{"id":10554,"date":"2017-07-20T11:48:20","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T09:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/?p=10554"},"modified":"2020-08-25T08:16:39","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T08:16:39","slug":"the-baroque-in-the-solsones-get-to-know-it-in-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/the-baroque-in-the-solsones-get-to-know-it-in-person\/","title":{"rendered":"The Baroque in the Solson\u00e8s: get to know it in person"},"content":{"rendered":"
Cristina Sanjust<\/h6>\n

Every quarter, the Amics del Museu Nacional take a trip to know better the Catalan heritage: \u201cThe museum\u2019s walks\u201d. The last one took them to discover the Solson\u00e8s baroque legacy. Cristina Sanjust was their guide and now she explains to us her experience of this visit from the inside.<\/em><\/p>\n

As a tourist guide I have the privilege of witnessing the personal experiences of those who discover a space or a work of art for the first time.\u00a0 Very often when you enter you become transfixed by the images that are represented in an apse<\/a> or even in an altarpiece<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 It could be that some people even find that the figures make them reflect on life or about themselves.\u00a0 But very few can say that they see themselves literally reflected. And that\u2019s just what happened to a friend of the Museu Nacional d\u2019Art de Catalunya<\/a>, the other day during the visit to the Cathedral of Solsona<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Mural decoration of the central apse, the Church of\u00a0Sant Quirze de Pedret,\u00a0Cercs (el Bergued\u00e0)<\/a><\/h6>\n

The tour had begun with the discovery of the treasures conserved in the Museu Dioces\u00e0 i Comarcal de Solsona<\/strong><\/a>. The collections of the diocese are located in various spaces of the building complex adjoining the cathedral.\u00a0 While we look at prehistoric and Romanesque pieces \u2013 among which it is worth highlighting the mural paintings of the church of Sant Quirze de Pedret<\/a>– and of others from later periods, we could enjoy the cloister belonging to the monastery of Santa Maria.<\/p>\n

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Moment of the visit in the Museu Dioces\u00e0 i Comarcal de Solsona. Photo: the author<\/p><\/div>\n

The visit continued in the company of a local guide. Her explanations allowed the group to appreciate the different enlargements of the church from the first monastery and the visciccitudes that affected the building throughout the years. The aim was to discover the art of the Baroque period of the lands around Solsona<\/strong>. She first highlighted the altarpiece of la Merc\u00e8 and afterwards, on the other side of the transept, over the chapel of the Mare de D\u00e9u del Claustre, patron saint of the city.\u00a0 The Mother of God (mareded\u00e9u), from the 12th century, must have presided the altar of the first monastery, dedicated to Saint Mary. Made of stone, blackened over time, it was the work of the sculptor from Toulouse Gilabert.<\/p>\n

History and legend of the Mare de D\u00e9u del Claustre<\/h3>\n

It’s name is explained because in the 13th century, with the arrival of the Albigensians<\/a>, fearing for the integrity of the painting, the monks hid it in a well of the cloister that they were finishing constructing. According to legend, a child fell down the well but was saved thanks to the image he saw. Since then, it has always enjoyed a major local devotion. That’s why, in a period of economic boom, in 1726, the altarpiece was constructed in carved and golden wood which included the Romanesque figure, <\/strong>made by Josep Morat\u00f3 i Pujol, member of one of the main altarpiece makers of the period. This Baroque chapel was totally destoyed on 19th October 1810<\/strong>, during the French War, with the exception of the marededeu<\/em><\/strong>, which was saved from the flames because it is a pale image. In 1900 the patronage of the Mare de D\u00e9u del Claustre was ratified, which led to the reconstruction of the chamber, which was commissioned to the architect August Font.<\/p>\n

In 1914 Bernard\u00ed Puig i Martorell, disciple of Gaud\u00ed, designed the benches and the lighting, and subsequently, in 1926, Puig i Cadafalch<\/a> sculpted a new site for the marededeu<\/em>. During the Civil War of 1936, the religious images would once again find themselves in danger, and on this occasion the Romanesque sculpture was hidden in the stairwell of the bell tower by the bell ringers Porredon and Auge\u0301, and at a later stage they wanted to evacuate it to France, but it would remain hidden in the Bishop\u2019s palace of Vic.\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t be until the nineteen fourties that the architect Puig Boada and the mosaicist\u00a0 Josep Obiols i Palau would start a new altar project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Moment of the visit to the Cathedral of Solsona. Photo: the author<\/p><\/div><\/td>\n

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Mare\u00a0de D\u00e9u del Claustre, Solsona. Source:\u00a0Wikipedia<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This child is me!<\/h3>\n

While the guide explained this last intervention, a friend of the Museum, surprised, said: \u201cthis child is me!\u201d. Effectively, on one of the tympana (the area between the lintel over a doorway and the arch above) of the side walls, there was a painting of a young girl dressed in blue, the work of<\/strong> Miquel Farr\u00e9 i Albag\u00e9s<\/strong>. This painter used the daughters of friends\u2019 families as models for his works.<\/p>\n

Two discoveries from the 18th<\/sup> century: the Santuari del miracle<\/em> and Sant Pere de Matamarg\u00f3<\/em><\/h3>\n

The discovery of the Solson\u00e8s Baroque continued with the visit to the Santuari del Miracle<\/strong><\/a> and the small chapel of <\/strong>Sant Pere de Matamarg\u00f3<\/strong><\/a>, two jewells from the 18th<\/sup> century<\/strong> unknown to most of us.\u00a0 This could be seen reflected in the expressions of surprise and admiration on their faces. Most people, just after entering the sanctuary exclaim with an \u201cwow!\u201d that leaves them with their mouths open for quite a while. The grandeur of the sculptures of this machine of an altar of golden wood which is spread around the walls and ceilings of the building, leaves everyone thoroughly impressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The small chapel of Matamarg\u00f3, very reduced in dimensions but not in the quantity of sculpted altarpieces surprised the group because it seemed that nobody had touched anything since the eighteenth century period. The two groups of buildings highlight the agricultural economic wealth of this area of Catalonia in a period in which a crisis had been qualified in the rest of the territory<\/strong>.\u00a0 Furthermore, it can be seen that the characteristics themselves of the art developed from 1600 onwards in the major European artistic ceentres, Rome or Versailles (Magnitude, immediacy, fleetingness, or theatricality), extend chronologically and geographically to places such as the Solson\u00e8s and as late as the end of the 18th century.<\/p>\n

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Sant Pere de Matamarg\u00f3. Photo: the author<\/p><\/div>\n

A visit full of surprising discoveries for most of us and filled with personal anecdotes. I\u2019m sure we all took away with us good personal memories.<\/p>\n

Cristina Sanjust
\nArt Historian, Friends of Museu Nacional<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cristina Sanjust Every quarter, the Amics del Museu Nacional take a trip to know better the Catalan heritage: \u201cThe museum\u2019s walks\u201d. The last one took them to discover the Solson\u00e8s baroque legacy. Cristina Sanjust was their guide and now she explains to us her experience of this visit from the inside. As a tourist guide…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":10565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,1,2],"tags":[855,886,1142,142,1143,1138],"class_list":["post-10554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-general","category-general-en","tag-baroque","tag-friends-of-museu-nacional","tag-guided-tour","tag-heritage","tag-solsona","tag-solsona-en","author-guest"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/Cap\u00e7alera-11.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4tWCI-2Ke","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10554"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22073,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10554\/revisions\/22073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}