Romanesque painting: precursor of the modern comic II

Possibly, we have in Romanesque painting, one of the oldest known precedents of that authentic social phenomenon, developed mainly in the twentieth century, known as comics or vignettes.

It is very possible, moreover, that especially the great Flemish painters of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, were allowed to be influenced by it, when trying to incorporate in their works, that imitation of 'movement', in which they developed, in the space-time figurative of the web, the different avatars of a story.

Generally, the tendencies of the time, as it could not be less, granted a special relevance to the life, passion and death of Jesus Christ.

In the same way, it was frequent that in the apses or headwaters of the Romanesque churches, the image of the Pantocrator, with the Christ in Maiestas in the central part and the symbols of the Four Evangelists, prevailed over the rest of the motives or themes. distributed in the four cardinal points.

But sometimes, artists derived the attention of the faithful, to other stories, sometimes fantastic because of their textuality, which contributed, however, to conveniently illustrate the faith of a people without access to Culture, knowing, through them , the miraculous stories of certain saints and saints venerated in the Christian saints.

It could be added, also, that from the thirteenth century, the artists' reference book, was none other than the famous Golden Legend, written by Santiago de la Vorágine: the encyclopedia of the time, from which the artists continued to drink until relatively recent times.

In Romanesque representations, the almost childlike way is striking, in which the artist, either by imagination or by ears, reproduced some of these passages, such as those shown in the present photographs, some of which correspond to the legend from San Nicolás and others to a saint of doubtful existence, Santa Marina - to which the church where these paintings are located - whose symbolism, however, would be to make a separate entrance.

NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive intellectual property.