his family (his son and his wife) and the convent of Santo Tomás itself,” which demonstrates, in Molina’s eyes, his close connection to the Inquisition itself.
The other surprise—especially for the visitor—has to do with one of the strangest works in the exhibition, whose striking history has allowed it to sneak between beautiful Gothic altarpieces and beautifully illuminated books. This is the case of Cristo de la Cepa, “an unsightly, bizarre piece,” in the words of Joan Molina, who highlights from this testimony the “surprising cult” received in Valladolid thanks to its role in the personal story of the conversion of a Jew to Christianity. Vestiges of a past that have arrived in Madrid from the Prado itself and the MNAC in Barcelona, as well as temples and private collections throughout the national geography, especially from the ancient territories of Castile and Aragon. Images that define the Christian as opposed to the Jew before very diverse audiences: from the faithful of a parish to the Cistercian nuns of a convent especially consecrated to the cult of the Eucharist.
“The exhibition is being a success, the public is surprised.” This is the reaction of the thousands of visitors who have visited the El Prado proposal according to those responsible, despite the twists and turns of the story it tells. “Difficult things are an intellectual and professional challenge: we have tried to make a speech that combines the rigorous and the informative,” explains Joan Molina. “The viewer has the feeling that he is moving forward with a project that nourishes him, stimulating him visually and intellectually,” he adds. After being impressed by the images and reading the information provided by posters and information panels, the viewer—effectively—builds another reflection in the multifaceted mirror of this proposal: the 21st century visitor observes the image of a citizen oblivious to political complexity. , cultural, social and religious of a world – the Spain of the Middle Ages – already distant, while, not without effort, trying to identify and understand the multiple aspects of another no less complicated: the current one.
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