Of Saints and Pilgrims and the V(ogel)-Effekt

I would like to share some pictures of a couple of projects I finished back before the holidays.  I like them both very well.  Both have been listed on The Celery Museum's Etsy page.

Project the First, Bertolt Budgie.

I have been needlefelting for a couple of years now.  I find I am best at, and enjoy most, making animals.  Tiny, tiny animals.  This time I tried my hand at an itty bitty bird, sitting atop a nest.

He also comes with a surprise inside...tiny clay eggs!

Despite the whole egg/nest/mother thing, I made my little felted friend a boy and named him Bertolt after the German writer, whom I greatly admire, Bertolt Brecht.  I don't think Herr Brecht would have minded.  Here's one more picture of Bertolt from a different angel.

Project the Second, St. James the Pilgrim.

I once took a Medieval Cities course in grad school.  My how I loved that class.  And my final project entailed creating a presentation about a specific city in the Middle Ages.  I and a fellow grad student gleefully chose Santiago de Compostela as our topic.  (I say "gleeful" because the two of us both studied medieval/early modern religion and spirituality - researching a pilgrimage site sounded like fun to us.)  My friend covered the city proper and I examined the pilgrimage route to the city.  I would just post a link about the place, but oh it's just too much fun to think about it, so here's my own little history lesson.

Santiago de Compostela lies in the northwestern corner of Spain in the region known as Galicia.  In the 9th century, some fortunate monks discovered what they believed were the remains of the apostle James.  The Pope (Leo III, as far as I can tell) and Charlemagne agreed, and a pilgrimage site was born.  Throughout the Middle Ages, Santiago de Compostela drew an enormous number of pilgrims to its shrine of St. James.  In fact, only Rome and Jerusalem eclipsed Santiago de Compostela as more popular pilgrimage sites.

A map showing the various smaller routes converging on the main northern camino to Santiago de Compostela:

As a lover of art, one of the things that really intrigued me as I delved further into study of the pilgrimage, is the dual aspect of St. James' iconography.  Saints typically appear in Catholic art bearing an item or items, which identify them.  If the saint was martyred, for example, they will be depicted holding the instrument of their martyrdom.  Iconography in general comprises its own fascinating topic - maybe I'll write about that at some point - but for now, I will stick with St. James.

St. James' iconography pertains not to his death, but to his (legendary) actions.  And not just one action at that, but two.  A few saints are groovy enough to possess two sets of iconography, two aspects, which pertain to two ways in which they are understood within the religion.  St. James is one of these guys.

His first, and to me disturbingly bellicose, aspect is as St. James Matamoros, the "Moor-Slayer".  In 854, so the story goes, the Iberian Muslim army and a small group of holdout Christians engaged in the battle of Clavijo.  St. James appeared and fought along with the outnumbered Christians.  Even though this battle may or may not have occurred, it makes sense the story would have proliferated to the point of creating an iconographic persona for St. James.  The Christian "Reconquista" of Spain from the Muslims lasted hundreds of years and cost innumerable lives.  It destroyed the most advanced society in Europe at the time and ended with such celebrated hate-filled zealotry as the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain.  It is a sad and depressing story, but for Christians of the period, I guess it was inspirational.  At any rate, they seemed to require an inordinate number of heroes and proofs that God was on their side.  So this St. James story fed right into their propaganda requirements.

Note the serene expression on James' face as he tramples a man beneath his horse's hooves.  Ugh.

The second aspect of St. James, and the one I appreciate most, is St. James as Pilgrim.  In a genius stroke of temporal manipulation and disregard for historic plausibility, germane to the Middle Ages, St. James is depicted as a medieval pilgrim to his own shrine.  He carries a walking stick with a gourd bottle, wears sturdy leather boots, a wide-brimmed hat, and also sports the scallop shell associated with the Santiago de Compostela shrine and, more generally, with Galicia.  (Competing stories exist as to why the scallop shell became associated with James.  You can read about them here.)  It must have seemed like an especially good idea during the Middle Ages to mark oneself as a pilgrim while on the road.  One would travel through numerous towns and be almost wholly reliant on locals for lodging and food.  I imagine townspeople, including monks, would be much likelier to open their doors to a pilgrim (and his money) than to any other sort of stranger.  At any rate, I quite like this image of St. James.

I swear I'm working up to the point at which I actually make something.

One evening, several years ago, I found myself at a sushi dinner where I was served scallops on a shell the size of my hand, fingers and all.  The shell was flat and smooth and particularly well suited, so thought I, to serving as a canvas.  I was still in the midst of my research on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route, so I pocketed the shell (after devouring the scallops on it, of course) with some vague idea of painting an image of St. James on it.  Well, I have carried this lovely shell around for over 5 years, and just before Christmas I finally, finally, finally fulfilled my vision!

To my surprise and delight, the shell took pencil very well, so I was able to do a pretty complete sketch before painting.  Such sketches both serve as my safety net while painting and are simply a fun part of the process for me.  Some painters do not enjoy drawing, but I sure do.

Under the circumstances of being limited to acrylic paint, I quite like how he turned out.

 

Wonderfully, the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela is still traveled today.  I hope to take it myself one day.  Not for religious reasons, but for the history of it.  The route, which winds across northern Spain, passes through numerous old medieval towns which have their own shrines and churches and such.  I would make sure to wear a scallop shell.