Bear from San Baudelio de Berlanga, Spain

Bear

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Bear.
Hermitage of San Baudelio (Casillas de Berlanga, Soria, Spain).
ca. 1125.
Wall painting (fresco).
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid, Spain).

Detail of Bear in the Hermitage of San Baudelio de Berlanga (Spain), ca. 1125.

Description

The animal is placed in a rectangular panel that modifies its bottom to adapt to an arch. Represented in an unnatural way, paying no attention neither to anatomy nor to particular details such as eyes, ears, nose or hair, it appears as a red stain on a whitish background. This fact is not casual (at the time at which it was painted, not too far from the chapel bears existed that could have served as a model for the painter), but intentional. Through formal outlining the artist wanted to transmit a message whose audience were the monks who lived in the hermitage: the need to flee from temptation and sin and, according to some medieval ecclesiastical writers' identifications, the bear represented the devil itself ("ursus diabolus est" according to Melito of Sardis). As with a great part of Romanesque mural paintings, we are facing a great example of mental picture where what matters is the concept and symbolism, beyond the beauty or correctness of forms.

Bibliography

• W. W. S. Cook, “Romanesque Spanish Mural Painting (II). San Baudelio de Berlanga”, The Art Bulletin, XII/1, 1930, pp. 21-42.
• J. Camón Aznar, “Pinturas mozárabes de San Baudelio de Berlanga”, Goya, 26, 1958, pp. 76-80.
• F. J. Sánchez Cantón, “Seis fragmentos de la decoración mural de San Baudelio de Berlanga en el Museo del Prado”, Celtiberia, 18, 1959, pp. 163-170.
• M. S. Frinta, “The Frescoes From San Baudelio De Berlanga”, Gesta, 1-2, 1964, pp. 9-13.
• M. Guardia Pons, Las pinturas bajas de la ermita de San Baudelio de Berlanga (Soria), Soria, 1982.
• J. D. Dodds, “Wall paintings. Hermitage of San Baudelio de Berlanga (Soria)”, en The Art of Medieval Spain, a.D. 500-1200, Nueva York, 1993, pp. 223-228.
• J. J. Dodds, “Hunting for Identity”, en Imágenes y promotores en el arte medieval. Miscelánea en homenaje a Joaquín Yarza Luaces, Bellaterra, 2001, pp. 153-165.
• M. Guardia, “Relire les espaces liturgiques à travers de la peinture murale: le programme iconographique de San Baudelio de Berlanga (Sòria)”, Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, XXXIV, 2003, pp. 79-97.
• A. de Ávila Juárez, “San Baudelio de Berlanga: fuente sellada del Paraíso en el desierto del Duero”, Cuadernos de Arte e Iconografía, XII, 26, 2004, pp. 333-395.
• M. Poza Yagüe, “San Baudelio de Berlanga, cien años después. Balance historiográfico y nuevas interpretaciones”, Goya, nº 322 (2008), pp. 3-22.

Author

Marta Poza Yagüe