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Chapter 11 Late-Gothic Mural Painting at the Beginning of the Renaissance in the Aran Valley: Unha and Arties
Albert Sierra
1 The Historical and Artistic Setting. The Late-Gothic to Renaissance Painting in the Aran Valley
No artistic production comes about in an abstract or isolated way, independ- ent of society. The political, social and economic setting always has a direct influence, and the Aran Valley between the second half of the 15th century had a singular casuistic, situated as it was between two states, Spain and France, politically linked to the Catalan-Aragonese crown on one side of the frontier, while its religious organisation looked to the French side, to Sant Bertrand de Comminges.1 With this double dependence the Valley used its position and desires for independence to play off both sides.2 The periods of economic boom of that time were a fertile ground for the growth of an extraordinary list of commissions of religious art in the central Pyrenean valleys (Aran, Boí, Louron, Aura, etc.) that transformed the interiors of churches with a basically Romanesque architecture with full of Gothic and Renaissance elements.3 In Aran we find mural paintings in Aubert, Bossost, Betlan, Vielha, Garós, Salardú, Unha among others.4 There are also many examples in Comminges:
1 Patrici Poujade, Le Val d’Aran entre deux monarchies: une vallée frontière dans le grand siècle (Aspet: PyréGraph, 1998). 2 Special mention for the treaties of lligues and patzeries like the one in 1513 at Pla de Arrem: Patrici Poujade, ‘Les relacions transpirinenques a la Catalunya Moderna: els tractats de “Ligues i Patzeries’, Pedralbes: Revista d’història moderna, 18 (1998), 189-200 (p. 190); Serge Brunet, Les prêtes des montagnes. La vie, la mort, la foi, dans les Pyrénées centrales sous l’Ancien Régime (Val d’Aran et diocèse de Comminges), (Aspet: PyréGraph, 2001), p. 90. 3 Brunet, Les prêtes des montagnes, pp.119-128; Pierre-Yves Corbel, Hautes Pyrénées. Vallée d’Aure I. Canton de Vielle Aure. Inventaire général des monuments et des richesses artistiques de la France (Toulouse: Indicateurs du Patrimoine. Accord édition, 1999); Pierre-Yves Corbel, Hautes Pyrénées. Vallée d’Aure II. Canton d’Arreau. Inventaire général des monuments et des richesses artistiques de la France (Toulouse: Indicateurs du Patrimoine. Accord édition, 2000). 4 Robert Mesuret, ‘Les peintures du Val d’Aran’, Revue de Comminges, LXXII (1959), pp. 72-82; Joan Yeguas, ‘Pintura e escultura aranesa des sègles XVI, XVII e XVIII’, in Miscellanèa en aume-
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Armenteule, Azet, Bourisp, Cazaux Frechet, Cazeaux de Larboust, Estarvielle, Guchen, Jezaux, Mont, Vielle Louron, etc.5 This article focuses on two churches, Unha and Arties, in the Aran Valley whose pictorial sets serve as examples of the transformation that this art underwent over no more than half a century and that takes us from still fully Dolorist medieval images, to one closer to renaissance humanism.
2 Santa Eulària in Unha
The church of Santa Eulària of Unha contains three sets of mural painting, a first that includes the Final Judgement and a cycle of the Passion of Christ, the second a cycle dedicated to the life of Saint Germanus of Auxerre and the third with paintings featuring Adam and Eve, Saint Sebastian and the virtues.
2.1 Paintings of the Final Judgement The paintings of the Final Judgement (fig. 11.1) on the north wall of the church were discovered in 19986, and have not survived complete. The Final Judgement is represented in different registers placed vertically. In the upper part there is Christ the Judge with the fleur-de-lis and sword and two angels announcing the Apocalypse, all on a background of stars. On Christ’s right (to our left) we see Saint Peter before the Celestial Jerusalem. Some small angels are receiving the souls that reach Heaven. Beside Christ we find the precursor and the inter- cessor, Saint John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary. Below Christ, the resuscitated
natge a Melquíades Calzado de Castro, coord. Pèir Còts (Arrós: Institut d’Estudis Aranesi, 2010) pp. 409-442. 5 Sylvie Décottignies, ‘Statistique de la peinture monumentale en Midi-Pyrénées’, In Situ, 6 September 2005 (