The Master of Astorga and the demystification of the legend of Santiago

juancar347 (72)in #art • 6 years ago

Not much is known about him, except that he was particularly active in Astorga and León, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, so his anonymity, like that of many other unknown masters, is compensated by the ownership of the place where, apparently, He spent more years devoted to his artistic work. In such a way, that in the case that concerns us, he is recognized as Master of Astorga, based on a hypothetical presence in said city, for a proven period of at least ten years. Neither are too many works attributed to him-at least, of those that have evidence, without forgetting that Spain, believe it, is still an immense private museum to be known-although, judging from those that are preserved, located mainly in the Prado Museum and the Lázaro Galdiano Foundation, Madrid, the specialists have concluded that it was possibly a follower of the Flemish school -especially brilliant in Europe, during the XIV to XVI centuries- more concerned about the details related to the landscape, than for the main purpose of the work in question.

This recognition, far from being an inconvenience, opens the doors to a more objective and rational speculation, if we focus our interest on one of his most interesting works, such as the supposed disembarkation of the body of the Apostle Santiago in Galicia (1) we must forgive, however, the scabrous question of showing this whole, obviating the beheading ordered by Herod Agrippa and occurred in Jerusalem, in the year 44 d. de C.- demystifying, with an unprecedented objectivity, the florid popular legends that circulate along the coast, referring to the miraculous arrival in a stone boat guided by the angels.
Grateful, then, to the interest of the anonymous master in crumbling landscapes by stroke of palette and brush, the work shows us a beautiful bay -perhaps an inlet, which for that matter, would be the same- in which a ship draws attention anchored - model of the artist's time, although this is, after all, an irrelevant detail - that suggests a plausible possibility to the preliminaries of the Inventio, far from any unnecessary and supernatural adornment.
Now, to the right of the painting, the artist also provides us with an interesting vision of what could have been the burial of the holy body, centuries before the 'rediscovery' on the part of the Pelayo hermit - observe the similarity Pelayo, Pelagio, Pelasgo , Peoples of the Sea, Venetori Lapidi and Bishop Teodomiro, which was the prologue to a great adventure, not only spiritual, but also economic, political and social, reopening the old and forgotten paths and Roman roads: the Camino de Santiago . And this vision introduces us -even maintaining the same doubts as Unamuno, regarding the true identity of the remains that are kept and glorified in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela- in the type of funerary element that could have housed the body in a beginning. The shape of the stone on which it rests, does not seem to leave any doubt, being able to represent, perfectly, the upper part of a dolmen. Element that would give some basis, although it is true that popularly distorted, the golden legend of the stone boat, whenever in Galicia and Asturias, the dolmens were called with the name of 'ark'. From 'arca' to 'barca' -anyone would say, that we are following the patterns of the symbolic and associated game of the oca- there is hardly a step. Devocation, then, that objectively could have been produced, in the same way that the medieval copyists committed errata in the manuscripts that they transcribed, giving rise, in the future, to heated historical-linguistic debates.